Building community through feminist collectivity: being and becoming women in academia

ABSTRACT

This paper explores women’s experiences in academia through collective biography from a feminist, transdisciplinary, intersectional frame. Crosscutting disciplines, classifications, and subject positions, we use dialogue to explore the nuances of what it is to be a woman in academia, and the experiences of building and developing community as women. We draw on data from a fall 2020 focus group where we each were part of a course in designing qualitative inquiry, as well as our reflections, memos, and conversations in dialogues that followed. These dialogues are accentuated with footnotes that function as a concurrent playlist of research, art, and music reflecting women’s lives and experiences. We use poetic transcription and audio poetry to offer the texture of our experiences, offering both methodological and empirical implications for studying and researching women’s experiences in academia.

KEYWORDS:

• Feminist methodology
• poetic transcription
• audio methodologies
• memory work
• concurrent playlist

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 HAIM. 2020. Leaning on you. Columbia.

2 Beyoncé, Saint Jhn, and Wizkid. 2019. Brown Skin Girl. Parkwood.

3 Hill, Lauryn. 1998. Everything is Everything. Columbia.

4 Platten, Rachel. 2015. Fight Song. Columbia.

5 Florence and the Machine. 2022. King. Polydor.; Swift, Taylor. 2020. The Man. Republic.

6 Keys, Alicia. 2014. Girl Can’t Be Herself. Jungle City.; Steedman, Catherine. 2010. Landscape for a good woman: A story of two lives. Rutgers University Press.

7 Beyoncé and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 2014. ***Flawless. Parkwood.

8 Hilson, Keri. 2010. Pretty Girl Rock. Westlake Recording.

9 Monica. 2005. Sick and Tired. Motown Records; Gay, Roxanne. 2018. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. Harper Perennial.

10 Gay, Roxanne. 2014. Bad Feminist: Essays. Harper Perennial.; Solnit, Rebecca. 2014. Men Explain Things to Me: And Other Essays. Granta.

11 Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi 2017. Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. Knopf.

12 Lorde, Audre. 2007. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press.

13 Bourgeois, Louise. 2022. The woven child [Fabric, Textiles]. Hayward Gallery.

14 Davis, Angela. 2018. We Must Lift in Order to Rise [Keynote Address]. Chapman University

15 Smith, Patti. 1988. People have the Power. Arista.

16 Lovato, Demi. (2017) Sorry Not Sorry. Island.

17 MisterWives. (2020) SUPERBLOOM. Fueled by Ramen.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Whitney Toledo

Whitney Toledo is a doctoral candidate. Her research interests include Black homeschool education, political communication, and research in policy-making decisions.

Maureen Flint

Maureen Flint is an Assistant Professor in Qualitative Research. Her scholarship explores the theory, practice, and pedagogy of qualitative methodologies and questions of social (in)justice, ethics, and equity in higher education.

Caroline N. Sharkey

Caroline N. Sharkey, LCSW, is a doctoral candidate (ABD). Her research centres the impact historical trauma on young people in metro communities with a focus on collective efficacy and social cohesion to mitigate community violence.

Sarah McCollum

Sarah McCollum is a doctoral student. Her research interests include student civil rights, race-conscious education policies, and the politics of enacting equity-driven school leadership.

Brittney Ferrari

Brittney Ferrari is a doctoral student. Her research interests include peer learning, metacognition, and student engagement in STEM.

Oluwayomi K. Paseda

Oluwayomi K. Paseda, LCSW, is a doctoral candidate. Her research examines African American women's transition from incarceration to the community.

Adrienne Cottrell-Yongye

Adrienne Cottrell-Yongye is an Associate Professor of Biology. Her research interests include flipped learning in higher education and diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM education.

Nia Mitchell

Nia Mitchell is a doctoral student, and a Research Scholar with the National Birth Equity Collaborative. Her research centres Black women and birthing people’s lived experiences.