Storying Our Mourning and Resistance Through Teaching: Black Women Surviving (and Thriving In) White Spaces

Abstract

This critical duoethnography explores the experiences of two pre-tenured Black women faculty navigating their varied emotions teaching cultural awareness-building courses at predominantly White institutions during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial violence. The authors draw upon Dillard and Bell’s (2011) nkwaethnography to share the stories of ‘we’ instead of the ‘singular self’ and present the data as two composite narratives. Authors use Black Feminist Thought (Collins, 1989, 1990) to make-meaning of their experiences and they highlight two themes: (1) teaching and mourning at the margins and (2) calculated resistance. Implications for Black women faculty who teach cultural awareness-building courses and higher education administration are provided.