Telling My Truth: A Black Woman Scholar’s Journey Through Self-Inquiry and Storytelling in the Academy

• In Event: Shaking the Table: Centering the Voices of Identity Center Practitioners

Abstract

This deeply personal and reflective narrative chronicles the author’s journey as a Black woman scholar navigating the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual complexities of life in academia. Through storytelling (Schulte et.al., 2020), the author examines the intersections of race, gender, and professional identity while unpacking the toll of advocating for students in institutional spaces that often challenged the author’s values and questioned her belonging.
The purpose of the chapter was to share a truth—unfiltered and unapologetically—from the perspective of someone who was often expected to perform resilience without acknowledging the cost. Writing this chapter allowed the author to confront the silences carried, tensions absorbed, and the contradictions engaging in identity center work with marginalized identities. This offering is an honest account of these experiences, which affirms and amplifies the realities of those in identity center work in higher education.
The theoretical foundation of this work is grounded in Afrocentricity, Africana Womanism (Dove, 1998), and intersectionality (Coaston, 2019). These foundations remind us that the personal is political and that Black women’s lived experiences are a rich, legitimate source of knowledge. Furthermore, this theoretical framing centers emotion, spirituality, memory, and care within academic writing—elements too often dismissed or devalued in traditional scholarship.
This self-inquiry began with reflective journaling and was shaped by ongoing memory work and periods of intentional stillness. Throughout this process, storytelling served as both a method and a means of meaning: a way to reclaim voice, resist erasure, and affirm presence in a space that diminishes the labor and humanity of Black women scholars.
Key takeaways from this process include the necessity of honoring one’s truth, the power of narrative to make meaning out of pain, and the importance of protecting one’s emotional well-being while doing this work. The author illuminates the strength found in vulnerability, identifying it as a form of resistance and healing. For others interested in storytelling work, particularly Black and Brown women in academia, the process offers a model of writing from the inside out—writing that centers wholeness, dignity, and self-definition.
In this presentation, the author will share the emotional and methodological tensions encountered while writing the chapter, how these challenges were negotiated, and the key offerings of this work. Ultimately, this presentation affirms the contributions of identity center practitioners and the ways that self-inquiry is not just an act of scholarship—it is an act of survival, healing, and transformation.
Coaston, J. (2019, May 28). The intersectionality wars. Vox Media. Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-l aw-race-gender-discrimination
Dove, N. (1998). African womanism: An Afrocentric theory. Journal of Black Studies, 28(5), 515–539. https://doi.org/10.1177/002193479802800501

Author

• Dana Murray Patterson, Wingate University