The Dialectics of Praxis

Abstract

This paper takes up the theorization of the dialectical relationships between consciousness, praxis, and contradiction by drawing primarily on the work of critical feminist and anti-racist scholars Roxana Ng and Paula Allman. Beginning with the important Marxist theorizations of the lives of immigrant women, the state, and community services made by Roxana Ng, we move forward with asserting that Roxana’s commitment to making social relations of power and exploitation ‘knowable’ and ‘transformable’ is based on a complex and revolutionary articulation of the relationship between thinking and being. This dialectical conceptualization of praxis is necessary for any potentially coherent revolutionary feminist anti-racist project. The challenge posed by Roxana is two-fold: not only how best to ‘know’ the world, but how to teach this analysis and generate revolutionary practice.