Returning Back to Love: A Black Graduate Student's Autoethnographic Journey With the Theory of Intersectionality

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Hollar If You Hear Me: Supporting Doctoral Students Through Their Academic Journey

Abstract

Recently, intersectionality has grown into an academic buzzword and terminological signal for critical inquiry. Yet, because of its overuse and misusage within higher educational contexts, intersectionality has taken many theoretical variations and has become “whitewashed” within scholarship. So, what does this mean for graduate students who desire to learn and use this critical theory? To explore this question, the author uses an auto-ethnographic approach to narrate, examine, and connect their academic experiences as a graduate student of color with the theory of intersectionality and grapples with the tensions of the academic culture surrounding the [mis]use of intersectionality as a critical theory.

Author

• Lashawn Washington, University of Wisconsin - Madison