Songs for Ezili: Vodou Epistemologies of (Trans)gender
Asked whether newly queered readings of the Caribbean risk repeating old fantasies of tropical availability, Tinsley answers by turning to Ezili, the Vodou lwa of femininity and sensuality, and to the ways her devotees already theorise gender. The article reads closely in Anne Lescot and Laurence Magloire's 2002 documentary Of Men and Gods, whose subjects call themselves masisi and describe serving Ezili in her many emanations. Their songs, dreams, possessions and beauty shop conversations count as black feminist intellectual work in the sense Barbara Christian meant, theorising through narrative rather than through propositions. What emerges runs through material need as much as self-expression: becoming a houngan brings income and respect, and devotion to Ezili builds a support network the speakers call mache ansanm, closer to a shifting assemblage than to an identity-based community. Tinsley closes on the 2010 earthquake, which killed members of SEROvie and scattered that network.
Tinsley, O. N. (2011). Songs for Ezili: Vodou Epistemologies of (Trans)gender. Feminist Studies, 37(2), 417-436.