Bundling Indigenous Modalities and Matrilineal Epistemologies: Indigenous and Chicana Reflections on Decolonizing Doctoral Development Experiences

• In Event: Unsettling Higher Education Contexts: Indigenous Approaches to Building Educational Solidarities and Decolonizing Research Relationships

Abstract

Indigenous forms of decolonization have the potential to nurture a matrilineal orientation toward research. In the context of doctoral development experiences, socialization processes do not often comprise of structured opportunities for women from marginalized communities to consider the relationship, complexities, and possibilities between decolonized notions of matrilineality and contemporary forms of female academic identities. This study sought to fill that literature gap by taking a decolonizing interpretative methodological approach to explore, experientially, how lived histories of gendered educational practices can be restored through the creation of Indigenous modalities. Diné decolonization and feminine resurgence and cultural memory inform the theoretical framework. Findings include umbilical estrangement in doctoral development experiences and modality making as a method of umbilical restoration.

Authors

• Charlotte Elizabeth Davidson, University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse

• Judith Estrada, University of California - Santa Cruz