ABSTRACT
A spiritually oriented perspective is one of the hallmarks of womanism and arguably its most distinguishing feature as a critical theory and social change modality. In this chapter, I hope to show the depth and breadth of spiritual traditions that shape womanist thought and praxis. My approach will be hermeneutic; that is, interpretive and metatheoretical, interrogating what is behind or beyond the obvious and the overtly stated. My method will be archaeological. To quote Gary Gutting (2003), “ e premise of the archaeological method is that systems of thought and knowledge (epistemes or discursive formations, in Foucault’s terminology) are governed by rules, beyond those of grammar and logic, that operate beneath the consciousness of individual subjects and de ne a system of conceptual possibilities that determines the boundaries of thought in a given domain and period.”1 at being said, however, my approach and method will neither be neat, tidy, nor linear; rather, it will be full of twists and turns, stories and sidebars.
