(Re)Braiding Cultural Intuition With Diaspora Sensibilities: Theorizing Our Experiences as Bilingual Educational Researchers

• In Event: Drawing on Funds of Knowledge to Engage in Research: Latina Scholars in an Intergenerational Dialogue

Abstract

In this paper we use testimonio as a methodology to examine how our personal, professional, and communal identities and lived experiences shape how we use Chicana/Latina feminist and Puerto Rican diaspora epistemology to build theory in
educational research (Delgado Bernal,1998, 2008; Delgado Bernal & Elenes, 2011; Espino, Muñoz, & Marquez Kiyama, 2010; Figueroa & Sánchez, 2008; Hidalgo, 2005, Rolón-Dow, 2010.) Three questions guide our testimonio writing process: First, what cultural resources and bodies of knowledge shape our researcher positionalities and the assumptions we make about theory and research? Second, how does cultural intuition guide our research--including what questions we ask, how we frame our research, and the methodologies we use? Third, how do we draw from multiple theoretical constructs anchored in Latino/a epistemologies
throughout our research process?

Our narrative research design is informed by the metaphorical concept of trenzas (braids). As noted by Coffey and Atkinson (1996), “metaphors are grounded in socially shared knowledge and conventional usage. Particular metaphors may help to identify cultural domains that are familiar…they express specific values, collective identities, shared knowledge, and common vocabularies” (p.86). Delgado Bernal (2008) explains the concept of trenzas in raced-gendered
epistemology: “A number of Chicana scholars have used trenza (braid) as a metaphor to make theoretical connections to something that is encoded with cultural meaning” (p.135). For example, Godinez (2006) describes trenzas as
a metaphorical term that refers to the multiple strands of identity that shape cultural ways of knowing and being. As an analytical tool, trenzas emphasizes intersectionality in relation to multiple strands of identity and the (inherent)
tensions and paradoxical relationships that exist when living and working within “in-between” spaces and places (physical and metaphorical), a concept that complements and extends Holland et al.’s (2001) discussion of identity from a sociocultural perspective.

We engage in a series of digital pláticas (dialogue/chats) to facilitate intergenerational dialogue and reciprocity as we write, share, and conduct a preliminary thematic narrative analysis of our testimonios (Chase, 2010; Riessman, 2008). We use digital pláticas and testimonios shared over a period of ten months as data sources to examine how our lived experiences and “trenzas
de identidades” influence how we construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct our approaches to educational research.

Our aim in this research process is to theorize how presenting our own lives allows us to produce and advance knowledge in innovative and meaningful ways that challenge and push us beyond our comfort zones. Our work is significant for the
development of processes grounded in individual and collective experiences which cultivate emerging and senior scholars’ efforts to critique, create, and expand on current educational theories. The implications of these testimonies for the academic job search process and life in academia for emerging and Senior Latina/o scholars will be discussed.

Authors

• Sandra Quinones, University of Rochester

• Carmen M. Martinez-Roldan, Teachers College, Columbia University