Endarkened Africana Womanist Epistemology: Reclaiming Knowing as Sacred, Embodied, and Ancestral

This piece is both research and revelation. It explores how we, as Black women and seekers, can reclaim our ways of knowing from colonial frameworks and return to the sacred wisdom of the body, spirit, and community.

It’s a call to remember that decolonization begins within—through alignment, truth-telling, and healing., and healing.

Zariah N. Perkins

Abstract

This article introduces an emerging epistemological framework—Endarkened Africana Womanist Epistemology—that dismantles Eurocentric modes of knowing and re-centers African ancestral wisdom, spirituality, and embodied truth. Drawing on the works of Cynthia Dillard, Clenora Hudson-Weems, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, and Molefi Kete Asante, the framework challenges Western rationalism and asserts that knowledge is not merely cognitive but lived, felt, and spiritually transmitted. It also offers a narrative reflection on decolonization and alignment, inviting readers to decolonize their own ways of seeing, speaking, and leading.

Introduction — Beyond the Eurocentric Mind

For centuries, Eurocentric frameworks have dictated what counts as “knowledge.” Within that worldview, objectivity is privileged over intuition, reason over emotion, and whiteness over all other epistemic possibilities. As an Africana woman, I have often felt this imbalance—the negotiation between credibility and authenticity, between being understood and being whole. When I wear my hair in its natural state, when I speak from intuition or cite ancestral memory, my body becomes both a text and a target—scrutinized, fetishized, and misunderstood. These moments remind me that to decolonize my mind is to reclaim my right to know differently—to see, feel, and remember from within my Blackness, not despite it.

Paradigms of Liberation and Knowing

Building upon Cynthia Dillard’s Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (2000)—re-envisioned here as Endarkened Womanist Epistemology—this framework asserts that Black women’s ways of knowing are spiritual, communal, and born from ancestral memory. Clenora Hudson-Weems’ Africana Womanism (1993) grounds it in the cultural specificity of African identity, rejecting the universalism of white feminism. In this view, womanhood cannot be divorced from Blackness; they coexist as a dual consciousness that resists fragmentation. Afrocentricity (Asante, 1980) provides methodological grounding by positioning African-ascended people as subjects of knowledge rather than objects of study.

Together these paradigms form a cosmology of knowing that is cyclical, holistic, and intergenerational. As Dillard (2006) writes, “Endarkened knowing is a return to the spiritual consciousness from which we were severed.” It is not only a critique of whiteness but a reclamation of divine knowledge, creativity, and community through the Black female body and spirit.

From Enlightenment to Endarkenment

Where Enlightenment philosophy centers the mind as the site of knowing, Endarkenment locates truth in the body, the spirit, and the collective. Intuition becomes data; emotion, evidence; art, theory. Endarkenment does not reject intellect—it expands it. To endarken is to ascend into lived experience and to remember what colonization taught us to forget: that knowing can be sensual, ancestral, and transcendent.

Interlude — Decolonization, Leadership, and Alignment

Developing this epistemology has revealed that decolonization begins not in abstraction but in embodied recognition of alignment. It is both spiritual and intellectual work—a remembrance of what has always been known but not always named.

Lately, I’ve been thinking deeply about the decolonization of the mind and the paradigm that will ground my research. Whether I lean toward epistemology, linguistic, or sociopolitical frameworks, I sense those are closest to what I’m trying to articulate. Afrocentricity speaks to me, but at this stage, I don’t feel it is the exact paradigm I’m called to anchor in.I’m reimagining leadership—not as one individual guiding us forward, but as a community-centered practice rooted in collective healing and liberation. Leadership is plural, shared, and relational. Just by being myself, I know I can make change. Once I find the language to fully express what I already feel, know, and think, I will truly be unstoppable.This program is already helping me recognize that I’ve always thought this way; I just didn’t always have the articulation, or I was performing fragments of myself instead of embodying the whole. My advisor affirmed I’m ahead of the curve, already thinking in terms of future courses and syllabi. I even had one foundational research class replaced with a course taught by a faculty member I felt an immediate alignment with—her syllabus and readings mirror what I’ve already been exploring.The more I reflect, the more I see that my thinking is nonlinear, eclectic, and expansive. Even my hairstylist reminded me: “You’re not weird, you’re eclectic.” And she was right.I’ve also affirmed something powerful today: I will never worry about money again. For so long I’ve seen visions for everyone else, but now my vision for myself is clear. The settlement is just the beginning. Money will continue to flow in alignment with my purpose, and the life I imagine for myself will unfold even better than expected.This is all new—not nervousness, but newness. And I am ready.

Analysis — Living Theory as Decolonial Practice

This reflection illustrates endarkened knowing in action—knowledge born of spirit, intuition, and alignment rather than detached rationalism. It confirms that epistemology is not separate from life; it is lived theory. Decolonizing the mind requires critiquing Eurocentric systems and recognizing the self as a sacred site of revelation. The statement “leadership is plural, shared, and relational” echoes Black womanist traditions of collective care and spiritual interdependence (Hudson-Weems, 1993; Dillard, 2000). The realization of once “performing fragments” of the self speaks to decolonization as an act of wholeness—calling scattered parts home. Even the affirmation of abundance reframes wealth as energetic reciprocity aligned with purpose rather than capitalist accumulation. This is the spiritual economics of womanist thought: when one lives in divine alignment, resources follow naturally.

Applications — Decolonizing the Self and the Mind

Endarkened Africana Womanist Epistemology is not confined to academia; it is praxis. It invites healing, creativity, and scholarship as sacred acts. To decolonize the mind is to question not only what we know but how we came to know it—and who profits from that way of knowing. Through journaling, storytelling, ritual, or collective dialogue, we return to ourselves as both researcher and text, both method and meaning.

Conclusion — Knowing as Liberation

To know from the endarkened space is to reclaim agency over thought, spirit, and voice. This framework refuses invisibility and validation through Eurocentric approval; it constructs a new paradigm where ancestral wisdom, spiritual truth, and Black womanhood are sources of intellectual and cosmic authority. As bell hooks reminds us, “The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.” This epistemology is that imagination: a call to scholars, healers, and seekers who no longer wish to fit into the academy but to transform it through love, light, and liberated knowing.

References

·      Asante, M. K. (1980). Afrocentricity: The theory of social change. Buffalo, NY: Amulefi.

·      Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

·      Dillard, C. (2000). Endarkened feminist epistemology: Countering hegemonic knowledge production in educational research. Educational Researcher, 29(11), 29–35.

·      Dillard, C. (2006). On spiritual strivings: Transforming an African American woman’s academic life. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

·      hooks, b. (1981). Ain’t I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston, MA: South End Press.

·      Hudson-Weems, C. (1993). Africana womanism: Reclaiming ourselves. Troy, MI: Bedford Publishers.

Author Note

As I move forward in the IMA program, I plan to continue refining my research on storytelling, truth-telling, and healing as spiritual and humanitarian practices. I want to keep deepening my craft through writing, mentorship, and interdisciplinary exploration. My goal is to build a career that allows me to integrate all my skills—legal, financial, creative, and spiritual—into work that has global reach and meaningful impact. Whether that takes shape as international consulting, creative strategy, or narrative work in healing spaces, I know that alignment will guide me.I am a published poet and the creator of Zar’s Zen Den, a healing and storytelling platform dedicated to self-liberation and creative truth. I currently work at the intersection of finance and law and hold degrees in Economics and Law (J.D.) while pursuing my MA in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on the humanities.

This essay was refined through collaborative editing support to bring my research and reflections into clearer form.