The Right to Rest in the Gloria Anzaldúa’s Postcolonial Feminism

Abstract

The right to rest is a first order justice claim. It is a claim that goes to the core of the social organization of our needs. The characterization of this right comes from the concept of paid work and care work, largely unpaid. The defense of leisure and laziness is called for by both creative and industrious works. But what happens when the right to rest is not focus on questioning what we usually understand by work, but what we understand by activity and what we define as stillness? What happens if the right to rest shows the need to decolonize our bodies? Gloria Anzaldúa's suggestion, and this is what this paper defends, consists in showing us that to be able to think about rest and talk about it, the raw material is in our bodies, i.e., to pay attention to the manners of colonial subjection that still inhabit them.