Black Girl Chosen Space as a Site of Return, Relationality, and (Re)Emerging Truths

• In Event: Pursuing Truths and Enacting Change: Educational Research in Chosen Spaces

Abstract

Objectives
Much education research focuses on Black youth and education. However, the majority of these studies do not center the learning experiences of Black girls despite their forced navigation of the dual terrain of antiblackness and sexism in schools. In this paper, I build with Indigenous and and Black understandings of relationality (e.g. Simpson, 2017; Gumbs, 2020) to center relationality (i.e. the construction of care and community) in Black girls’ and women’s navigational practices in education. The ethnographic study this paper draws on explores “Chapter 517,” a group of Black women advocates, educators, and creatives, and how they co-create a chosen learning space to sustain Black feminist ways of knowing through their relationships with one another that have existed for 15-20 years. This paper examines Black girls’ and women’s chosen spaces as a place of return, reimagining, and (re)emerging truths.

Theoretical framework
This paper draws on Black feminist theories of “illegibility” of Black women and girls in the context of the U.S., Black girls’ navigational practices (Butler, 2018), and their shared relationships of love and care (Hill Collins, 2009). This paper brings these theories into conversation with notions of chosen spaces (Moore & Paris, 2021) and educational consent (Simpson, 2014) to explore how Black girls render each other legible (i.e. worthy of care, protection, and support) via their friendships and bonds through the chosen spaces they create.

Methods
This study utilized arts-based (Barone & Eisner, 2012), participatory action (Fals-Borda, 1991), and humanizing ethnographic research methods (Paris & Winn, 2014) with a group of five Black women over the course of four months. Participants engaged in arts-based practices during interviews and small group dialogues, while also co-creating a chosen learning space to reflect on their educational journeys and imagine more justice-based learning experiences for Black girls.

Data sources
Data sources for this study include field notes and transcripts of audio recordings from “Chapter 517” group sessions, one-on-one interviews with participants, and samples of participants’ poetry, collages, and related artistic artifacts created throughout the study.

Results
One central finding from this study is that relationships of care and support amongst Black girls is a navigational practice that helps them to survive compulsory (K-12) learning settings and their dehumanizing practices. Secondly, chosen spaces encourage Black women and girls to subvert dominant ways of knowing and being, advocate for change in their lives and communities, and hold space for each other to thrive.

Scholarly significance
This study reveals that much can be learned about the ethics of consent and refusal in educational research from chosen Black girl learning spaces that are designed with relationality in mind. The navigational practice that is Black girls’ and women’s relationships of care and trust with one another offers a model for imagining other ways of living and being in relation with others across learning contexts, and insight on how to develop more culturally sustaining learning spaces for Black girls.

Author

• Jazmen Moore, University of Washington
  Presenting Author