Success in the Shadow: Critical Duoethnography of Learning, Refusal, and Resistance

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Friendships and Collaboration: Self-Study Journeys of Friendship, Dialogue, and Resistance

Abstract

This critical duoethnography explores how a Diné scholar and a Thai-Lao scholar refuse settler pedagogies through memory, relational accountability, and place-based reflection. Drawing on Indigenous and decolonial frameworks, we revisit a critical incident of institutional harm and reinhabit campus spaces through walking, dialogue, and photography. Our analysis centers on two themes: learning as a relational and resistant act, and success as something forged in the shadows of white academic expectations. Using transcribed conversations, artifacts, and images, we disrupt dominant narratives of learning that demand assimilation. This work contributes to critical discussions on race, epistemic violence, and refusal in higher education by affirming memory, land, and co-becoming as valid and necessary sites of knowledge.

Authors

• Charlton Long, Arizona State University

• Tipsuda Chaomuangkhong, Arizona State University