Race, affect, and marginalized communities: navigating racialized emotions in community-engaged pedagogy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Extending earlier scholarly discussions surrounding whiteness as a social construct in community-engaged higher education, this paper argues that affect theory provides a promising lens for studying the racialized emotions underlying whiteness in community engagement. Pairing affect theory with antiracist discussions, this paper examines the presence of racialized emotions in community-engaged projects, with the aim of contributing to antiracist dialogues in higher education. This paper focuses on analyzing four narratives of community-engaged projects collected through interviews with 12 college instructors in the United States. The instructors’ narratives reveal both racialized emotions about marginalized community members and ways to counter these emotions within community partnerships. The paper concludes with implications for educators and students to attend to the affective formation of community-engaged work and reflect on their emotions toward communities of color.