Girlfriends in the Academy: Sistahood Narratives of Black Female Doctoral Students

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

Abstract

Grounded in Black Feminism (Collins, 2002; Evans-Winters, 2019), four Black female doctoral students build on our sistahood to reveal one of the many ways we create strategies to persist in a system rooted in White supremacy. Inspired by the African-American sitcom Girlfriends, we use collaborative narrative ethnography to shed light on the Black woman experience. We present our findings in the form of “girl talk.” Seeing language as a discursive practice, we draw from songs, poems, films, and other texts to engage in ways that authentically reflect our lived experiences as Black women in academia (Evans-Winters, 2019; Haddix, 2012). We conclude in understanding and defining our role as citizen-scholars.

Authors

• Alexis Freeman, University of Florida

• D'Annette Mullen, University of Florida

• Tianna Dowie-Chin, University of Florida

• Alexandria Harvey, WestEd