Resiliency Despite Classroom Violence: A Intersectional Critique of a Bisexual, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Native American Educator/Activist

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: The Sister Project: A Global Decolonial Collaboration of Scholars, Activists, Researchers, Educators, and Community Experts

Abstract

As a humanizing practice, on the first day I foster an environment of trust and mutual understanding by “stripping myself bare” and sharing my own story. As a Native American woman with lightness privilege, a female with class privilege, a bi-sexual with heteronormative assumptive privilege, a survivor of sexual trauma as a child, and as a person with a disability (PTSD), I discuss how my intersecting positionalities have affected my personal experiences and the knowledge creation process as a intersectional, critical race, and whiteness scholar/activist. The author’s positionality and teaching pedagogies can be perceived as a threat. This paper problematizes critical incidents within her course, in order to highlight strategies of survival, resistance, and humanizing theory.

Author

• Dre Abeita, University of New Mexico