Intersectionality as Inquiry & Praxis: Ethical Research, Liberatory Possibilities & Impact for AfroLatino/Black Latino Communities

• In Event: Visualizing AfroLatinos/Black Latinos in Education Research: Illuminating Complex Inequities for Policy and Practice

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes: How can we challenge prevailing inverted epistemologies and epistemologies of ignorance in the analysis of educational institutional data? What are the possibilities of tearing up and eliminating the Racial Contract (Mills 1997) and accompanying inverted epistemologies that contribute to the erasure of Black Latinx people? How could adopting QuantCrit and intersectionality as inseparable ethical normative principles for creating a way forward for equity minded research that centers the experiences of Black Latinxs? The purpose of this paper is to engage in creating a space for possibilities of making the education research responsive to the needs of AfroLatino communities. 2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: The theoretical framework is one that is guided by the Black Latinas Know Collective (2019), Charles Mills (2013) and the urgency of illuminating Blackness as well as Collins (2019) intersectionality as inquiry and praxis. 3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: The methods of inquiry include 4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials: Data from the National Archives as well as secondary quantitative institutional data. 5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view: We engage in what Gina Garcia (2023) calls freedom dreaming and making visible the experiences of AfroLatinx students and communities in education research as a moral imperative. 6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work: “Although the ‘masters’ may have meant for scientific words to be used in one way, reclaiming scientific tools and recasting them for different purposes can benefit both science and subordinated groups (Collins 1998:123).” Our collective research team provide concrete examples of how to create alternative lines of inquiry, quantitative and qualitative data collection, analysis and reporting that make visible the experiences and outcomes of Black Latinx students and communities for impact. We hope to contribute to a lifelong praxis and theory-building that advances what Collins calls “flexible solidarity” and centering the margins of Black Latinidad in knowledge production and equity-minded policy and practice (Collins 2019; Dinzey-Flores et al., 2019; Baca Zinn and Zambrana, 2019; Crenshaw 1995).

Authors

• Nancy López, University of New Mexico

• Yasmiyn Irizarry, University of Texas at Austin

• Edward Vargas, Arizona State University

• Ricardo H. Lowe, University of Texas at Austin

• Joaquin Arguello, University of New Mexico

• Shania Montufar, University of Texas at Austin

• Sharan Mehta, University of New Mexico

• Shannon Aguirre, University of Texas at Austin