A Critical Reflection Recounting How Inner Voices Frequently are Conflicting Between Possibilities in Different Positionalities

• In Event: Book Talk: Walking Away: Refusing and Resisting Reactionary Curriculum Movements

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
The use of poetic performance narratives allows for a critical reflection of the paths taken as well as those eluded. Drawing upon the work of Espinosa-Dulanto (2018), this reflective piece offers glimpses of some of my inner voices that frequently are conflicting between what I do, what I want, and what I can do given my positionalities. This presentation portrays what happened internally in those instances in which I have to take stances, raise my voices, refused to be silenced, or turn around and walk away.
Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Schooling and academia are sites of violence and oppression, especially against those who don’t fit into the traditional molds, such as, the marginalized, the dissenting, the nonconformist to absurd and racialized norms. Schooling and academia are sites of indoctrination trying to extinguish our bodies of color through systematic dehumanizing practices (i.e. racist discourses, standardized decontextualized testing, westernized epistemologies, traditional methodologies, etc.), pushing us to establish “academic distance” (Chavez, 2012, p. 334), silencing experiential knowledge and individual and cultural experiences. The idea of objectivity prevails in the production of knowledge standards. Education systems tend to belittle experiential, cultural, and personal knowledge, particularly if it’s coming from Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). This disavowal engenders exclusion and discrimination against other ways of knowing and being furthering differences that enhance social constructs (i.e. race, class, gender roles, among others) and perpetuating stereotypes and widening the learning gap.
Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
Through poetic performance narratives (Espinosa-Dulanto, 2018), I render the internal confrontations/discussions/disagreements/compromises that my insubordinate personal identity has to bargain as the professional requirements and impositions of academia take place. In reflecting on these internal struggles, I gain a better understanding about how power and privilege forces play a role in my decision-making process for my scholarly work.
Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Keenly aware that personal experiences are as real as they are constructed (DeRocher, 2018) since they are interpreted with our subjectivity, I share these experiences as poetic performance narratives aiming at disrupting traditional ways of knowledge production. My identities and positionalities are in flux as I am constantly becoming.
Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
Acknowledging that I am constantly “otherized” because of my positionalities, I am attentive to what Atay (2018) describes: “we are perceived differently and are told how to speak, how to write, how to tell stories, and how to perform our identities within and outside of these academic homes” (p. 18.) This piece portrays what happened internally in those instances in which I have to take stances, raise my voices, refused to be silenced, or turn around and walk away.

Author

• Freyca Calderon-Berumen, Pennsylvania State University - Altoona