How to Be an Antiracist...Researcher: Developing and Implementing the Antiracist Research Audit Tool

• In Event: Explicitly Antiracist Research: Exploring Possibility and Necessity

Abstract

Ideologies of domination and erasure are deeply embedded in higher education systems, which presents a pernicious challenge to researchers seeking to engage in anti-racist and decolonial praxis within these spaces (Eagle Shield et al., 2021; Tuck & Yang, 2012). Therefore, combatting racism and colonialism in higher education requires both the ability and the willingness to engage in (a) critical self-reflection about one’s complicity in this ideology and (b) transformative action to slow, halt, and reverse this complicity on interpersonal, intrapersonal, and systems levels (Eagle Shield, et al., 2021; Tatum, 2018; Tuhiwai-Smith, 1999). Yet, we cannot use the tools of white supremacy to dismantle it (Lorde, 1984).
Our research team crafted the Anti-Racist Research Audit Tool (ARRAT) to help university-based researchers in their roles as teachers, mentors, and knowledge producers conduct research that will shape the perceptions of future scholars, policymakers, and leaders, as well as the communities they conduct research on (and with). This audit invites researchers to reflect on the ways assimilation into white hegemonic norms critically undergirds the methods we use to create, utilize, and disseminate research-based knowledge. It is designed to prompt reflection at the individual level for action at the organizational level and, ultimately, change at the systems level, modeled on Freire’s (1970) praxis.
We briefly retrace the footprints of racism and colonialism in higher education and outline the three major theories the tool is informed by: critical race (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Yosso, 2005), decolonial (Patel, 2016; Tuck & Yang, 2012; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999), and racial identity development theories (Helms, 2008). Then, we describe the development of the ARRAT, including reflections in our positionalities as doctoral students and our journeys as anti-racist/decolonial researchers. We then offer an analysis of a pilot implementation of the ARRAT through feedback we received from student-researcher and researcher colleagues related to developing critical consciousness; publishing, presenting, and dissemination; and teaching, mentoring, and advising in research. Finally, we conclude with suggestions for future implementation of the tool and reflections on the importance of anti-racist and decolonial praxis within higher education. Participants will have the opportunity to examine the ARRAT and consider potential uses in their own research and teaching.

Authors

• Melissa DeLury, George Mason University

• Nicholas R. Sherwood, George Mason University

• Cecilia Vaughn-Guy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign