Name Possession and Intellectual Rights

Throughout her life, Sor Juana fought for the right to her own intellectual output and creative identity—to be recognized as author, thinker, and originator rather than merely a vessel for others' ideas. In many cultures and historical periods, women, colonized peoples, and the enslaved have been denied name-possession, having their work attributed to men, to institutions, or to colonizers. This concept asserts that genuine identity across cultures requires the material and social right to claim authorship of one's own knowledge. It connects to contemporary issues of intellectual property, citation, and recognition in academic and creative spaces. When individuals cannot name themselves as creators and knowers, their cultural identity becomes fragmented and subject to external definition. Sor Juana's insistence on her own intellectual authority models how personal name-possession and rights to knowledge are inseparable dimensions of cultural justice.