Theorizes Muxerista Femtorship through collective writing, pláticas, and convivencia to resist spirit murder in academia.

• In Event: Beyond Mentoring: Muxerista, Feminista, and Black Feminist Approaches to Femtorship

Abstract

Objectives:
We aim to re-imagine and theorize mentoring relationships in academia that are grounded in women of color feminisms. As Muxerista femtors and femtees, our goal is to cause important interventions and shifts in the educational pipeline. We understand that the work we do today is both for the seven generations that came before us and the seven generations that come after us, so our collective hope is to continue to create intergenerational Muxerista femtors. Evolving as a mechanism to combat spirit murder (Williams, 1987) and the fear and terror present in academia, we theorize and offer muxerista femtorship as a praxis that repositions individualism to collectivism.
Theory
We build on this legacy from a Chicana Feminist Epistemological (CFE) perspective that is grounded in the historical legacies, life experiences, and resiliency of Chicanas. (Author, 1998). CFE refers to the system of knowledge production founded on our understanding and view of the world. CFE aims to recover the untold histories and resist epistemological racism by centering the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the knowledge produced through the experiences and realities of people of color. (Author, 558).

Methods:

Our methodological approach emerges from CFE and centers embodied knowledge, pláticas, and convivencia. A convivencia approach is about living together, forging relationships, creating union, and being aware of our “mutual humanity” within the research process (Trinidad Galvan, 2015). Pláticas are culturally grounded conversations that are grounded in relationships of mutual sharing, teaching, and learning that are built on convivencia (Author, 20XX). Thus, we employ these approaches to theorize individual and collective experiences in relationship to navigating the academy and disrupting dominant narratives of mentoring.

Data Sources:

The data sources include audio recordings and transcripts of conference presentations and pláticas with a wide range of audience members. The data also include transcripts of pláticas that occurred over three years via video conferencing and in-person meetings. These data interweave our individual and collective experiences navigating academic spaces with our cultural intuition (Author, 1998) and convivencia to conceptualize muxerista femtorship.

Findings:

The findings draw from our experiences, directly placing our narrative voice in research as central subjects that can provide first-hand exposure and analysis of our experiences of resistance within education (Author, 1998). These findings compose our conceptualization of muxerista femtorship as a praxis grounded in collective healing, reciprocal care, and refusal of institutional violence. We outline four principles of muxerista femtorship:

1) holders and creators of knowledge
To honor all identities, herstories, experiences, cultures, sexualities, and languages of students of color in academic settings.

2) el mundo zurdo
To affirm a queer, contradictory space of survival and imagination.

3) convivencia
To promote belonging, compassion, and authenticity within reciprocal relationships.

4) spirit restoration
To center femtorship as everyday healing and visionary world-building

Scholarly Significance:

Muxerista femtorship unsettles Europatriarchal mentorship paradigms rooted in individualism and competition by foregrounding community, embodied knowledge, and collective accountability. The praxis of muxerista femtorship is cultivating intergenerational roots through spirit protection, spirit restoration, and survivorship.

Authors

• Anita Tijerina Revilla, California State University - Los Angeles

• Dolores Delgado Bernal, Loyola Marymount University

• Diana Ponce, University of California - San Francisco

• Katherine E Batanero, California State University - Los Angeles

• Cythia Alonso, California State University - Los Angeles