Critical Community Building and Belonging: Identifying Pedagogies of Resistance through a Collaborative Autoethnography

• In Event: Autoethnographies of Resistance: Reimagining Curriculum

Abstract

2025 has brought forth federal government initiatives, policies, and discourses that seek to explicitly and intentionally limit belonging, especially for those marginalized. Amidst this context, the authors of this study co-constructed and participated in a class on Critical Community Building and Belonging. The authors utilized collaborative autoethnography to explore personal and collective experiences related to belonging and community building when engaged in a social justice-oriented class on Critical Community Building and Belonging. This study asks: In what ways do classroom relationships, planned course texts, activities, rituals and discussions support experiences of community and belonging? And, how do those experiences of community and belonging help to foster spaces of resistance and critical transformation?

Authors

• Silvia Cristina Bettez, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Kathryn Pegram, UNCG