Mestiza Methodology: Research as a Site of Healing

Abstract

The author’s reflexive account of what led to the construction of research grounded in Chicana Feminist Epistemology (CFE) and a new CFE approach coined Mestiza Methodology is presented. At the core of the methodology is the assertion that research processes must be decolonized in the image of Chicana relationships and sense-making to unearth Chicana knowledge. Drawing upon the hybrid nature of Mestiza intellect, cross-pollinating methods of plática, reflexión, and testimonio are braided to mirror a more culturally organic research methodology that strengthens a collective consciousness of healing.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Mestiza – refers to spiritual knowledge of a hybrid nature at the confluence of indigeneity and Mexican lineage (Anzaldúa, 1999).

² Xicana sacred space – space cultivated by Chicanas “to examine each member’s social location in progress as she engages in a dialectical and circular negotiation of identities, positionalities, and epistemologies” (Soto et al., 2009, p. 771).

³ Bodymindspirit -ways of knowing at the confluence of body, mind, and spirit not confounded by space or time (Anzaldúa, 1999).

⁴ Intersectionality references the critical insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but as reciprocally constructing phenomena that in turn shape complex social inequalities (Collins, 2015, p. 2).

⁵ Whitestreaming “is a coercive force that imposes White history, mores, morals, language, customs, individualism, cultural capital and other forces as the norm or standard U.S. in society” (Urrieta, 2010, p. 47).