The Politics of Attention and Visibility

Sor Juana's work might have been lost entirely had it not been preserved and championed by successive generations of scholars and activists, particularly feminist and Latinx thinkers. Her visibility was never guaranteed; it required deliberate choices to keep her memory alive. In intersectional practice, this means recognizing that visibility itself is a distribution of resources and power. Whose stories get told? Whose art gets exhibited? Whose scholarship gets cited? Whose voices lead movements? These are not neutral questions. The attention economy disadvantages people with less institutional power, less access to amplification platforms, and less cultural capital. Intersectional practice includes deliberate choices about where we direct attention and resources: amplifying voices from the margins, citing women and people of color, supporting creators with less platform access, ensuring that mentorship and opportunity reach beyond privileged networks. It also means recognizing that visibility isn't always safe or desirable; sometimes invisibility is strategic. The point is to make conscious choices about attention rather than allowing default systems to determine whose contributions matter.