An Afro-Latina’s Navigation of the Academy: Tracings of Audacious Departures, Reroutings, and Intersectional Consciousness

Abstract

In this autoethnographic mapping of the educational experiences leading to my current role as a researcher and teacher educator in the United States, I argue that I enacted de/colonizing processes through my academic migrations. Using personal narratives rooted in de/colonial, Black feminist, and Mami-influenced onto-epistemological orientations, I outline key movements made during my undergraduate studies at (a) an Ivy League college and a teacher education program in South Florida, and my graduate studies at (b) a second Ivy League institution and a Hispanic Serving Institution. I provide examples from a published book, web articles, and personal e-mail communications that reveal how peers, faculty, and administrators reacted to my departures and arrivals. I contend with the paradox of the US academy granting me access to theorists who name critical pedagogy and intersectionality, while simultaneously exacerbating constraints I mitigated as a Black woman with familial ties to the Global South. Centering the de/colonial sense-making women embodying multiple marginality offer, I identify the epistemic frictions that motivated my critical academic migrations. I conclude by offering points of considerations for institutions of higher education that are purportedly committed to equity, inclusion, and supporting diverse onto-epistemic orientations.