AY 2015 - 2016 Research Working Groups

AY 2015 - 2016 CRG Research Working Groups

Borderland Practice: Citizenship, Race, Gender & Critical Praxis

Borderland Practice, a CRG graduate working group that aims to create an interdisciplinary space to examine the intersections of race, class, gender, and citizenship within health, social service, and practice settings; and foster meaningful collaborations with community-based organizations that support immigrant and migrant communities.

We draw inspiration from Gloria Anzaldúa’s writings, in particular Borderland/La Frontera:

“Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow...

Decolonizing the Spatial Turn: Feminist of Color Geographies

Decolonizing the Spatial Turn: Feminist of Color Geographies working group will explore: How do women and queer of color scholar-activists conceive of key spatial concepts such as land, territory, the state, the urban, the body, and the intimate? How do they make sense of the spatialities of white supremacy, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and heteropatriarchy? In what way do their geographical imaginations open up new political orders and world-views? We will engage Black, Indigenous, and transnational feminist scholars as well as activist groups such as the Audre Lorde Project...

Race & Yoga

The Race and Yoga Research Working Group examines the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, able-bodiedness, and age in yoga. In addition to viewing yoga through the lens of intersectionality and Women of Color / Third World Feminisms, this group focuses on somatic theories to explore the praxis of yoga programs. Race and Yoga explores programs offered in yoga studios and other non-traditional settings, such as prisons. Although statics on annual income, educational level, and the ratio of female to male yoga practitioners in the United States are readily available, there is a...

Moving Beyond the Margins (formerly Soul Colectiva)

The purpose of this working group is to move beyond the obvious legibility of women of color and look between the margins in an attempt to acknowledge and remember the women who are often forgotten in theoretical discourse: everyday women whose own lives are quiet soliloquies of resilience. We are seeking to ground womanisms and feminisms as an everyday praxis.

Women of color have long withstood the pangs of colonial conquest, multiple oppressions and marginalization therefore this working group is an attempt to honor the modes of survival which have been employed by women of color...

Migration at the Intersections: Race, Gender, Sexuality, & Status

The Migration at the Intersections working group will be an inclusive interdisciplinary space for graduate students and faculty from Berkeley and other academic institutions whose research addresses the intersection of at least two of the following axes of identity: race, gender, sexuality, and immigration status. The group is meant to complement the Borderland Practice working group, which brings together practitioners.


Living Archives

The 1960s -1980s witnessed an explosion of transnational exchanges between women and queers from the global north and global south, conjuring up new and powerful imaginaries of social justice and forever altering the landscape of movements for sexual and gender justice. Radical and critical autonomous Indigenous feminist and queer of color, and of all colors, subjects and movements left various traces of their theories and practices in alternative journals, leaflets, posters, pictures, poetry, artwork, music, personal writings, and the like. Yet, many of these histories have been erased,...

Islamophobia, Gender, & Sexuality

Islamophobia, Gender, & Sexuality working group’s primary goal is to develop analyses of the place of gender, sexuality and race in Islamophobia and the effects of Islamophobia on gendered, sexualized and racialized subjects.


Reproductive Justice

The Reproductive Justice Working Group's primary goal is to co-create an environment in which participants can deepen their understanding of reproductive justice and develop practical ideas for integrating reproductive justice into their research and practice.


Intersectional Working Group

Using intersectionality as a primary analytic frame, this group will explore the implications of race, class, and gender across research areas including: how weight bias, race, and gender stereotypes affect Black women in health care settings; how long‐term incarceration affects Black men and their relationships to their families and community; how sociological factors, explain the absence, presence, and severity of implicit racial bias; how the national context of France shapes the anti‐racist efforts of nonprofit organizations; and finally, how racial struggles and the suppression...

Asian American & Asian Diaspora Studies

The Asian American and Asian Diaspora (AAADS) Working Group is an interdisciplinary group of graduate students working across diverse methods, theories, and populations. As opposed to taking the category of “Asian American” for granted, we seek to explore the complex matrices of identity, history, and community that produce racialized and gendered communities. We also seek to form a supportive community in which graduate students may collaborate, assist and participate in the growth of each other’s work.