Feminista Pláticas as a Methodological Disruption: Drawing Upon Embodied Knowledge, Vulnerability, Healing, and Resistance

• In Event: Rupturing the White Gaze: Centering Chicana/Latina Feminista Methodologies and Epistemologies in Qualitative Research

Abstract

Objectives
Pláticas have a long trajectory in the lives of Chicana/Latina feminists and other Women of Color feminist circles that have engaged dialogue and community building as central to organizing and activist efforts. Though pláticas are a familiar cultural practice within Latina/o/x families, our understandings of pláticas are guided by Chicana/Latina feminist frameworks that add a feminist sensibility to how we engage with pláticas both personally but also within our academic work. Through a discussion of emotions, language, and the relationship between feminista pláticas and testimonio, we illustrate how this methodology can be used to heal from and resist traditional research approaches that are rooted in whiteness, colonial logics, and white supremacy. We build on the contributions made by Chicana/Latina scholars that have written explicitly about the methodology of pláticas in research (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016; Flores & Morales, 2022; Flores Carmona et al., 2021; Gonzalez, 2001; Hamzeh et al., 2020).

Theoretical Framework & Methods
As four Chicana researchers and scholars, we are each drawn to Chicana/Latina feminisms because of the ways that it speaks to our ontologies, epistemologies, and how we perceive and make sense of the world. Furthermore, as academics, we seek and are drawn to theoretical and methodological approaches in research that allow us to express our whole selves, while at the same time push us to be accountable not to the institutions that we work for, but rather the communities that we seek to build with. In critiquing and combating dominant research paradigms and approaches, we align ourselves with the long herstory of feminists and particularly Women of Color who have disrupted (and continue to disrupt) research that demands the split of our body and spiritual selves from the work that matters to us (Calderón et al., 2012; Lara, 2005). Reflecting on who we are and our positionality is a constant process that requires us to be vulnerable, open, and transparent about what brings us to our research. Indeed, a plática methodology is shaped by the positionality, the power relations, and all the identities a researcher brings to the research process. We are transparent and continue the reciprocity other Chicanas/Latinas have modeled in sharing who we are and our use of pláticas.

Findings & Scholarly Significance
The findings theorize how Chicana/Latina feminist pláticas are a methodological disruption that forefront our theories in the flesh, requiring vulnerability, bringing in our wholistic selves to the research process, and providing opportunities for healing and resistance. Specifically, we consider how the concept of bodymindspirit (Lara, 2005), a form of theorizing in the flesh, asks us to center our emotions that carry embodied knowledge. We examine how a plática methodology can create a linguistic disruptive space where the hegemony of the English language is challenged. Lastly, we discuss the relationship between pláticas and testimonio as standalone and collaborative methodologies that forefront healing and resistance. Our goal is to provide scholars with a more comprehensive understanding of a feminista plática methodology, as well as underscore areas to be further explored.

Authors

• Socorro Morales, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona

• Alma Itzé Flores, California State University - Sacramento

• Tanya J. Gaxiola Serrano, San Diego State University

• Dolores Delgado Bernal, Loyola Marymount University