Black Women in Qualitative Research: Redistributing Power to the StoryTeller

• In Event: Me-Search and We-Search: Using Qualitative Research to Develop Scholarly Voice

Abstract

The interest and value I find in qualitative research are entrenched in my sense of being and social location as a Black, cisgender, woman, doctoral candidate in Higher Education. Reared in the often touted multicultural city of Miami, Florida, I quickly understood the bearings of “outsider within” status as I navigated communal, educational, and professional social structures that offered access, yet, limited my laboratory existence (Collins, 1986). The realities of my hyper-visible, yet invisible Black gendered body is central to how I experience and understand the world and informs how I engage in research alongside communities. Rooted in the wheelhouse of Black Feminism (Collins, 2002), Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1990; Collins & Blige, 2020) and Critical Race Feminism (Anzaldúa, 1987) qualitative research offers a process to understand and tell disruptive stories which acknowledge the influence of an interlocking system of oppression. These scholarly offerings support the expansion of stories from being solely people specific to incorporate the broader function of systems in the everyday lives of people. My research centers on the experiences of Black women in higher education, which requires the acknowledgment of inequitable structures and their dependency on each other to maintain power. Qualitative approaches enhance the ability to redistribute power to the storyteller(s) and embraces the utilization of music, sista, and community circles, conversations, journals, and other sources as oppositional knowledge. In them, the research process can function as a site of restoration, healing, and transformation for those involved and beyond.

Author

• Brittany Brewster, Florida State University