"Disruption, Interruption, Change...It's Not Enough. What We Need Is Sabotage": Critical Participatory Inquiry as Sabotage in/of the Academy

Session Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

In this moment, with all eyes focused on dismantling racial injustice, breaking down the neocolonial and neoliberal academy, and questioning the responsibilities of higher education in the United States, this panel of critical qualitative methodologists takes an explicitly anti-racist, decolonial stance to offer possibilities for sabotage in and of the academy through critical participatory inquiry (CPI). As a Black woman, Asian American woman, three white women, and one white man, we reflect on our experiences engaging in CPI across multiple disciplines, taking an explicitly anti-racist, decolonial approach to trouble the goals of disruption, interruption, and change, arguing that these are whitewashed, easy, useless versions of what is actually needed: a total burning down of current structures – through methodology.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Qualitative Research

Chair

• Elisabeth Chan, George Mason University

Papers

• Counterstorytelling: Critical Race Praxis as Sabotage in the Academy - Melissa Hauber-Özer, George Mason University; Meagan Call-Cummings, George Mason University; Sharrell Hassell-Goodman, George Mason University; Elisabeth Chan, George Mason University

• Small Acts of Sabotage: Unraveling "Expertise" to Push for Restorative Forms of Inquiry - Giovanni P Dazzo, George Mason University

• Committing Acts of Sabotage: Black Women's Knowledge as Legitimate - Sharrell Hassell-Goodman, George Mason University

• Sabotaging Method: The Tensions of Accepting Responsibility - Alexandra S. Reed, George Mason University

• Sabotaging "Significance": A Call for Less Research and More Organizing - Meagan Call-Cummings, George Mason University

Discussant

• Rodney K. Hopson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign