Liberating Research: Using Art-based Methods with Undocumented and Immigration-Impacted Students

• In Event: Arts-Based Approaches for Expanding Methodological Terrain

Abstract

Hegemonic research methods have long devalued marginalized communities by treating their experiences as objects of study rather than knowledge sources. Informed by indigenous methodological practices and feminist scholars of color who prioritize storytelling as knowledge production, this paper reflects on our efforts to use art-based methodology to create a healing and liberatory research space for undocumented and immigration-impacted students. We share how scrapbooking pláticas [chats] and tejido [weaving] poetry are counter-disciplinary practices that elicit rich, embodied knowledge while honoring collective memory and creating healing spaces. By centering relationality, cultural expression, and creative resistance, these methods "unforget" radical traditions of community-based knowledge production and "imagine futures" where research becomes a liberation tool rather than regulatory mechanism, directly engaging the conference theme.

Authors

• Laura E. Enriquez, University of California - Irvine

• Giovanna Itzel, University of California - Irvine