Towards Black Women’s Embodiment of Liberatory Emotional Justice in the Academy

• In Event: Critical Epistemologies and Methodologies: Reclaiming Knowledge, Story, and Belonging Across Educational Spaces

Abstract

In this paper, we advance the concept of Liberatory Emotional Justice by drawing from a qualitative case study that explored Black women graduate students’ experiences at a historically white institution. Grounded in our study’s findings, we argue for an expansive vision and radical acceptance of emotionality in the Academy that encompasses Black women’s epistemologies and ontologies. The paper begins by examining and contesting the Eurocentric and patriarchal norms that broadly construct U.S. cultural conceptions of ‘emotion.’ Drawing from the voices of participants in our study and of seminal and contemporary Black Feminist theorists, scholars. and poets, we call for institutions to embrace an expansive idea of authenticity and emotionality that advances liberatory possibilities for Black women’s existence in the Academy.

Authors

• Renée Wilmot, Michigan State University

• Dorinda Carter Andrews, Michigan State University