Documenting Marginalized Intellectual Genealogy

Sor Juana deliberately situated her own work within a genealogy of learned women—citing Hypatia, Sappho, medieval women mystics, and contemporary female intellectuals. She refused the erasure that would make her appear as a singular anomaly, instead claiming connection to a tradition of female knowledge-makers deliberately hidden by patriarchal history. This genealogical work is essential intersectional practice: systematically documenting the intellectual contributions of women, colonized peoples, working-class thinkers, and others whose knowledge has been stolen or rendered invisible. Intersectionality requires understanding how oppressive systems operate partly through epistemic erasure—making it seem as though marginalized groups have never produced rigorous thought. Sor Juana's practice teaches that marginalized communities must become their own historians and archivists, preserving intellectual genealogies that dominant institutions will not. This documentation work becomes foundational to collective consciousness-raising and resistance.