The Heart of the Matter: Collective Healing and Freedom Through Intersectional Sisterhood Research Spaces

• In Event: “Between Shadow and Substance”: Examining What It Means to Move Toward Collective Freedom Through Methodologies

Abstract

Objectives. In her book, Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks (2015) asserted that self-actualization and self-recovery are integral elements in collective resistance. Guided by hooks’ (2015) approaches to liberation through sisterhood support groups, I created the Lavender Girls Project (LGP), a participatory study for and with Girls of Color, with the aim of fostering intersectional sisterhood research spaces where the Lavender Girls (i.e., the participants) were invited to interrogate the injustices they faced in schools, theorize about their experiences, and care for one another. This paper explores the development of five LGP sisterhood spaces and considers the possibilities for collective healing and freedom through intersectional methodologies.

Frameworks. Alice Walker (1984) laid the foundation for the development of womanism as an epistemological standpoint that is concerned not only with the liberation of Women of Color, but of all oppressed groups (Williams, 1986; Phillips, 2006). Womanism interrogates systems of power while centering the knowledge and experiences of Black women and Women of Color. It is essential to feminism as it calls for spaces where Women of Color can theorize and examine the harms they face from being socially located at the intersection of various forms of oppression (Crenshaw, 1989; Hill Collins, 1986). Alongside hooks’ (2015) conceptualization of political resistance through healing, I use womanism to understand the ways in which the LGP sisterhood spaces provided the Lavender Girls opportunities to critically examine their schooling experiences, heal on their own terms, and care for one another.

Data & Methods. Data for this paper come from LGP, a national study that I conducted in 2015-2018 across five Title I high schools with Girls of Color–Asian, Black, and Latina–who experienced school punishment and academic exclusion. The Lavender Girls participated in kitchen table talks at their respective schools where we engaged in discussions around their identity and the ways they participated academically in spite of not having safe spaces to learn. They also completed diagramming and writing activities that were guided by hooks’ (2015) approaches for intersectional ways of communicating where the artistic and creative elements of the sisterhood spaces encouraged the Lavender Girls “to experience a sense of belonging to others” (pg. 26). For this paper, I analyzed the instances where the Lavender Girls engaged in individual and collective self-healing, discussed political resistance, and demonstrated sisterhood solidarity.

Findings & Significance. Through my examination of the ways that the Lavender Girls developed intersectional sisterhood research spaces that were uniquely their own, I find that all LGP groups shared the following elements: (1) the Lavender Girls used story-telling as a primary mode of analysis and to theorize about their lived and academic experiences, (2) non-verbal expressions such as laughing and crying were integral to the ways that they processed their healing, and (3) their individual hopes and dreams often prioritized collective liberation and wellness. This paper offers methodological contributions to the ways that research spaces can be co-created to center the healing of participants, which has significant implications for making research more dignifying and liberating for all.

Author

• Shena Sanchez, University of Alabama