Solidarity on the Screen and Six Feet Apart? DisCrit Mothering Amid Multiple Social Crises

• In Event: DisCrit Mothering: Interrogating Consequential Education for Our Children's Lives and Humanity

Abstract

Purpose
In justice movements, solidarity means showing up for the humanity of others (Cabral et al., 2022; Eagle Shield et al., 2020). This paper explores DisCrit mothering as a form of solidarity with children and families dehumanized by ableism and racism. As three motherscholars (Matias, 2022), who occupy varying spaces of privilege/marginalization in the academy, we reflect on our attempts to support our communities through DisCrit mothering, especially amid a global pandemic, uprisings for racial justice, and ongoing climate crises. As we encountered physical distance from our children’s learning communities, we asked: What might solidarity look like? To answer this question, we share how we attempted solidarity from a distance.

Theoretical Framework
We drew on Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit, Annamma et al., 2013) and revolutionary mothering (Gumbs et al., 2016). DisCrit tenet 1 exposes how ableism and racism co-define normalcy in educational settings (Annamma, 2018) and tenet 6 highlights how whiteness and ability function as property (Leonardo & Broderick, 2011). Revolutionary mothering emphasizes, “nurture[ing] the lives of those children who are not supposed to exist…who are revolutionary in their very beings” (Gumbs et al., 2016, p. 20) through sociopolitical consciousness about the realities of dehumanizing educational systems (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2002). Together, these perspectives afforded reflection on how we might resist ableist-racist schooling practices as motherscholars, teach our children to be in solidarity with other multiply-marginalized communities, and recognize the manifestations of white supremacy and ableism in our mothering.

Methods & Data Sources
We employ collaborative ethnographic mother-writing (Bhattacharya, 2017; Juhasz, 2003; Sotirin, 2010), attending to how we mother our children and how we have been mothered structurally and ideologically. We included the perspectives of our children and community members (Nishi & Montoya, 2018) through racializing assemblages (Weheliye, 2014). Data sources include digital communication, child-created artifacts (i.e., writing/drawings), and communal recollections. Finally, the writing of this paper was also an analytic tool (Richardson, 2000), as themes crystallized through sharing our recollections alongside literature and theory.

Findings
Three themes arose from vignettes detailing our attempts to build solidarity through DisCrit mothering in 2020: resistance, failure, and silence. First, Author UK shares a moment in which she resisted the racialization of her young multilingual Black son via an educator’s suspicions of a disability. Second, Author NW reflects on failure to support her white preschool child, his peers, and his teachers in countering racist-ableist messages surrounding George Floyd’s murder and the Movement for Black Lives. Finally, Author NE, illustrates how shifting parameters around school safety impacted her ability to advocate for and protect her multiethnic child from racialization and deficit framings of non-White bodies during mock Trump/Biden elections at school.

Significance
As motherscholars, we have witnessed how critical analyses of racism and ableism within education can support the needs and growth of teachers and learners, as necessary forms of solidarity amid multiple social crises. Here, we foreground how DisCrit mothering can allow for this work to include families, with particular attention to how they are dis/encouraged from engaging.

Authors

• Maggie Beneke, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• María Cioè-Peña, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author

• Valentina Migliarini, University of Birmingham
  Presenting Author