Internal Tensions of Building a Dissertation through the Lens of Black Finesse: Toward Decolonizing Higher Education

Janiece Zalina Mackey

doi:10.3390/educsci11120780

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on the process of building a dissertation that honored the Black souls of my undergraduate participants along with my own Black soul as a form of resistance to advance racial equity in higher education. Through endarkened narrative inquiry, this paper will address the internal tensions I navigated in building a dissertation that centered Blackness through the prism of what I have conceptualized as Black Finesse. I unveil components from my dissertation that manifested a shift in how knowledge generation can be developed and written. I conceptualized a methodology entitled race-grounded phenomenology (RGP) and call for a re-imagining of qualitative research around the ways Black students navigate higher education. I reflected upon the internal tensions and mental leaps of my dissertation process through theoretical decolonial inquiry. As decolonial praxis to unmake the canon of research and dissertation creation, I lean upon four elements of decolonizing higher education as a way to reimagine decolonial futures that were actualized via my dissertation process.

Highlights

As a recent PhD, I remember grappling with how I could use my dissertation as an anchor to advance equity in higher education, but to decolonize the ways in which dissertation research is developed, written, and revealed
When considering conducting a study on phenomenology of race I grappled with the notion of studies about race being conducted in a way that perpetuates this notion of race as Other
A phenomenology of race was not a methodology that I felt would honor my own Blackness or Black Finesse exerted by the Black undergraduate students

Summary

Introduction

As a recent PhD, I remember grappling with how I could use my dissertation as an anchor to advance equity in higher education, but to decolonize the ways in which dissertation research is developed, written, and revealed. The unveiling of the internal tensions of the dissertation process reflects that socialization of scholars on the part of higher education institutions as well and indicates the institutional positioning of and reckoning with decolonization. I desire for this written work to connect with Black scholars and scholars of color who are on their dissertation journey and grappling with ways to decolonize their research while positioning themselves within their research. I aspire for dissertation committee members, faculty who teach methods courses, and research processes courses to connect with this work as a way to bridge theory into praxis toward decolonizing dissertation research

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Conclusion