Sara Ahmed
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Sara Ahmed (born 30 August 1969) is a British-Australian writer and scholar whose area of study includes the intersection of
feminist theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or Philosophy, philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's Gender role, social roles, experiences, intere ...
,
queer theory Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (formerly often known as gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term "queer theory" is broadly associated with the study a ...
,
affect theory Affect theory is a theory that seeks to organize affects, sometimes used interchangeably with emotions or subjectively experienced feelings, into discrete categories and to typify their physiological, social, interpersonal, and internalized manife ...
,
critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic field focused on the relationships between Social constructionism, social conceptions of Race and ethnicity in the United States census, race and ethnicity, Law in the United States, social and political ...
and
postcolonialism Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...
. Her foundational work, '' The Cultural Politics of Emotion'', in which she explores the social dimension and circulation of emotions, is recognized as a foundational text in the nascent field of affect theory.


Life

Ahmed was born in
Salford Salford ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Greater Manchester, England, on the western bank of the River Irwell which forms its boundary with Manchester city centre. Landmarks include the former Salford Town Hall, town hall, ...
, England on 30 August 1969. She is the daughter of a
Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
i father and an English mother, and she emigrated from England to
Adelaide, Australia Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
with her family in the early 1970s. Key themes in her work, such as migration, orientation, difference, strangerness, and mixed identities, relate directly to some of these early experiences. She completed her first degree at the
University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...
and doctoral research at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory,
Cardiff University Cardiff University () is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893. It was renamed Unive ...
. She now lives on the outskirts of Cambridge with her partner, Sarah Franklin, who is an academic at the University of Cambridge.


Career

Ahmed was based at the Institute for
Women's Studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on Feminism, feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining Social constructionism, social and cultural constructs of gender; ...
at
Lancaster University Lancaster University (officially The University of Lancaster) is a collegiate public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several new univer ...
from 1994 to 2004, and is one of its former directors. She was appointed to the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2004, and was the inaugural director of its Centre for Feminist Research, which was set up 'to consolidate Goldsmiths' feminist histories and to help shape feminist futures at Goldsmiths.' In spring 2009 Ahmed was the Laurie New Jersey Chair in Women's Studies at
Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...
and in Lent 2013 she was the Diane Middlebrook and Carl Djerassi Professor in Gender Studies at Cambridge University, where she conducted research on "Willful Women: Feminism and a History of Will". In 2015 she was the keynote speaker at the National Women's Studies Association annual conference. In 2016 Ahmed resigned from her post at Goldsmiths in protest over the alleged sexual harassment of students by staff there. She has indicated that she will continue her work as an independent scholar. She blogs at feministkilljoys, a project she continues to update. The blog is a companion to her book ''Living a Feminist Life'' (2017) that enables her to reach people; posts become chapters and the book becomes blogging material. The term "feminist killjoy" "became a communication device, a way of reaching people who recognized in her something of their own experience."


Theories


Intersectionality

Intersectionality Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factor ...
is essential to Ahmed's feminism. She states that "intersectionality is a starting point, the point from which we must proceed if we are to offer an account of how power works." She agrees with
bell hooks Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952 – December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks (stylized in lowercase), was an American author, theorist, educator, and social critic who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Be ...
, stating that if we aim to end sexism etc., we must also look at the other things attached, like racism and colonial power which molded our current society. To Ahmed, intersectionality is how we "make a point of how we come into existence." "How we can experience intersections," though, can be "frustrating, exhausting, painful." Intersectionality is important to Ahmed, as it defines her own feminism and sense of self: “I am not a lesbian one moment and a person of color the next and a feminist at another. I am all of these at every moment. And lesbian feminism of color brings this all into existence, with insistence, with persistence.”


Diversity work

Diversity work is one of Ahmed's common topics. Included in many of her works, including ''Living a Feminist Life'' and ''On Being Included'', it is a concept that makes tangible what it means to live a feminist life day to day in institutions. To Ahmed, diversity work is " earningabout the techniques of power in the effort to transform institutional norms or in an effort to be in a world that does not accommodate our being." Diversity work is not any one thing. It is the act of trying to change an institution, and also simply the act of existing in one when it was not meant for you. She draws upon her experiences as a woman of color in academia and the works of others, including Chandra Talpade Mohanty, M. Jacqui Alexander, and Heidi Mirza.


Lesbian feminism of color

To Ahmed, lesbian feminism of color is "the struggle to put ourselves back together because within lesbian shelters too our being was not always accommodated." She draws upon the work of other lesbian feminists of color, like Cherie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, and
Audre Lorde Audre Lorde ( ; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, professor, philosopher, Intersectional feminism, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Bl ...
. These women have taken part in the effort to write " hemselvesinto existence." Ahmed sees the texts of these women and many others like them to be a "lifeline".


Killjoy feminism

To Ahmed, practicing feminism is integral to the embodiment of living a feminist life. Ahmed's ''Killjoy Manifesto'' feministkilljoy blog elucidate the tenets of living and practicing life through a feminist philosophy, while also creating space for sharing how these embodiments create tension in life experiences under systems of patriarchy and oppression. She also addresses such tensions, and how institutions treat those who raise problems (e.g. about sexual harassment) as themselves the problem, in her 2021 book ''Complaint!''


Affect and phenomenology

Ahmed's work is deeply interested in both lived experience analysis and the analysis of affect or emotion. She often analyzes structures of emotion as social phenomena that dictate the way we lead our lives. For example, in "The Promise of Happiness," she explores the way that happiness acts as "social pressure" to push individuals towards or away from certain experiences, objects, and behaviours. This intersects with her study of queerness in "Happy Objects", where she describes the experience of being a young queer person at a family dinner table being overlooked by ancestral photos of heterosexual nuclear families.


Awards

2017, Ahmed received the Kessler Award for contributions to the field of LGBTQ studies from CLAGS, CUNY. Ahmed gave a talk, "Queer Use," when accepting this award. 2019, Ahmed was awarded an honorary doctorate from
Malmö University Malmö University () is a public university located in Malmö, Sweden. With more than 24,000 students and about 1,600 employees (academic and administrative), Malmö University is the ninth largest institute of learning in Sweden. It has exchan ...
, Sweden. She gave a lecture, "Feminists at Work: Diversity, Complaint, Institutions" as honorary doctor.


Works

Ahmed has been described as a prolific writer: reviewing Ahmed's work, gender studies scholar Margrit Shildrick commented, "Few academic writers working in the UK context today can match Sara Ahmed in her prolific output, and fewer still can maintain the consistently high level of her theoretical explorations." Ahmed has written ten single-authored books.


Books


''Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism''

Published in 1998 by
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
. Ahmed's main focus in this book revolves around the question "is or should feminism be modern or postmodern?" She reflects on what she feels postmodernism is doing to the world in different contexts.


''Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality''

Published in 2000 by
Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
.


'' The Cultural Politics of Emotion''

Published in 2004 (with a second edition in 2014) by
Edinburgh University Press Edinburgh University Press is a scholarly publisher of academic books and journals, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. History Edinburgh University Press was founded in the 1940s and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh ...
. Ahmed discusses a contact zone, where objects and bodies that could create different affects are joined. Ahmed further argues that our emotions are formed through our contact with images and objects. .


''Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others''

Published in 2006 by
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
. Ahmed often focuses on the subject of orientation and being orientated in space, especially in relationship to sexual orientation. In her book ''Queer Phenomenology: Orientation, Objects, Others'', Ahmed states that orientation refers to the objects and others that we turn to face as well as the space that we inhabit, and how it is that we inhabit that space. Ahmed brings together queer phenomenology as a way of conveying that orientation is situated in the lived experience.


''The Promise of Happiness''

Published in 2010 by
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
. This work was awarded the FWSA book prize in 2011 for "ingenuity and scholarship in the fields of feminism, gender or women’s studies". In this book, Ahmed focuses on what it means to be worthy of happiness and how specific acts of deviation work with particular identities to cause unhappiness. She also focuses on how happiness is narrated and the idea of
utilitarianism In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the ...
.


''On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life''

Published in 2012 by
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
. In ''On Being Included'', Ahmed "offers an account of the diversity world". She explores institutional racism and whiteness, and the difficulties diversity workers face in trying to overcome them in their institutions.


''Willful Subjects''

Published by
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
in 2014. Ahmed focuses on the idea of willfulness as resistance. She adds that willfulness involves persistence in having been brought down. Ahmed's goal throughout this book was to "spill the container" as willfulness provides a container for perversion.


''Living a Feminist Life''

Published in 2017 by
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
. Ahmed's blog, "feministkilljoys", was written at the same time as "Living a Feminist Life" (2017). As the title suggests, Ahmed explores feminist theory, and what it means on our everyday lives. One way this manifests is in diversity work, something to which she dedicated a third of the book. She also spends much of the book exploring the feminist killjoy, the feminist in action who takes up the call in their everyday life. In 2020, Duke University Press confirmed that ''Living a Feminist Life'' was their best-selling book of the previous decade.


''What's the Use? On the Uses of Use''

Published in 2019 by
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
. Ahmed gives the historical idea on the association of use with life and strength in the 19th century and how utilitarianism helped shape individuals through useful ends. She also explores how use comes with restricted spaces. Ahmed then explores the ideas for queer use.


''Complaint!''

Published in 2021 by
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
. According to the publisher: "examines what we can learn about power from those who complain about abuses of power. Drawing on oral and written testimonies from academics and students who have made complaints about harassment, bullying, and unequal working conditions at universities, Ahmed explores the gap between what is supposed to happen when complaints are made and what actually happens."


''The Feminist Killjoy Handbook''

Published in 2023 by
Seal Press Basic Books is a book publisher founded in 1950 and located in New York City, now an imprint of Hachette Book Group. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and his ...
. Building on the figure of the feminist killjoy, Sara Ahmed presents an analysis of literature, film, and distinguished feminist works while weaving alongside it her lived experience as a queer feminist scholar-activist of colour. She highlights how killing joy is a world-making project, chronicling moves from asking questions to the power of the eye roll. Feminist scholar
Judith Butler Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In ...
has reviewed Ahmed’s book in their article titled The Snap for the monthly magazine
The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
in 2024.


Co-edited books

*''Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration'', Published by in 2013 by Oxford *''Thinking Through the Skin'', Published in 2001 by Routledge *''Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism'', Published in 2000 by Routledge


Edited and co-edited journals

*''Sexism'', Published in 2015 by New Formations *''Happiness'', Published in 2008 by New Formations


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahmed, Sara 1969 births British feminist writers Australian feminists Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London Academics of Lancaster University Australian scholars British emigrants to Australia English people of Pakistani descent Feminist studies scholars British gender studies academics Living people Lesbian feminists Queer theorists University of Adelaide alumni Australian feminist writers Feminist theorists British academics of Pakistani descent Australian academics of Pakistani descent Australian people of English descent British LGBTQ academics Writers from Salford LGBTQ educators Australian expatriates in England