"Don't Punk Out," White Girl: Narrative Inquiry for Racial Justice as Remembering, Grieving, and Disinvesting in Whiteness

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

Abstract

“Beyond the fakeness, are we that scared to know how much we truly love each other, and how much it hurts to witness others be denigrated, dehumanized, and killed? Putting up the emotional wall and performing false pleasantries for fear of feeling any traumatic pain is ‘punking out’ on humanity” (Matias, 2016, p. 163).

As I interviewed a diverse group of white undergraduate women about their experiences in college, the silences were thick. I was a white woman interviewing other white women, and as we talked about places on campus that were significant for them, that made them feel like they belonged, or were outsiders with little power, their senses of their own histories or the histories of the places were halting and incomplete, unsure, or simply absent. As their stories deepened and developed, I heard about coercion, shame, bullying, and even assault, but certain silences remained, hung between us, even when I probed. I needed a process of narrative inquiry that resisted these hegemonic silences, that refused to “‘punk out’ on humanity” (Matias, 2016, p. 163).

This paper describes one study that builds on the tradition of narrative inquiry as a methodology that honors everyday lived experience through collaboration between researcher and participants (Clandinin, 2013). I ask how narrative inquiry can “avoid simply reproducing narratives that support macrosocial systems of oppression, and…instead contribute to the amelioration of oppressive conditions” (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2007) when both researcher and participants share privileged social locations, as well as bump up against intersecting identity differences. Specifically, how can white researchers act in relational solidary with scholars of color to collaborate in resistance to hegemonic violence and the daily trauma of oppression?

I suggest a methodology of critical narrative inquiry that involves collaboration via co-construction of narratives with race-conscious scholars of color (Matias, 2016) and a process of “member checking” with white participants that engages activist notions of “calling in” (Trân, 2013). Through such practices I aim to recognize and enact my “response-ability” (Battiste, 2013) as a white woman both to build relationships of solidarity and answer-ability with women of color, and also to engage with white women participants in a process of mutual transformative learning toward racial justice (Patel, 2016). I also describe the centrality of remembering (Mills, 2007; Leonardo, 2009), grieving (Matias, 2016; Cheng, 2000), and disinvesting in whiteness (Lipsitz, 1998) for myself and participants as we storied and re-storied (Clandinin, 2013) our lives as white women in relation to intersecting systems of domination, especially white supremacy. I invite symposium participants to consider how remembering, grieving, and disinvesting in whiteness (as well as other oppressive systems) might be enacted through critical narrative inquiry and be an integral tool for white people in doing the personal and political work required to live and work in solidarity with people of color led racial justice movements.

Author

• Moira Ozias, University of Oklahoma