Pláticas as a Methodological Praxis of Love

• In Event: Chicana/Latina Feminista Pláticas in Educational Research: Pedagogy and Praxis

Abstract

Purpose
This study is a response to overwhelming statistics regarding child trauma (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016) and literature that named loving relationships as a pivotal but under-conceptualized intervention (Perry, 2007). Through engaging in three different iterations of Chicana Feminist pláticas my former high school students and I conceptualize love and ultimately offer that based on the definition, pláticas can serve as a method for cultivating and sustaining love.
Theoretical Framework
Pláticas as a methodology challenges research methods that are often steeped in epistemological racism (Scheurich & Young, 2007; Smith, 2013) that dehumanizes marginalized peoples. Smith (2013) historicizes this, sharing that “the term ‘research’ is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism” (p. 1). This history continues to be present, particularly as researchers have become interested in studying trauma and Students of Color. Overly clinical, and ahistorical understandings of trauma, coupled with “objective” research methods wielded by people who are not in community have led to “damage-centered narratives” (Tuck, 2009) which pathologize Students of Color. By contrast, the informal nature of pláticas coupled with the rigor of its five tenetsis a method that allows us to produce “desire-based narratives” (Tuck, 2009) through coming together to “produce knowledge emerging from [our] own experiences, facultad, consejos, spirituality, and testimonios” (Diaz Soto et al., 2009, p. 760).
Research Design, Data Sources
Guiding the research design of this study are pláticas, which as a methodology, have allowed us—my former students and I—to share memories, [traumatic] experiences, stories, ambiguities, and interpretations. Our data collection encompassed three different iterations of pláticas: group pláticas (see Freire & Valdez, 2017), individual pláticas (see Diaz Soto et al., 2009; Fierro & Delgado Bernal, 2016), and peer pláticas. Peer pláticas, intentionally honor the participants as researchers (Potts & Brown, 2005) by allowing participants to design and facilitate the plática themselves—apart from the gaze of the researcher.
Findings
Findings from this study reify love as “a political praxis of cultivating interdependence for the purpose of individual and collective survival, sustainability, well-being, healing, and joy” and that elements of love include “care, trust, empathy, accountability, safety, honesty, vulnerability, support, respect, commitment, and joy” (Hannegan-Martinez, 2020, p.#). Moreover, we found that by creating the conditions for participants to engage as researchers, the methodological process both illustrated respect and trust and allowed for participants to foster things like empathy, honesty, vulnerability, and care—all central tenets of love—with me and with one another. From these findings, we argue that based on the similarities between the five tenets of Chicana Feminist pláticas (Fierro and Delgado Bernal, 2016) and the aforementioned definition of love, that pláticas not only serve as a methodological praxis that challenges centuries of epistemological and methodological harm but also serve to foster the type of love that is integral to the well-being of our communities.

Significance
Schools continue to be sites of harm (Love, 2019) and educational research often causes and reifies that harm. In order to cultivate more equitable education systems, we need more love— not just in our pedagogies, but also in our research.

Author

• Sharim Hannegan-Martinez, University of Michigan