An Exploratory Study of the Ways Black Women Graduate Students Navigate Epistemic Violence

• In Event: Research In Progress Roundtables Session 4
  In Invited Roundtable: Student and Educator Identity Development: Ecological Systems, Self-Efficacy, and Community Counterspaces (Table 9)

Abstract

This study explores how Black women graduate students navigate and resist epistemic violence in historically white academic spaces. Drawing on critical discourse Analysis and autoethnography, the research examines how Black women describe their experiences of intellectual marginalization, racialized barriers, and gendered oppression in graduate school. It investigates how they conceptualize and respond to epistemic violence, including forms of intellectual invalidation, stereotype threats, and microaggressions. The study also explores their acts of resistance, emphasizing solidarity, using critical theories, and the reclamation of scholarly agency. Ultimately, this research aims to contribute to understanding how Black women in higher education cope with systemic silencing and marginalization while asserting their intellectual presence and advancing their academic goals.

Author

• Kahlea Hunt-Khabir, University of Maryland