Excavating hegemonic rules of engagement for women and queer students of color in academic spaces

Abstract

In this study, the author examines how persistent exclusionary epistemic norms and practices become internalized as barriers for women and queer students of color to pursuing liberatory learning in justice-oriented academic spaces at traditionally white institutions. Using an epistemic oppression framework rooted in critical race and intersectional feminist perspectives, the author analyzes critical episodes when women and queer students of color felt constrained in their desired participation in an educational foundations learning community to reveal hegemonic rules of academic engagement that operated to stifle their participation. The author argues that these rules, informed by dominant epistemologies and epistemic harms, limit WQSoC license to ask questions, claim their experiential knowledge, and assert critiques from their positionalities toward critical educational praxis. This research has implications for theorizing conditions that explicitly attune to and counter these oppressive rules to create space for WQSoC to center their learning.