From Tactics to Praxis: Learning Feminist Pedagogy through Methodology

Abstract

Through a self-reflexive and ongoing process, in this paper we chronicle how we as graduate students learned about feminist pedagogy through methodology. Primarily, we noted dilemmas in feminist methodology that became central dilemmas for us in our roles as feminist research guides within a combined graduate and undergraduate feminist methodologies course. As we became aware of these specific dilemmas, not only did we attempt to apply them to the research we were conducting for an institutional ethnographic research project on campus safety, but we also found them to be central pedagogical concerns in ways that were both unique and similar to each individual graduate student. Our analysis focuses on the insider/outsider dilemma, self-reflection, and multiple subjectivities in the hopes that we can share our experiences of what became a vital and unique learning experience.