Embodied Knowledge: The Body as Archive

Sor Juana lived in a body marked by cisgender identity—a body that was read, interpreted, and restricted based on its femaleness. Her intellectual work can be understood as embodied knowledge, emerging from the specific position of a female-assigned body engaging with systems designed to contain it. This concept moves beyond treating the body as a mere container for ideas and instead recognizes the body itself as a site of knowledge production. For those examining cisgender identity, this framework means understanding your own embodied experience as epistemologically valuable—the knowledge that comes from navigating the world with a particular gender assignment is real knowledge. Sor Juana's intellectual work emerged from her embodied experience of restriction and possibility within cisgender identity. By treating the body as an archive—a living record of how power structures work—individuals examining cisgender identity can honor the knowledge they've accumulated through lived experience rather than dismissing it as merely personal or subjective. The body becomes a text to be read, understood, and theorized.