Toward a Diasporic Womanist Methodology: Bridging Academia, Community, and Justice

• In Event: Global and Transnational Sociology Section Open Call Paper Session

Abstract

This paper explores the key components of a diasporic womanist methodology and how researchers can apply this approach to bridge academia and community. There are four central components of a womanist method: centering histories and lived realities, engaging in a dialogical research process, practicing reflexivity, and fostering healing and justice. At the center of these processes are womanist tenets such as wholeness, self-naming, and self-definition. The paper illustrates these processes through an ethnographic study that examines the reproductive health experiences of Indo-Caribbean women, alongside the work of scholars who have applied womanist methodologies across various disciplines. This paper discusses how researchers can foster collaboration with communities, center their authentic experiences, and support their healing, while pursuing justice. This paper ends with a call for a deep interrogation of how conventional research methodologies often reproduce inequities and power imbalances between researchers and communities.

Author

• Tannuja Rozario, Everytown for Gun Safety