Remembering my memories: Black feminist memory work as a visual research method of inquiry

Abstract

Broadly, this article details the imbrication of a Black feminist qualitative researcher’s onto-epistemology and data (meta-) analysis process. I theorize Black feminist memory work, then apply this method by returning to data I collected for a completed research project and meshing those data with a curated selection of thematically connected family photographs. By revisiting and reviewing textual and visual data, I demonstrate the function of Black feminist memory work as a visual research method with which to not only describe, analyze, and interpret evocative photographs, but also excavate and make meaning of the sometimes repressed and oftentimes emotion-laden episodic and autobiographical memories that inevitably surface when conducting qualitative research. I conclude by underscoring how this tool creates opportunities for qualitative researchers to address the ontological concerns that connect qualitative inquiry to Black feminists’ humanistic hopes.

Keywords:

• African American Studies
• feminist studies
• family studies
• Afrocentric feminist methodologies
• visual research methods
• Black feminist thought

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 From a psychological perspective, episodic and autobiographical memory can be conceptualized as connected yet somewhat distinct: ‘[e]pisodic memory is about recollection of events in one’s past. Autobiographical memory is one’s personal history that may include episodic memories in addition to other facts about oneself (such as one's place and date of birth)’ (Roediger & Marsh, 2003).

2 Kuhn (2010) describes performances of memory as acts of ‘recounting or telling memory-stories, in both private and public contexts’ (p. 298).

3 I distinguish between autobiographical as concerned with one’s history and autoethnographic as concerned with utilizing one’s history as a site of critical social and/or cultural analysis (e.g. Boylorn, 2013).

4 Importantly, the photographs used need not be one’s own (although that is the ideal) and may be sourced from a public archive, for example. This is because immigration from certain contexts may be catalyzed by catastrophes (such as war or famine), which may make the retention of photographs and other material possessions impossible.

5 This protocol can be adapted for use in educational spaces that cater to Black immigrant girls, particularly as a resource in the vein of Teaching Beautiful Brilliant Black Girls (Delano-Oriaran et al., 2021).

6 All names are pseudonyms.

7 Used here as a synonym for the United States.

8 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_existentialism

9 Pedagogues are encouraged to modify this assignment description to meet their own and their students’ individual needs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Esther O. Ohito

Esther O. Ohito is an assistant professor of English Education/Literacy Education at Rutgers University - New Brunswick, the inaugural Toni Morrison Faculty Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research, and the 2021 Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program Fellow at Maseno University’s School of Education in Kisumu, Kenya. An interdisciplinary scholar, she researches the poetics and aesthetics of Black knowledge and cultural production, the gendered geographies of Black girlhoods, and the gendered pedagogies of Black critical educators.