"I'm Essential": An Autoethnographic Study of a Black Woman Doctoral Student Doing Qualitative Research With/for Black Women Faculty

• In Event: The Necessary Work: Research by and for Black Women and Girls

Abstract

The growing academic literature on Black women doctoral students highlights the lineage of their experiences and barriers with socialization, racialized and gendered oppression and retention (Johnson-Bailey, 2004; Jones, T. B., Wilder, J., & Osborne-Lampkin, L, 2013; Patterson-Stephens, S. M., Lane, T. B., & Vital, L. M. , 2017). These contemporary studies continue to point to the relevance and critical need to further explore Black women graduate experiences, from various perspectives and contexts. Utilizing an autoethnographic approach, the purpose of this present study is to trace how a Black woman doctoral student at a historically white institution navigated and negotiated her academic context, and a dual pandemic (i.e. COVID-19 and anti-Black racism) while conducting qualitative research centering Black women faculty. The primary question that grounds this research is: What are my experiences conducting qualitative research on Black women faculty during a dual pandemic, as a Black woman doctoral student at a historically white Catholic institution?

In order to make meaning of the perspectives, conditions, and experiences of Black women doctoral students, it is imperative to theorize and analyze with an intersectional lens. The term intersectionality acquired prominence through Crenshaw (1989; 1991), a legal scholar, who sought to address exclusionary and discriminatory hiring practices against Black women. By highlighting the role of context, power systems, and multiply- burdened marginalized groups. Crenshaw’s work helped shape anti-discrimination law and insisted gender and race (among other identities) are non-exclusive (1989; 1991). The study will utilize intersectionality to help make meaning of the author’s experiences.

Intersectionality as a theoretical framework works in congruence with the autoethnographic methodological approach applied in this study. According to Ellis & Bochner, autoethnography is an “autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural” (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739). This methodology allows space for the complexities and nuance that is present with racialized, gendered and social dynamics that emerge in academic spaces for Black women, in particular. Additionally, in this tradition, the paper will take on first-person narratives, allowing the author’s voice to be central.

Emerging findings include initial both isolation from classmates and the academic department, as well as an exploration of the role of mentoring that takes place between research participant (i.e. Black woman faculty member) and the doctoral student researcher. More specifically, the paper will outline how these experiences and relationships unexpectedly helped retain the author as a doctoral student. In turn, the author calls for more intentionality from doctoral student-faculty, and departments to encourage and prioritize culturally congruent and humanizing research from it’s students and attention to the nuanced racialized and gendered experiences that show up during research training and the overall process of academic preparation.

Author

• Khalia Ii, University of San Diego