Re(defining) Space: Chicana/Latina Feminist Methodologies With Latina/o/x Students Along the U.S.-Mexico Border

• In Event: Conceptualizing Spatial Justice in Education: Creating, Navigating, and Surviving Racialized Space through Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

Objectives
The goal of this paper is to explore how Chicana/Latina feminist methodologies can be used to study the racialized spatial realities of Latina/o/x students in Tijuana-San Diego. As a Latina from the border region, I find it important to challenge traditional forms of research inquiry that define spaces and people of color through deficit lenses and promote anti-Latina/o/x ideologies. To investigate the benefits of critical methodologies when exploring space, I draw from a qualitative study focused on how the intersection of race, immigration, and geography shape the spatial educational experiences of Latina/o/x community college students living in the Tijuana-San Diego border region. The following research question guides this paper: What methodologies can Chicana/Latina feminist epistemologies provide to the study of space and place with Latina/o/x communities?

Theoretical Framework & Methods
To best understand the Tijuana-San Diego borderlands, I draw from Chicana feminists’ Borderlands theory (Anzaldúa, 2002; Elenes, 2011). The concept of Borderlands merges material and metaphorical borders, and focuses on moments and spaces alongside traditional borders where opposites meet, interact, and lead to a unique set of experiences and identities (Anzaldúa, 2002). To document the spatial realities of Latina/o/x students along the border region, I conducted ten individual pláticas and five follow-up walking pláticas at focal points in the Tijuana-San Diego borderlands. The data collection tool of pláticas challenges rigid interview protocols and instead centers oral storytelling as important in the data collection process (Gonzalez, 2001). In other words, methodologically, pláticas allow for more flexibility, reciprocity, and relationship building while also being in tune with different cultural forms of knowledge from the collaborator (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016). The incorporation of walking pláticas in this study stems from the integration of pláticas (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016; Gonzalez, 2001) and walking interviews (Harris, 2016). This innovative method was designed to more adequately investigate the complexity of the physical and symbolic borderlands by allowing student collaborators to select a space, allow for the environment to guide the walking plática, and as a result explore the shifting spatial realities that occur due to the particular impacts of space and context in the borderlands.

Findings & Scholarly Significance
Through this study, the ten Latina/o/x student collaborators were integral to the re(defining) of space by creating counter-narratives that move away from deficit ideologies of Latina/o/x communities, the border region, and community college students. In using Chicana/Latina feminist methodologies such as Borderlands, the study, researcher, and collaborators centered their spatial lived realities and experiential knowledge as critical elements of the research process. Given the limited scope of spatial research in education, I argue that we must look to other critical disciplines, such as Chicana/Latina feminisms to develop interdisciplinary methodologies that are capable of honoring the spatial lived realities of Latinas/os/x in their pursuit of higher education.

Author

• Tanya J Gaxiola Serrano, University of Texas at San Antonio