Interrogating Interpretations and Positionalities: Chicana Researchers as Scholar-Activists in Solidarity With/for Communities of Color

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Ethnographic Approaches at the Intersections of Curriculum, Ideology, Language, and Race(ism) in Bilingual Spaces

Abstract

As Chicana education researchers, our commitment is to serve and address the needs of bi(multi)lingual students and communities of color that continue to be disenfranchised by the deeply-ingrained social and institutional policies and practices. In the process of critical research, we (the researchers) often find ourselves informed by our histories and multiple identities and at the same time constrained and conflicted by our privilege (Calderon, et al, 2012; Cervantes-Soon, 2014). Acknowledging and interrogating who we are is significant when conducting any research, but even more so when we work with our communities (Madison, 2012; Ortega, 2005). We argue that this process is necessary in order to reveal how positionality can diverge and/or converge from the stories and/or experiences of participants, and thus can possibly alter the interpretations and the knowledge generated about participants.

As part of broader efforts to decolonize standard research approaches and enactments, Chicanx researchers have provided alternative methodologies and/or unique research practices for studying our communities and their diverse experiences (Cervantes-Soon, 2014; Delgado Bernal, 1998). For instance, Delgado Bernal (1998) introduced cultural intuition to explain the role of Chicana researchers’ personal experiences, histories, intuitions, and insights as contributing to the research process and analysis. Confianza (Velez-Ibañez, 1996) is another research practice to engage with communities of color, to embody respeto (Valdés, 1996), and to reach and learn from participants’ through platicas and encuentros (González, 1998). Latinx scholars also draw from nepantla (Anzaldua, 1987) to navigate their multiple worlds or beliefs, to explain issues of power, and to “develop transformational pedagogical spaces in education” (p. 517). Testimonios offer a way to break down power dynamics between “subject” and researcher and are rooted in the storytelling traditions of communities of color (Cruz, 2006). These practices allow researchers to center the research on the cultural lives and experiences of participants.

In this paper, we first review the literature that discusses the role of researchers’ positionality when doing research with communities of color. Then we draw on Chicana Feminist Epistemology to examine how as Chicana scholars from the borderlands, we were informed and/or constrained on our own interpretations at the time of data collection and data analysis. Our data sets are derived from two separate contexts. Author 1 examined transfronterizxs language and literacy experiences and Author 2 focused on a study of a two-way immersion bilingual education (TWBE) program examining the interactional co-construction of identity. Finally, we conclude this paper with a discussion of the significance in naming our positionalities when working with our communities and the practical and sensible ways to reflect on our own positionalities throughout the research process.

Authors

• Idalia Nunez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Suzanne García-Mateus, California State University - Monterey Bay