Humanizing Critical Public Scholarship and Surviving

• In Event: Gender Equity as an Act of Praxis

Abstract

In this roundtable, we as scholars of African descent from different backgrounds turn to the ways in which our experiences and multiple social positions influence our research methods, writing, interpretations, and re-representations of Black people’s experiences. Drawing on John Dewey’s work on creative democracies we highlight the ways in which we struggle and work to survive in an academic climate in which Black reflexivities and subjectivities from across diverse social and cultural perspectives are muted. We contextualize our individual research projects as attempts to use critical qualitative methods (narrative study of lives, participatory research, and auto-ethnography) to re-humanize the research process in order to contribute to diverse democracies in which all voices are equally heard, acknowledged and understood.

Authors

• Monique Antoinette Guishard, Bronx Community College - CUNY

• Yvanne Joseph, Medgar Evers College

• Kevin Lowell Clay, Rutgers University