Testimonio: Accounting for Complexity of Human Life, Dimensions of Power, and Vulnerable Self-Reflexivity

• In Event: Me-Search and We-Search: Using Qualitative Research to Develop Scholarly Voice

Abstract

I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, and my early childhood was spent in Mexico. Thus, most of my life has been spent on either side of the U.S./Mexican border—mostly right alongside of it. This is a metaphor of how I have lived most of my life. I grew up thinking I was neither fully Mexican nor fully American: like an outsider, regardless of the community in which I found myself (Collins, 1986).
It would make sense, then, that I leaned into Chicana feminist theories, like Anzaldúa’s (1987, 2015) borderlands theory and Coyolxauhqui imperative and Chicana feminist epistemologies (Delgado Bernal, 1998). I draw strength and agency from the margin—a radical site of new possibilities (Anzaldúa, 1987; hooks, 1989).
My testimonio wills me to challenge White supremacist research conventions. I see storytellers as experts and partners in the research process, contributors throughout the analytical and reporting process (Delgado Bernal, 2002; Wilson, 2008). I reconcile my own lived history in relationship to the storytellers and make space for my own vulnerabilities (Jones et al., 2014). Approached in this way, qualitative research is counterhegemonic, creating opportunities for more sophisticated research designs that account for the complexity of human life, for dimensions of power, and for vulnerable self-reflexivity (Matias, 2012).

Author

• Estee Hernández, National Louis University