Untaming/untameable tongues: methodological openings and critical strategies for tracing raciality

ABSTRACT

Race theories generate method-making and onto-epistemological connections central to inquiry. In this article, the authors share a conversation that created methodological openings about what constitutes ‘racially just’ in this particular moment of qualitative research. Is the call for ‘racially just’ a form of disruption or rupture? Is it a logic of inclusion, or a logic of obliteration? While the racial character of knowledge systems has become more explicit, it is important to consider how the analytics of raciality, a social scientific apparatus that produces racial subjugation, is already configured and entangled within sociopolitical systems. Following the work of Denise Ferreira da Silva, the authors argue that attention to raciality requires a different set of critical strategies for troubling ‘racially just’ approaches in the name of racial justice, asking more of themselves, of each other, and of their collective aims to unsettle colonial and racial logics within and outside of higher education institutions. The potential for transforming research practises and the teaching of research methods, by building on radical women of colour feminisms, are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Racial justice
• raciality
• methodology
• pedagogy
• women of colour feminisms

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the UnderCommons Constellation (UC2) for generating foresight, support, and intellectual practice in relational ways. UC2 propels various forms of writing, pedagogy, and inquiry through a space that sustains us within and beyond the UMass Collaborative for Global Studies and Transformative Education. In addition, we would like to acknowledge the labour and professional service of three anonymous peer reviewers for their thoughtful engagement. A special thanks to the editors for encouraging our contribution.

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

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

Notes

1 For our purpose, we provide artists’ names and song titles as an invitation to join us in sonic and rhythmic joy, to think with artists’ creative and critical expressions un/making the world. Each song is cued to ‘play’ within particular places as interludes; the reader may opt to listen to the songs’ lyrics beforehand to more fully engage the ideas presented here. For album titles, see *Works Cited* in the references section per journal style.

2 The reader will notice that we have omitted parenthetical citations in our conversation. We write this way to keep with the flow of the conversation with/out the constraints of standard reference style in academic writing. The scholars’ work we reference are cited in the paragraph that follows this conversation.

3 For more details, see Senate Bill S.937 of the 117th Congress (https://www.congress.gov). Relatedly, news media outlets reported:

[the Act] specifically directs the Justice Department to designate a point person to assist with expedited review of COVID-19 hate crimes, provide guidance for state and local law enforcement agencies to establish online reporting of hate crimes in multiple languages …  (Cathey 2021)