Professional and Epistemic Agency: Black Women Navigating the Academy, Leading Their Scholarship, and Critical Praxis

• In Event: Women of Color Faculty: Persisting in a Colonized Academy

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1993) is to examine the relationship between a university’s commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity, and the lived experiences of pre-tenured Black women faculty. The theoretical framework is informed by scholarship that broadly examines how power operates throughout institutions including: Black feminist thought, critical race theory, concepts from new institutionalism, and the concept of epistemic agency. The themes that emerged from our initial critical discourse analysis of the university- and college-level equity statements from one large research-intensive university in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States: performative allyship v. co-conspiratorship; interest-convergence; institutional power as an enabler and/or disruptor of systemic racism; and creating a safe and supportive environment.

Authors

• Marsha E. Modeste, The Pennsylvania State University

• Angel Miles Nash, Chapman University

• Nakia M Gray-Nicolas, Queens College-CUNY

• Lolita A. Tabron, University of Denver

• Linda C. Tillman, Loyola Marymount University