The Personal, the Political, and Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Black Women’s Community of Practice

• In Event: The Personal as Political: Toward a Black Cultural Definition of Communities of Practice

Abstract

Relying on situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 2000) as a theoretical framework, this presentation emphasizes the inclusion of culturally indigenous ways of knowing in educational research. In so doing, this presentation calls into question the ways in which Black female identities and lived experiences contribute to discussions on communities of practice (Wenger, 2000), democratized forms of engagements (Kinloch, 2012), and endarkened feminist epistemologies (Collins, 1991; Dillard, 2012). The following research questions guide this presentation: Why include the personal in academic research and praxis? How can a focus on Democratic Engagements and Endarkend Feminist Epistemologies center the lived experiences of Black female scholars, specifically, and other women scholars of color, generally, in educational research?


To address these questions, this presenter recognizes that the histories of racialized people (e.g., Black women and other people of color) are rarely centered in academic scholarship and public school curricula. The inclusion of multiple voices centered on race and racial identities from members of historically marginalized communities offers important perspectives by which to examine diverse and different ways of knowing (e.g., being, learning, cultural histories) against the backdrop of mainstream discourses (e.g., standardized curricula; whiteness). Dillard (2006), for instance, emphasizes the need for educational researchers to focus on culturally indigenous ways of knowing by including in academic discourse poems, life notes, interviews, and autobiographies. The inclusion of these types of writings symbolizes legitimatization of lived experiences, or indigenous ways of knowing, as “analytic, conceptual, and representational tools that explicate deep meanings of the very bases of educational research and leadership” (p.21). Relying on Dillard’s argument as well as on scholarship by other Black female researchers who speak to the inclusion of the personal and indigenous ways of knowing allows this presenter to theorize democratized forms of engagements (e.g. reciprocal relationships; mutual respect; social justice) in relation to race and identity in educational studies.

Methodologically, this presenter employs narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Clandinin, 2006) in order to understand how stories, conversations, and life experiences, as units of analysis, afford study participants, four Black female activist-scholars at institutions of higher education, opportunities to create meaning about their identities and ways of knowing. Relying on narrative inquiry helps the presenter to question: 1) why and how the inclusion of the personal in academic research and praxis is important, and 2) the ways study participants form and sustain a community of practice that narrates self (e.g., individual experiences in academic and non-academic spaces) and community (e.g., collective experiences in academic and nonacademic spaces). Data from recorded interviews, writings, and follow-up discussions with study participants reveal particular ways participants understand the personal as political (hooks, 2009) and seek to locate the personal in conversations about identity, democratized forms of engagement, and culturally indigenous ways of knowing within academic and community-oriented contexts.

Author

• Eyatta Y. Fischer, The Ohio State University