Sisterhood is oft elusive, if not a misunderstood concept. Despite all the factors that could impede the development, elevation, and maintenance of sistering relationships, Black women continue to acknowledge the value of sisterhoods. Sistering offers a lifeline of support and validation. Holding membership in an empowering woman-centered relationship is a special kind of privilege. The authors in this volume contest any assumption that sisterhood is limited to blood relationships and physical proximity. In this volume, we consider sisterhood simultaneously as paradigm and praxis. We approach Sisterhood as Paradigm and attempt to parse out the nature of Sisterhood as it is understood in Black communities in the United States. We hope to convey an organized set of ideas about “sisterhood” to create sisterhood as a model of interaction or way of being with one another, specifically among Black women. As we consider how sisterhood could be enacted as practice. Using Sisterhood as a framework, we explore Sisterhood as Peer Support, examining how Black women provide support to peers in academic and professional settings. we embark on a provision of applied exemplars of sistering in emerging digital media in Digital Sisterhood.

Dr. Tamara Bertrand Jones is an Associate Professor of Higher Education at Florida State University. She uses qualitative methods and critical and feminist theories to examine the education and professional experiences of Black women in academia. She is a founder and past president of Sisters of the Academy Institute, an international organization that promotes collaborative scholarship and networking among Black women in academia.

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Dr. Denise Davis Maye is a Professor in the Department of Social Work at Alabama State University. Her research interests include the factors that influence the emotional development of adolescent girls and women of African ancestry. She is a past president of Sisters of the Academy Institute, an international organization that promotes collaborative scholarship and networking among Black women in academia.

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Dr. Sophia Rahming is an Associate Director in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Florida State University (FSU). She earned her PhD at FSU researching the experiences of Afro-Caribbean women in STEM in the United States. Sophia works to increase opportunities that lead to science for all in STEM.

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Dr. Jill Andrew’s PhD “Put Together”: Black Women’s Body Stories in Toronto: (AD)Dressing Identity and the Threads that Bind explores the ‘trifecta’ of racism, sexism, fat hatred and their accommodation/resistance through fashion, activism, self-valuation & social interactions. Jill co-founded Body Confidence Canada, #SizeismSUCKS and is a politician NDP MPP Toronto-St.Paul’s.

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