Cultivating Culturally Sustainable Education - Reclaiming Ancestral Knowledge through Counter-Narrative

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday II)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Histories, journeys, and social issues: decolonizing African education

Proposal

In this roundtable session, we will we will share how we generate culturally sustaining educational spaces by combining the use of counter-narrative, auto-ethnography, and contemplative educational practice. We cultivate authentic cultural discovery through story and community building. In our research and educational practice, we develop personal counter-narratives to dominant hegemonic norms with ourselves and students in order to generate spaces of healing, especially for women identified people of color. Our identities have historically been distorted through objectifying outside lenses which have neglected to recognize our intersectional identities, those of us who live in predominantly white spaces, often experience our stories placed in the margins. Through personal narratives, we encourage women of color to place themselves in the center, by paying homage to their ancestor’ journeys through remembered knowledge or learned history. By creating a space that acknowledges ancestral wisdom, we generate cultural connections, encourage self-love and the uplifting of black and brown women. Through collective sharing, we seek to dismantle the dominance of white supremacy in our writing and theoretical framework to build counter-narratives as women of color in academia. In our workshop model, we seek to create space for calling on our ancestors to guide us, remembering their contribution to our continual growth, and journeying collectively to build strength. This work comes out of our own personal lived experiences as black women of the African diaspora, centered in intersectionality theory, combining autoethnographic and counter-narrative methodologies with contemplative educational practice. We utilize writing and visual arts to share in the beauty, challenges, and good vibes of each other’s stories.

Authors

• Serian Jeng, Miami University

• Dominique M. Brown, Miami University