Knowledge as Property and Survival

As a woman denied inheritance rights and institutional position, Sor Juana's knowledge—her learning, her intellectual reputation, her ability to write—was her primary asset and means of securing her place and protection. Knowledge was not merely self-expression but property in a literal sense: it generated patronage, protection, and a degree of autonomy she could not achieve through conventional means. In intersectional analysis, this recognizes that for people systematically excluded from wealth accumulation and property ownership, intellectual capital becomes precious. Educational credentials, professional expertise, artistic output, and knowledge networks function as survival resources. A first-generation college graduate secures family stability through degrees; an artist from a poor community builds economic independence through creative work; an immigrant leverages specialized knowledge as pathway to stability. This concept examines how knowledge becomes property under conditions of dispossession, the value systems that recognize certain knowledge as more valuable than others (often marginalizing the knowledge of oppressed communities), and how to build sustainable knowledge-sharing practices that don't exploit the intellectual labor of marginalized people.