Narrative Inquiry as a Form of #RacialJustice for Black Women in Academia

• In Event: Working Toward Racial Justice in Narrative Research: #RaceJusticeNarrativeSyllabus

Abstract

Despite tremendous efforts to change the overall way Black women are regarded in
imperialist white supremacist patriarchal capitalist culture, there is no Black woman, no
matter how liberated, who does not encounter on some level in daily life efforts on the
part of dominator culture to restrict her freedom (bell hooks, 2013)

This quote above served as a balm to me as I pursued research that centers Black women early career scholars and the ways in which whiteness and white ideology in federally-funded public education spaces continued to downplay the seriousness of their institutional histories. Self-identifying as a multiplicative scholar (Wing, 1990), and embracing tenets of Critical Race Feminism (CRF) (Wing, 1990; 1997), I draw on research engaged with Black women early career scholars and their paths within the doctoral pipeline. By adopting a methodological framework and theoretical stance that encompasses ideas of “detecting and unmasking beliefs and practices that limits human freedom, justice and democracy” while having a commitment to use findings for social change (Usher, 1996, p. 22) I ask public education and educational researchers to recognize the perspectives and knowledge of historically marginalized women.
Yet, while I acknowledge that the heteronormative and the heteropatriarchal academic culture does affect and impact the lives of Black women in the pursuit of the professoriate on a daily basis, I felt even more uncomfortable that Black women herstories were being 'included' in the dominant master narrative. It was as though chairs had been added to the back of a crowded hall or an addendum attached to a previously printed book. Recognizing that public education may not have been established for Black women does not mean that a simple nod in the direction of their histories of difference and exclusion are merely a tag-on to established texts. In the same way that Brittany Cooper advocated for a robust discussion of the intellectual thought of race women (Cooper, 2015), this work aligns itself with narratives of Black women academics that are publically silenced.
I tussel with the ways that a critical narrative approach has generated a unique space for public dialogue for/about Black women in the doctoral pipeline, as well as the ways that it can also hold us captive. Even though these narratives are powerful and moving, who is listening? And what are they learning about Black women in the doctoral pipeline? Narrative inquiry has been pushed and prodded to address issues of systemic and institutionalized power and control, racial injustices, and inequities across the board. While this work acknowledges that narrative inquiry makes room for critical narrative inquiry, I assert that perhaps in this day and age of hash tagging our need for #racialjustice there must also be a way to live, not just survive, while resisting, and that Critical Narrative Inquiry must and can do more as a methodological approach and tool for creating a more racially just future for public education.

Author

• Elizabeth Bowers Cook, Our Lady of the Lake University