“Are We Allowed to Read This, Y’all?”: Decolonizing Methodologies Amid Political Tensions in Texas

• In Event: Boots on the Ever-Shifting Ground: Engaging Critical Methodologies in Precarious Times

Abstract

In a doctoral course on research methods, I (Author1) was taken aback when one of my students raised their hand and questioned whether we were allowed to read a chapter about decolonizing methodologies. I didn’t quite know how to respond, uttering “I think so?” with slight worry that I would make it on the next headline in the Texas Tribune.

This experience and countless others have characterized the kind of tensions we, as Texas-based professors, have faced in the last several years as political turmoil has intensified around educational policy. We were forced to reckon with how we approach our research, teaching, and service amid the cultural wars that have stymied our vision of forming an equitable and just world.

Finding ourselves in not only a post-COVID era but also the battlegrounds of Texas and national “identity wars,” we grapple with how we frame our work as educators and scholars but ultimately as humans who need to (re)humanize spaces of learning together in communities. Such precarious times require us to reflect on our shared values and seek greater alignment between such values and our ongoing work, and how it can be sustained within the systems of the academy and beyond.

Amid such social, cultural, and political strife, we continue to move forward boldly, responding to critical issues for the public good. In modeling public discourse, transformative teaching, active service, and crucial research during uncertain times, we propose how continuing this spirit is the only way forward in a sustainable way. We light the beacons to subvert and resist by forming “an academic underground” of sorts–one that preserves our ongoing mission to work alongside the next generation of educational scholars who uphold the cultural identities of their families and communities. We double-down on the methodologies, epistemologies, and ontologies that fulfill this vision. From each of our unique perspectives, we collectively elevate the need to decolonize the very systems that attempt to control the ways we as scholar-practitioners engage in our work. Author1 brings a growing awareness of QuantCrit, which has the intent of raising the consciousness of inequities while challenging the “gold standards” of rigorous and evidence-based quantitative analyses. Author2 views research as a life-force grounded in dignity and respect. They combine decolonial methods, processes, and a public pedagogical celebration to capture the potential of community building and public learning (Masked, 2016). Author3 comes to this work through his lived experiences grounded in being displaced as a fourth-generation Palestinian while witnessing colonization first-hand and navigating through systems of oppression. Together, we share our constant state of being and becoming, offering “a problematization and critique of the known to create waves, muddy the waters, and raise storms in the hurricane”--a hurricane at the juxtaposition of our commitment to justice and the current political climate (Masked, accepted).

Authors

• Carlton J. Fong, Texas State University

• Miguel A. Guajardo, Texas State University

• Khalid Husny Arar, Texas State University