I’ve got the power!: a feminist take on slow justice and power in Dallas, Texas

Sanchez, Ileana Melina

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129961 Copy

Description

Title

I’ve got the power!: a feminist take on slow justice and power in Dallas, Texas

Author(s)

Sanchez, Ileana Melina

Issue Date

2025-07-23

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• Wilson, David
• Butcher, Sian

Department of Study

Geography & GIS

Discipline

Geography

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.A.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

Feminist geographies, political organizing, slow justice, banal activism

Abstract

This Masters thesis is set to converse with Neville and Martin’s (2022) conceptualization of slow justice: “The spatially and temporally dispersed forms of repair, restoration, and resilience that may accumulate slowly and in casual complex ways.” Using the theoretical framework of slow justice, my research is designed and written to answer the following questions: 1. How do feminist approaches to political nonprofit organizing conjure and harness political power? 2. What does a deep dive into a slow justice approach to political organizing look like? and 3. How can embodied activism include the intrinsic shift of refusal to the status quo? I examine Dallas Area Interfaith (DAI) and analyze my own experience of organizing as a case study to better understand the intersection of feminist theories of care, critical reflexivity, and relationality in conjunction with slow justice and power. My fieldwork as a participant observer with DAI demonstrated how focusing on the banal acts of life and rethinking what it means to be political, who has power, and what power is, ordinary (non)citizens can act according to the needs they suffer from. This unconventional ontology to Western thought prompts those who organize for public action to sit with ambiguity and discomfort, focus on the development of the person, and to strategize for more long-term, yet slower, goals. Ultimately, this thesis aims to contribute to a broader discussion on how the scale of the banal is one praxis for more radical and transformational liberation.

Graduation Semester

2025-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129961

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2025 Ileana Sanchez

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