Expanding Affirming Methodologies as a Diasporic-Affirming Methodology in the U.S. Academy

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 7:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Re/membering Beyond the Settler Colonial Academy: Methods Rooted in and for Ancestral Knowledges

Abstract

Objective:
To move beyond Eurocentric, dominant epistemologies, Nakhid et al. (2022) offer an Affirming Methodologies framework that centers on and values practices that affirm a Caribbean way of being and knowing, while also affirming other ways of knowing with which we come into contact. Inspired by Affirming Methodologies as a U.S. Caribbean Latina scholar, I developed the Jangueo Methodology as an extension of the Liming Methodology (Fernandez Santana, 2020; Nakhid, 2021), an Affirming Methodology (Nakhid, 2022; Santiago-Santiago et al., 2025). In doing so, I expand on Affirming Methodologies through a diasporic lens and introduce a Diasporic-Affirming Methodologies framework. A Diasporic-Affirming Methodology incorporates the diasporic Caribbean way of being and knowing while affirming the Caribbean archipelago as a site of knowledge production.
Framework:
Diasporic-Affirming Methodologies framework articulates a Caribbean identity that references how we engage with each other through birthplace and parentage. Within the Caribbean diaspora, relationships are essential to our ability to build and thrive outside of our ancestral homelands. Thus, developing relationships is prioritized within the Diasporic-Affirming Methodologies, creating “climates that build and sustain Caribbean accomplishments” (Nakid-Chatoor & Butcher-Lashley, 2022, p. 28). Diasporic-Affirming Methodologies engages with the impact of being migrants and immigrants, and existing in a diaspora within a Western society, such as the U.S. It aims to center local and indigenous practices from the Caribbean and its diaspora, rather than on the periphery of dominant Eurocentric Western epistemologies and methodologies.
Diasporic-Affirming Methodologies center on the strength, power, and uniqueness of Caribbean diasporic ways of knowing and being (local/indigenous knowledge), allowing the voices of the Caribbean diaspora to be heard. It acknowledges and recognizes the indigenous/localized experiences, as well as our shared spaces and practices. Embracing a diasporic way of knowing also means not adhering to notions of a neutral and distant researcher and the researched (Nakhid et al., 2019). In addition, it requires an understanding of how Caribbean diasporic “histories have shaped and developed knowledge” unique to the knowledge producers’ ancestral homelands (Nakhid, 2022, p. 1). A Diasporic-Affirming Methodologies framework allows for U.S. Caribbean researchers to (1) create opportunities for centering the voices of the Caribbean diaspora, (2) focus on the value of the ways of knowing and doing from the Caribbean archipelago and the diaspora, and (3) push back against the dominant research paradigms from the Global North by centering relationality and community.
Why Diasporic-Affirming Methodology?
In mobilizing Diasporic-Affirming Methodologies, I honor Caribbean ways of knowing and being, as well as the impact of colonization and imperialism, to create methodologies unique to the Caribbean diasporas' worlds and lived realities. I employ "theoretical frameworks intrinsic to Caribbean social and historical authenticities," allowing for more accurate knowledge of the U.S. Caribbean Latine diasporic experience (Nakhid et al., 2019, p. 6). Ultimately, in embracing a Diasporic-Affirming Methodologies framework, my research is aligned with the “with a politics of resistance, hope and freedom” (Denzin, Lincoln & Tuhiwai, 2008, p. 15) of the Caribbean and other oppressed communities within and outside of the U.S. Empire (Nakid-Chatoor & Butcher-Lashley, 2022).

Author

• Luz Nereida Burgos-Lopez, University of Connecticut