Resisting the Master Narrative: Utilizing the Path of Conocimiento to Uncover Tensions in Teaching Research Courses

• In Event: Anzaldúan-Informed Pedagogies in Higher Education: Corridos, Research Methods, Ethnic Studies, and Beyoncé

Abstract

Objective: Rooted in western ideologies of white supremacy, research courses can be particularly difficult classes to teach for Women of Color who strive to dismantle the historically exclusionary master narrative (Gutiérrez y Muhs et al., 2012; Smith, 2012). We situate ourselves as Chicanas/Latinas who embody complex, colonizing/colonized identities, living and working within a broader settler colonial context that normalizes western ideologies. To resist westernized research methodologies, we center our cultural intuition and discuss the realities and tensions of teaching research methods courses as critically conscious Chicanas committed to anticolonial practices (Delgado Bernal, 1998). We utilize the path of conocimiento (Anzaldúa, 2002) to analyze our own testimonios (Latina Feminist Group, 2001) in teaching research to help us make sense of the response/push back from students.

Theoretical Framework: As Chicanas/Latinas in higher education, we see our role as educators as integral and connected to a broader social movement of anticolonial practices in teaching, research, community organizing, and activism. In particular, as scholars who find life and meaning in the works of Anzaldúa, we are both navigating our own paths of conocimiento (form of critical consciousness) as we continue our journey as educators. In utilizing the path of conocimiento, we acknowledge how “conocimiento is not one thing, or one level that can be achieved; rather, it is the dynamic and engaging negotiation between resistance and movimiento” (Gaxiola Serrano et al., 2017, p. 4). We ourselves continue to straddle the various spaces in the path of conocimiento in our journeys, learning and growing as both people and scholars.

Methods and Data Sources: In this paper, we utilized testimonio (De Nicolo et al., 2015; Delgado Bernal et al., 2012; Latina Feminist Group, 2001; Saavedra, 2011) as a pedagogical tool that helps uncover and illustrate the challenges that we but also other Chicanas and Latinas face within colonial institutions. Specifically, we share a co-written testimonio to highlight both our experiences teaching research methods, but furthermore the collective struggle that Women of Color and Indigenous Women face in academia when engaged in anticolonial work.

Results and/or Substantiated Findings: Our testimonio illustrates the challenges that we face as educators going up against western ideologies within research, in particular how students face an arrebato (clash of realities) and nepantla (navigating in between spaces) when encountered with research methodologies that differ from their worldviews. Most notably, the biggest challenge stems from the idea that research is neither neutral nor objective--an idea that stands in stark contrast to how we traditionally learn what research is.

Significance: As Chicana/Latina educators working within the structures of academia, we offer our experiences and testimonios in teaching critical research to students who find themselves traversing different spaces in the path of conocimiento. By shaping our teaching and mentoring to include vulnerability, resources, and modeling we might be better prepared to meet the needs of students who are in a process of self transformation.

Authors

• Socorro Morales, University of Texas at San Antonio

• Tanya J Gaxiola Serrano, University of Texas at San Antonio