Woman of colour feminisms as a vehicle for racially-just methodologies in educational research

ABSTRACT

There is an overwhelming presence and dominance of white-centric methodologies in educational research. To create necessary re-envisionings, we theorize how approaches to methodology can be disrupted and rethought through Black feminisms, Chicana feminism and Womanism. While each are distinct in their standpoints and contours, they have strong points of affinity, such as their focus on the generation of theory through lived experiences, interrogating various forms of oppression, coalition building and spirituality. From these intersections, we begin by discussing how Black feminisms, Chicana feminism and Womanism, as theories in the flesh, can re-envision methodology, generally. We then provide specific examples of putting Chicana feminism and Black feminisms to work in order to foster authentic relationships in collaborative inquiry and incite ruptures and renarrativizations through life story inquiry. We end with a discussion of how working in solidarity among women of color feminists can enact coalition building as a site of methodological revolution.

KEYWORDS:

• Theories in the flesh
• Black feminisms
• Chicana feminism
• Womanism
• epistemology
• racially-just methodologies
• coalition building

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Black feminisms, Chicana feminism and Womanism offer a breadth of points from which to theorize, which are beyond the scope of this brief introduction to them. The texts cited can offer an extended introduction to these theories.