Chicana/Latina Faculty in Solidarity: Critical Action Research Toward Decolonizing Our Spaces

• In Event: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Education: Women and Girls of Color

Abstract

Situated in the U.S. Southwest near the border shared with Mexico, this critical action research builds on Muxerista peer mentoring (Ek, et al., 2010) by using pláticas, artivist photovoice and analytic memoing to interrogate pedagogical and leadership practices in one Hispanic-Serving Institution’s (HSI) School of Social Work. Guided by Yosso’s (2005) framework for cultural capital and community cultural wealth, this illuminates what culturally-sustaining leadership and pedagogical approaches will honor Chicanx/Latinx/Afro-Latinx and other Students’ and Faculty of Color’s existing sources of resilience and resistance, eliminate racism and other oppression in educational contexts, and mitigate the impact of oppression on persisting in higher education. Differences between and strategies for actualizing decolonization, anti-racism and anti-oppression in schools of social work are explored.

Authors

• Anna Nichol Nelson, New Mexico State University

• Myra Garcia, New Mexico State University

• Monica Montoya, New Mexico State University

• Magdalena Saiz, New Mexico State University