Entre Cartas y Mapas: Exploring Spatial Belonging of Rural Latinx Graduate Students

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Latinx Graduate Pathways in STEM and Beyond: Mapping Belonging, Capital, and Cultural Persistence

Abstract

Research on rural Latinx students remains underexplored, particularly for those attending graduate education. Contextually, access to graduate education for rural students is absent, which requires them to move away from their rural communities. This study examines the role of rurality and spatial belonging in graduate school for rural Latinx graduate students in a research intensive school of education in California. Drawing from Critical Race Spatial Analysis (CRSA) and Chicana Feminist Epistemologies (CFEs), the study analyzes forms of marginalization and subordination experienced at the intersections of rurality, Latinidad, and graduate education. The study utilizes epistolary mapping as a collaborative methodological extension of CRSA to triangulate maps, letters, and collective knowledge in a culturally intimate fashion amongst two rural Latinx graduate students.

Authors

• Marlene Lopez Torres, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Carlos A Fitch, University of California - Santa Barbara