Embodied Knowledge and the Limits of Abstraction

Sor Juana's intellectual brilliance existed in a body subject to colonial conditions, convent discipline, illness, and the material demands of daily life. She was not a disembodied mind but a woman whose circumstances shaped what she could study, when she could work, and what knowledge remained inaccessible. Intersectional theory has long emphasized embodied knowledge—understanding how our social positions shape what we know—but practice demands attention to the literal bodies of those producing knowledge. Exhaustion, illness, hunger, and violence constrain intellectual capacity in ways pure philosophy cannot address. Sor Juana's life teaches that we must build systems honoring both intellectual rigor and human embodiment: rest, care, material security, and freedom from violence are not distractions from knowledge-making but prerequisites for it. This concept invites practitioners to examine not just whose ideas matter but whose bodies can afford to think, and to reconstruct knowledge-making practices that acknowledge material reality.