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Abstract
The animating phrase that breathes life into this project is “we do this ‘til we free us”, which is a phrase commonly heard in spaces of social movement activity. This dissertation is taken up with the task of understanding the “this” in we do this ‘til we free us. When these organizers, political navigators, and imagineers make that statement, what are they referring to? In probing this inquisition, I ask: how do young Black women and gender expansive activists think about achieving political equity, freedom, and liberation? How do they decide to engage in, navigate, and traverse the political realm in pursuit of better futures? In other words, I aim to understand how they seek to bring about better conditions through political action.
In exploring this question, I offer what I have called “liberation prescience”, which I posit is an ontological and epistemological praxis of freedom that can be described as the practice of acting in the present based upon the (better) future that you yearn for. In other words, I seek to understand the process of taking advantage of a political past and present in order to leverage a future in which one can experience true freedom.
I conduct 25 interviews and 2 focus groups (of 10 participants each). I chose these methods as I believe that both individual and collective insights are quintessential for understanding projects of liberation. I find that amongst this group, liberation prescience manifests in three main elements, embodiment and practice, community and collectivity, and self-actualization.