Combating Weapons of Spiritual/Intellectual Destruction: Examining Spirituality and Racial Epistemic Violence in the Academy

• In Event: Race, Class, and Gender Issues in Higher Education

Abstract

The pervasiveness of surreptitious racism compels many scholars to enter into intellectual warfare. Within the field of education, various scholars are drawing on spirituality in these efforts to counterbalance traditional pedagogical, administrative, and curricular practices. This study extends current literature and examines the use of African American spirituality to combat racially violent epistemic acts in the academy. Specifically, the author examines how African American spirituality empowers black faculty to (1) overcome institutional structures that cause them to be adversely affected by race and, at the same time, (2) participate in the reconstruction and development of positive educational practices. Using a critical race methodology, the author critiques traditional academic constructions of knowledge and proffers spirituality tool of resistance to epistemic violence.

Author

• Kyra Tynisha Shahid, Miami University