Kamala Harris, a first multi-racial Black woman, became the official Democratic presidential nominee on August 5, 2025. This historic achievement only amplified the intensity of discussions about Black women’s politics in the United States. As Black feminist political scientists studying Black women’s politics, we knew we needed to document the nuance, dynamism, and historical nature of Harris’s campaign. We were keenly aware that we needed to capture the narratives of Black women voters to fully make sense of this historic moment. The media narrative that Black women were excited about Harris’s nomination (Jones Reference Jones2024; Walker Reference Walker2024) and scholarly findings that Black women voters preferred Black women candidates (Brown et al. Reference Brown, Ray, Summers and Fraistat2019; Philpot and Walton, Jr. Reference Philpot and Walton2007) seemed superficial. We believed that beneath Black women’s support for Harris lay a particularized set of emotions and wide variation in candidate evaluations, which are underexplored because Black women consistently vote Democratic and are the demographic group most likely to support Black women candidates. These varied emotive responses lead to the same political behavior: a vote for Harris. Our research examines how Black women feel about politics and how these emotions translate into political action.
In this Notes from the Field, we argue that focus groups provide the ideal venue to explore nuances in Black women’s political views by challenging conventional approaches to identity and representation in politics and illuminating overlooked aspects of opinion formation. We begin by reviewing the extant approach to studying Black women’s public opinion and closely engage with literature on Black Feminist Thought. We then discuss the importance of providing space for Black women to talk about politics and unpack the benefits of listening to Black women. We assess the limitations of this approach and conclude. We aim to encourage scholars who study marginalized communities to engage more rigorously with interactive methods and Black feminist epistemology.
Studying Black Women’s Public Opinion
Traditional methodological approaches that query Black women about their political opinions are rooted in the values, views, and interests of those who have a stake in maintaining the current power structure (Bartolome Reference Bartolomé1994). Most notably, this work has privileged survey-based research that emphasizes predetermined response categories and abstract measures of political attitudes, often treating Black women as data points rather than as meaning-making political actors. In doing so, these methods risk reproducing epistemic hierarchies that marginalize Black women’s ways of knowing and narrating their political lives.
We do not take a positivist stance toward researching Black women, as we know that the world is not measurable in quantifiable ways that can provide objective truth. Rather, we prioritize epistemological approaches grounded in personal/political standpoints that center the multiple positionalities of marginalized groups (Collins Reference Collins1989). Research by and about Black women is often considered to be less rigorous, particularly qualitative data that utilizes a Black feminist epistemology (Patterson et al. Reference Patterson, Kinloch, Burkhard, Randall and Howard2016). Our research contributes to the growing body of scholars who critique this bias (Anderson et al. Reference Anderson, Armitage, Jack and Wittner1987; Gordon Reference Gordon1995; Johnson-Bailey Reference Johnson-Bailey1999; Mullings Reference Mullings2000) by offering embodied support for a Black feminist methodology grounded in focus groups.
We contend that Black women’s political orientations are best understood by talking with them. Black women and men often discuss politics in non-political spaces, which reflects the interplay between Black culture and Black politics (Dawson Reference Dawson2001; Harris-Lacewell Reference Harris-Lacewell2004). Much of Black political discourse takes place in informal, culturally resonant spaces—beauty salons, church gatherings, kitchen tables, social media, and organizational meetings—where the boundaries between the personal and political blur (Harris-Lacewell Reference Harris-Lacewell2004). These spaces, which are nearly exclusive to Black people, drive Black political discussions outside of Black monoracial spaces. This private sphere for Black women is a space for collective dialogue, consciousness-raising, and strategic planning. It also offers sanctuary for expressions of political grief, aspiration, and critique that may not be legible or welcome in mainstream political arenas. In this way, Black political thought, especially as voiced and lived by Black women, extends beyond traditional institutions (i.e., Democratic Party clubs, college classrooms) and enters a broader praxis of everyday life (i.e., barbershops, beauty salons, Black media), making it both deeply personal and profoundly political.
Black Feminist Thought
Black feminist epistemology questions the subjective qualities and inherent biases of traditional methodological approaches (Sosulski et al. Reference Sosulski, Buchanan and Donnell2010). Black feminist methodology utilizes inclusive practices that humanize and engage marginalized groups. Because Black women’s daily encounters in White hetero-supremist culture break down their capacity for self-knowing, sister circles provide a collective experience for Black women to counter these hegemonic norms (Few et al. Reference Few, Stephens and Rouse-Arnett2003). Grounding scholarly work in collaboration among Black women to name, share, and affirm multiple truths privileges embodied knowledge as a core epistemic resource (King Reference King and Meyers1997).
This embodied knowledge is a form of wisdom (Collins Reference Collins2000). bell hooks (Reference Hooks1994) articulates this as critical consciousness, which is a politicized understanding of the world and how one’s positionality drives both their action and activism. The move from knowledge to resistant action is central to Black feminism (Lewis Reference Lewis1997). As Black women interpret the world through their embodiment, they resist dominant interpretations of who they are. That is an act of self-definition that often leads to resistance.
Black women are situated at the nexus of multiple systems of power such as racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, nativism, and ableism (Crenshaw Reference Crenshaw1989). Their identity, notably marked by race and gender, influences how they are viewed and make sense of the world (King Reference King1973). Black feminist thought challenges power structures by offering a self-defined lens through which Black women understand their experiences (Collins Reference Collins2000). Black women’s knowledge is generated through lived experiences with overlapping systems of oppression and developing survival techniques. Thus, Black feminist thought is derived from an embodied way of knowing, which culminates in a standpoint epistemology allowing them to question claims and challenge knowledge creation processes.
Black feminist thought thus does not assume sameness among Black women but embraces the totality of Black women’s experiences, both complementary and contradictory (Bell et al. Reference Bell, Orbe, Drummond and Camara2000). Intersectional identities negotiate multiple sites of power that privilege and marginalize Black women (Crenshaw Reference Crenshaw1991). The spectrum of experiences of Black women is best captured through focus groups, which allow them to articulate the contributive components of their social locations within a Black feminist epistemology. Collins (Reference Collins1986) contends that it is the collective and connectedness among individuals that results in a deeper and more meaningful form of self-definition and empowerment.
The Importance of Providing Space for Black Women to Talk
To study the dynamics of Black women’s support for Harris, we conducted six focus groups in October and November 2024, including one post-election focus group with a group who spoke with us in mid-November. Each focus group consisted of self-identified Black women who were politically engaged. Informed by Black feminist theory, our methodological commitments produce meaningful insights into Black women’s lived experiences and their politics.
The culturally grounded nature of our focus group discussions closely resembled Black feminist collective spaces, often described as sister circles (Harley Reference Harley2002). First emerging alongside the Black club movement (Giddings Reference Giddings1984), sister circles have played a central role in Black women’s lives for over 150 years. In line with Black feminist epistemology, these spaces foster collectivism and reinforce kinship networks among Black women, serving as sites of mutual support, knowledge sharing, and affirmation (Boyd Reference Boyd1993; Giddings Reference Giddings1984). We conceptualize our focus groups as contemporary instantiations of sister circles. Our sister circles are situated within a Black feminist epistemology, which departs from positivist assumptions that treat knowledge as individual, value-neutral, and best produced through detachment and control (Collins Reference Collins2000). In contrast, Black feminist epistemology understands knowledge as relational, dialogic, and produced through social interaction grounded in lived experience.
Within these sister circles, Black women participants readily shared how much they appreciated the space to talk about politics. A member of each of the focus groups, independently and unprovoked, commented that they often do not have the chance to speak candidly about the current state of politics nor feel comfortable sharing their opinions in mixed crowds. The focus groups functioned as rare sites of comfort, trust, and political expression that prompted participants to clearly articulate their stances on issues and actively listen to fellow participants. Rather than an environment where politics is considered a contact sport, the sister circles allowed women to respectfully disagree, sharpen communication skills, learn about political phenomena they previously misunderstood, and challenge or affirm their existing political beliefs within a supportive space.
All the women who participated thanked us for the opportunity to discuss their experiences and political opinions. Several offered to participate in other focus groups without compensation because they simply enjoyed the opportunity to talk about politics in a sister circle setting. Indeed, all the members of one focus group contacted one of the facilitators and asked to return and discuss Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump. That facilitator, who has conducted academic focus groups for over 14 years, has never had a group of women ask her to participate in her research again!
The Benefit of Listening to Black Women
A major contribution of our larger research project is the use of focus groups to understand Black women voters’ perspectives and feelings before and after the 2024 presidential election. While surveys and interviews are more widely used in political science studies of public opinion (Brady Reference Brady2000; Greenstein and Mosley Reference Greenstein, Mosley, Curini and Franzese2020; Johnson, Reynolds, and Mycoff Reference Johnson, Reynolds and Mycoff2015), focus groups are better for capturing collective interaction and the social embeddedness of political reasoning (Cyr Reference Cyr2017; Stanley Reference Stanley2016). Rather than treating political attitudes as fixed individual attributes, focus groups illuminate how preferences and strategies emerge through discussion, negotiation, and shared interpretation (Krueger and Casey Reference Krueger and Casey2015; Morgan Reference Morgan1996).
Focus groups facilitate collective sense-making, allowing participants to respond to, affirm, and contest one another’s views in real time. This allows researchers to observe how political judgments, particularly about electability and representation, are formed relationally rather than individually (Morgan Reference Morgan1996). Focus groups allow for an interactive process central for understanding political decision-making where group norms and shared experiences shape evaluations (Gamson Reference Gamson1992). They are uniquely effective for identifying shared norms, boundaries, and silences. Group discussion makes visible what is taken for granted, what is contested, and what remains unsaid (Jarvis Reference Jarvis2014). These are dynamics that surveys necessarily flatten, and interviews cannot reveal (Krueger and Casey Reference Krueger and Casey2015). These features are especially important for studying marginalized communities, where strategic considerations and internal debates may be expressed implicitly or collectively. Furthermore, one of our focus groups — the Baby Boomer group — participated in pre-election and post-election discussions. This diachronic approach allowed us to examine how views evolved across a changed political landscape and understand the causes and effects of Black women’s political emotions regarding Kamala Harris’s historic candidacy.
Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of using focus groups to study political evaluations is that they reduce elite framing and researcher priming. Participants are allowed to set their own agenda, introduce concepts, and prioritize concerns in their own language (Cyr Reference Cyr2017; Morgan Reference Morgan1997), consistent with feminist and interpretative methodological approaches that center participants’ epistemologies and lived experiences (Denzin and Ryan Reference Denzin and Ryan2007; Frechette et al. Reference Frechette, Bitzas, Aubry, Kilpatrick and Lavoie-Tremblay2020; Hesse-Biber Reference Hesse-Biber2013). Focus groups more closely resemble how politics is actually discussed in everyday life via informal and communal settings rather than in isolation (Gamson Reference Gamson1992; Harris-Perry Reference Harris-Perry2011; Krueger and Casey Reference Krueger and Casey2015). Focus groups replicate conversational contexts in which political meaning is produced and therefore, offer greater ecological validity as compared to individualized data collection methods.
Taken together, focus groups are uniquely positioned to reveal not only what people think and why, but how political interpretations, emotions, and strategies emerge through interaction. Our focus groups functioned as collective interpretive spaces in which political meaning was co-produced through affirmation, contestation, and reflection — processes that Black feminist epistemology identifies as central to the production of valid and rigorous knowledge.
Limitations of Focus Group Discussions
Black feminist focus groups offer rich, interpretive insights but are not without limitations. Focus groups using snowball sampling within organizations of Black women often attract participants already comfortable with articulating their experiences through a feminist or racialized lens. This may mean that we did not capture voices of Black women who were less politicized or skeptical of identity-based frameworks. The findings may reflect the perspectives of those most willing to speak (Ennis and Chen Reference Ennis and Chen2012), rather than the full range of experiences. Because the method prioritizes depth, meaning-making, and context, findings are not translatable into positivist frameworks that aim for statistical generalizability. This is not a methodological flaw; we underscore this point to avoid positivist misreadings.
Furthermore, flattening distinctions across other politically salient identities, like ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, and immigration status, runs the risk of homogenizing Black womanhood. Even within shared-identity spaces, power hierarchies still exist (Hetherington Reference Hetherington1996). Other social locations, shaped by age, class, education, profession, religion, and region, shape who speaks and how (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey Reference Kirk and Okazawa-Rey2006). Participants may self-censor to maintain group cohesion. Certain narratives may dominate the framing of topics, crowding out less common or more controversial views or experiences (Krzyżanowski Reference Krzyzanowski2008).
Lastly, participants in sister circles often share experiences with trauma, marginalization, violence, or exclusion, placing emotional burdens on both the participants and facilitators (Dimitrakopoulou and Theodorou Reference Dimitrakopoulou and Theodorou2022). Ethical concerns and emotional labor require detailed plans for obtaining consent, prioritizing emotional safety, and establishing researcher responsibility limits (Hanna and Hall Reference Hanna and Hall2025). When sister circle facilitators share participants’ racial and gender identities, shared understandings may go unspoken (Brown Reference Brown2012), and participants may discuss what they believe the researcher already knows (Sim and Waterfield Reference Sim and Waterfield2019). But the facilitator should remain aware of the consequences of taking on these assumptions.
Conclusion
Sister circles grounded in Black feminist approaches illuminate how Black women make meaning of political life in contexts that often marginalize their voices. By centering sister circles as sites of knowledge production, our method reveals how Black women collectively name, interpret, and navigate political realities that are frequently silenced. Our focus groups offer theoretically generative insights into the relational, embodied, and interpretive dimensions of Black women’s political engagement. We advance a methodological approach that privileges lived experience, attends to power within knowledge production, and treats Black women as producers of political insights essential to understanding democracy itself.
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