Endarkened Feminist Epistemology Research Articles

“My representation is performative”: Black Women's Reflection of Academia Through Collaborative Autoethnographic Poetic Inquiry

In the midst of Covid-19 and increased anti-Black racial violence, Black women faculty continue to search for a sense of wholeness in academic institutions founded upon seemingly well-intentioned ideologies of justice and belonging. Grounded in endarkened feminist epistemology, this collaborative autoethnographic poetic inquiry explores how two Black women early career scholars navigated their first years as faculty during dual pandemics and situate their experiences in the context of other Black women in the academy. Through sister talks and found lyric poetry, they illuminate four distinct yet interrelated themes within their conversations: (1) the difference between performance and authenticity; (2) the evasiveness of belonging; (3) exploitation and tokenization; and (4) institutional policing of their narratives. Institutional recommendations are discussed to support the retention of early-career Black women faculty pursuing holistic, authentic academic homeplaces that honor their endarkened intellectual, emotional, and spiritual identities.

Reimagining Academia: Lessons from Black M(other)Scholars during our duel with the dual pandemics

Academia remains a patriarchal system, in which womxn’s work is undervalued, and the intersection of race and gender positions Black womxn uniquely. Some research has begun to explore how the dual pandemics compounded challenges for Black womxn in the academy. This is further complicated when considering Black womxn as M(other)Scholars. Through the dual pandemics of highly visible police brutality against Black bodies and the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on Black communities, we offer our stories, as four Black M(other)Scholars, who experienced, mourned, and made room for ourselves and others to thrive during the dual pandemics. We share our stories knowing Black and white womxn have experienced and continue to experience life on different terms. This is also reflected in scholarship around MotherScholars and the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on our previous work rooted in endarkened feminist epistemology, we use autoethnographic sista circle methodology to capture how the dual pandemics provided both a reprieve from the antiblackness of academia and the opportunity to build community amongst other Black womxn scholars and our children. We center music in our storytelling, as music has served as both a balm and an expression of our spirit of resistance.

Methodological Considerations for Endarkened Narrative Inquiry

This article extends the previous conversation around endarkened narrative inquiry, a culturally situated approach informed by Black feminist thought, womanism, endarkened feminist epistemology, and narrative inquiry. In this article, we reclaim narrative in the context of a methodological process that centers Black women-centric ontoepistemologies, informed by theoretical perspectives and existing literature, to focus on Black women’s ways of storying their lives. We also discuss the creation of wisdom whisper as a methodological consideration for data collection. Finally, we reflect on the methodological mentoring and negotiations that took place to culturally situate this methodology and offer a method of inquiry aligned with a Blackness-centered framework of analysis.

Reflect, Reframe, and Re-Imagine Theory and Practice in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences: Introduction to the Forum.

Reflect, Reframe, and Re-Imagine Theory and Practice in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences: Introduction to the Forum.

(Re)membering and (Re)claiming in My Mama’s Kitchen: A Decolonial Feminist Video-Cued Qi Ethnography

In this study, I draw upon Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (Dillard, 2012) and Decolonial Feminist Research (Rhee, 2020) to explore the epistemology of my mother, a first-generation Chinese immigrant. Based on data generated from the video-cued qi ethnography methodology, I pay attention to my Mama’s ways of knowing as she cooks in the kitchen. Qi is a Chinese concept that means breath, spirit, and life force. I draw on qi as the ongoing connectivity toward wholeness and movement toward harmony in the way I collected and analyzed data. I share my findings as a series of interconnected poetry, images, and narratives to (re)member my mother’s life as well as mine as we (re)claim what we have forgotten and (re)turn to a place of wholeness. I conclude the article by exploring the implications for the Asian American Pacific Islander community and beyond, as we conduct the work of collective rememory.

Black Mothering Legacies: Theorizing Lament as a Form of Justice Research

I feel compelled by the moment to take up these questions: What does it mean to mother a Black child within/against this historical moment within/against the (carceral) United States? What does it mean to mother a Black child when the legacy of enslavement in the United States is still the basis for assessing the “worth” of you and your children? How do I determine justice for my/a/the Black child in this historical moment? How does this justice come to matter? My approach to critical qualitative research is best understood through Cynthia Dillard’s (2006) notion of “endarkened feminist epistemology” (p. 3). Here I trace a lineage of Black mothering praxis that has been enacted in response to injustice across different historical moments and geographical locations in the United States. This lineage focuses on Black mothers who have lost their children to state violence, when that violence is perpetrated by the state or when the state fails to mete out justice for the taking of Black life.

Endarkened narrative inquiry: a methodological framework constructed through improvisations

This paper traces the improvisational moves the authors had to make, as a Black woman graduate student and an Indian woman dissertation supervisor in a predominantly white space in academia, to cultivate a framework informed by Black feminist thought, womanism, endarkened feminist epistemology, and narrative inquiry in qualitative research. Conducting culturally situated inquiry in hostile spaces characterized by disproportionate power relations and multiple interconnected oppressive structures makes us vulnerable in the bodies in which we do this work. In this paper, we discuss the creation of an endarkened approach to narrative inquiry through methodological improvisation.

Making sense of spirituality in our academic lives through co-mentoring

ABSTRACT In this paper, we utilize a blended conceptual framework based on spirituality, endarkened feminist epistemology, and feminist co-mentoring that draws upon dialogue from a Freirean perspective to inform our inquiry. In our analysis, we sought to respond to the question: How does spirituality inform the work we do as Black women faculty? We engaged in spirituality focused, co-mentoring dialogues and embraced a collaborative autoethnography research design that involved individual writing, dialogue, reflection, and sharing and meaning making. Through these processes we came to articulate our individual definitions of spirituality and made sense of how spirituality informs our way of being and knowing in the academy. We experienced spirituality as a means to heal self and others, and as a source of resistance and courage.

Professor in residence model for queering the edges of school: a project in humanizing methodology and love

Through my work with Black youth, in the form of writing and literacy research, I have engaged with them on the edges of school. I joined students in hallways, offices, libraries, and lunch rooms to engage in dialogue with them about being and becoming. At the intersection of my conducting literacy research and being (queer, Black, female, mother, teacher, and scholar) on the edge of school is that literacy is crucial in subverting oppressive racial, body, beauty, and gender politics as well as in restoring spaces for individual and communal change, growth, and love. Using Black Feminist Thought and an Endarkened Feminist Epistemology, this study examined my teaching, researching, and being (queer) on the edge of West High School and illuminated my experiences with three youths, Ava, Nilah, and Jabir, in order to provide insight into how a Professor in Residence model might be used to queer educational spaces, beginning with those of the edges of school.

Exploring the Heartbeat of the Black Family: Observations through the Lens of Endarkened Epistemology

BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 83, NO. 2 (EXTENDED DIGITAL VERSION) | 19 83 No.2 EXPLORING THE HEARTBEAT OF THE BLACK FAMILY: OBSERVATIONS THROUGH THE LENS OF ENDARKENED EPISTEMOLOGY By: María T. Colompos-Tohtsonie, Shanell L. Walter, and Karina Avila Introduction We are family—a “research family” and kindred souls. We are three scholars of color who are culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse (African American and Latina). As undergraduates, we participated in an “Endarkened Feminist Research Mentor Program” for 3.5 years. Throughout our research journey, we explored research frameworks such as (1) Constructivism, (2) Critical Race Theory, (3) Endarkened Feminism, (4) Positivism, and (5) Post-Positivism, as well as quantitative and qualitative research methods. Through the lens of endarkened epistemology, we conducted a mixed-methods research study titled “Borders, Bras, and Battles: Sociocultural Perspectives of Female Scholars of Color in ROTC.” Before graduating, we presented our research findings at conferences, published articles, and co-authored an award-winning book titled Borders, Bras and Battles: A Practical Guide to Mentor Undergraduate Women of Color to Achieve Career Success. The community of caring that we experienced with endarkened epistemology “sparked our genius” and kinship. Currently, we are in doctoral (Educational Leadership and Policy) and master’s (Public Policy and Administration) programs, and we continue our research collaborations. This collaboration is an article for the Black History Bulletin (BHB). The theme for this issue of the BHB is “The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity”—the 2021 Black History Theme. Because our undergraduate degrees include (1) History, (2) Sociology, and (3) Rehabilitative Services, we incorporate science, history, and sociology to explore the metaphoric heartbeat of the Black family. Additionally, we are including our graduate school programs by adding a splash of educational policy, public policy, and social justice in our observations. The Heartbeat and Arteries of the Black Family Scientists tell us that the heartbeat produces signals through arteries that one can detect using a variety of sensors characterized by the following three major factors: individual variants, environmental variants, and sensory variants.1 Metaphorically speaking, we can liken the individual variants of the “heartbeat” to the self-identity spectrum, emotional state, and cardiac state of African American family members.2 For example, the environmental variants that affect the heartbeat compare to socially constructed policies that hinder the growth of the Black family.3 Sensory variants of the heartbeat—again, metaphorically—might include physical deformations whereby contraction circulates blood through the vascular network of veins and arteries, which damages the overall health of the Black family. Understanding the individual, environmental, and sensory variants of the metaphorical heartbeat within the Black family may help recognize, with greater clarity, the racial, historical, and physiological adversities that formed and deformed the Black family’s cultural formation in the United States. We review these adversities through the lens of endarkened epistemology. 20 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 83, NO. 2 (EXTENDED DIGITAL VERSION) 83 No.2 Endarkened Epistemology Cynthia B. Dillard is the architect of endarkened epistemology, a way of knowing that could serve as a means for exploring the deeper levels of the so-called heartbeat of the Black family. Endarkened epistemology is defined as unmasking the traditionally oppressive political constructions and descriptions of sociocultural phenomena and relationships.4 Dillard is also the Mary Frances Early [endowed] Professor and Chair of the Educational Theory and Leadership Department at the University of Georgia, Athens. She was also “enstooled” as Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana, West Africa. Her research interests include critical teacher education, spirituality in education, and African American feminist studies.5 When Dillard6 proposed endarkened feminist epistemology, she drew upon the strengths of several feminist and spiritual frameworks: Black feminist thought,7 feminist psychology and standpoint theory,8 the tenets of African American spirituality, and Parker J. Palmer’s9 work on spirituality in education. When describing her interpretation of this heartbeat of the Black family, Josephine Baker, the world renowned African American vocalist, dancer, and activist, vividly mapped the arteries of the Black family in America. Raised in poverty in the Midwest, Baker’s parents were unable to succeed in their respective artistic endeavors due to discriminatory working decrees. Baker was compelled to find jobs to...

We Got Soul: Exploring Contemporary Black Women Educators’ Praxis of Politicized Care

In this critical case study, I draw on endarkened feminist epistemology and a legacy of politicized womanist care to explore how three contemporary black women educators in New York City public schools enact a spiritual and politicized care rooted in their understandings of the sociopolitical contexts where their students live and learn. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed to reveal a praxis of politicized care characterized by three main components: (1) Soulful and politicized purpose driving high expectations; (2) Building relationships through vulnerability, encouragement, communication, and recognition; and (3) Redefining success and envisioning paths for the future. Examining such praxis provides insight into approaches educators can take to create connections with students that are responsive to their material lives and helps them feel grounded in their educational and professional pursuits.

Life Notes about the Dual Careers of a Black Female: Race and Gender Politics in Public School Administration and Higher Education Professorship

This article is written from the experiential and theoretical perspectives that I encountered as a Black femalepublic school educator who, after twenty-plus years of public school teaching and administrativeexperiences, became an assistant professor at a predominately White research university. Being a student ofcritical race theory, I write this experience narrative from the perspective of life notes in order to help"demystify[ing] African American feminist ways of knowing, in moments of reflection, relation, andresistance" (Dillard, 2003, p. 135). Moreover, this article represents an " endarkened feminist epistemology"(Dillard, 2003) in order to shed light on how incidents and events with race, class, and gender translate intomeaning for both of my professional careers and my life in general. A chronologic comparison of myexperiences in both careers reveals the debilitating affects of race and gender. By sharing this experience, Ihope that all who are involved in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women and minorities inthese professions (public school administration and the academy) will better understand how acts of racismand sexism create distractions that hinder their success in these careers.

‘There are two truths’: African American women’s critical, creative ruminations on love through new literacies

In this article, the author explores what happens when a group of African American women came together to engage with popular culture narratives (PCNs) soon after 9/11. The author relies on Endarkened Feminist Epistemology to understand the development of raced and gendered meaning making and knowledge development within the inquiry. She also draws from Critical Literacies theory to understand the group members’ patterns of questioning and positioning. She found that the women’s literate lives became particularly responsive to post-9/11 popular culture narratives. The women evolved their literacy practices and pushed forward analytic methodology in order to satisfy their desire to invoke personal meaning and align it with the narratives they chose. The author focuses on one narrative in particular to show how the women evolved their new literacies and produced subsequent texts (a critical/creative, responsive, participant-generated poem is presented as a new literacy event). She also explores the methodological and analytic evolutions that happened in response to the women’s literacy practices. Implications for literacy research, pedagogy and theory are presented.

When the Spirit Shows Up: An Autoethnography of Spiritual Reconciliation with the Academy

This article is an autoethnography of the author's journey toward the reconciliation of her spirituality with the academy. She depicts the origin of her crisis in the academy, and why the climax of the crisis was critical to her reconciliation. Drawing on Cynthia Dillard's notion of an endarkened feminist epistemology, she identifies the Black Church community as the site where her spirituality is nurtured and recognizes its influence on her reconciliation with the academy. Implications of this study suggest the necessity for researchers to become engaged in public discourse about our spirituality as it relates to education, to continue to invite others to the conversation, and to recognize how the discourse might influence our decisions as researchers/educators.

When the music changes, so should the dance: cultural and spiritual considerations in paradigm ‘proliferation’

This paper explores the subtle (and often not so subtle) cultural, social, political and spiritual meanings behind the very notion of paradigm ‘proliferation’ including the often exclusionary intentions and implications in how research is undertaken, represented and for what (and whose) purposes. Dealing with these contested meanings brings a particularized paradox for scholars of color as we seek to imagine, create, and embrace new and useful paradigms from and through which we engage in educational research. For Black feminist scholars in particular, there are deep and serious implications in choosing to embrace paradigms that resonate with our spirit as well as our intellect, regardless of issues of ‘proliferation.’ Towards this end, I put forth the notion of an endarkened feminist epistemology, as a way forward in this paradigm proliferation discussion.

Defining Spirituality: Critical Implications for the Practice and Research of Educational Leadership

This essay problematizes the current discourses on spirituality and leadership, particularly in terms of how spirituality is defined. To this end, the authors provide a brief overview of the different definitions of spirituality as explicated in the literature on spirituality and leadership, identify the underlying epistemologies of these definitions, and discuss why epistemology matters when thinking about spirituality and leadership. Additionally, the authors outline how an “endarkened feminist epistemology” (Dillard, 2000) can assist our thinking about spirituality and leadership, and advance not a definition per se but perspectives to consider when teaching and conducting research on or about spirituality and leadership, and when practicing leadership that takes into account social justice.

An endarkened feminist epistemology? Identity, difference and the politics of representation in educational research

This paper proposes a postmodernism and cultural studies influenced collorary to Cynthia Dillard's notion of "an endarkened feminist epistemology." The paper illustrates that Dillard has developed the notion principally as enabling of a project of recueillement : the articulation of a black feminist epistemology and research paradigm. What remains unaddressed in this project (albeit understandably), is the question of what difference difference makes within an endarkened epistemology. Illustrating that difference always compounds and complicates matters, the paper proceeds to draw on postmodernist and cultural studies theory to work with the ways in which race, gender, and sexual orientation interplay to produce an articulation that does not displace the notion of an endarkened feminist epistemology but rather runs parallel and acts as a corollary in the same dual project of contributing to both the "uriously belated" examination of race and racism in educational research in general, and the development of a black feminist epistemology and research paradigm in particular.

Theory in the flesh: Toward an endarkened epistemology

In her article "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen: Examining an endarkened feminist epistemology in educational research and leadership," Professor Dillard delineates a set of proposals for the study of educational inequity. Professor Wright in his response, "An endarkened feminist epistemology? Identity, difference and the politics of representation in educational research," comments on Professor Dillard's proposals and furthers her analysis by an integration of the cultural studies literature. The author enjoins this conversation in this article by reviewing the proposals by feminists of Color to further social justice in solidarity with Professor Dillard's analysis. In particular, feminists of Color are examined, expanding the definition of "data" to include artistic production such as poetry, personal reflections, and autobiographical essays. The integration of spirituality as it relates to secular teaching is another innovation proposed by various writers. Feminists of Color have also chosen to construct theory and a political agenda for achieving social justice rather than only engaging in intellectual debates that deconstruct existing paradigms. Professor Dillard is part of a cadre of feminist writers who advocate radical changes in the academy to eradicate educational inequity.

Cut to heal, not to bleed: A response to Handel Wright's "An endarkened feminist epistemology?" Identity, difference and the politics of representation in educational research

Cut to heal, not to bleed: A response to Handel Wright's "An endarkened feminist epistemology?" Identity, difference and the politics of representation in educational research

The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen: Examining an endarkened feminist epistemology in educational research and leadership

This article explores the cultural genesis and meanings of the lives of three African-American women leaders/researchers and disrupts and unsettles the taken-for-granted notions surrounding the very goals and purposes of educational research. By examining the life notes of these women, the author develops an endarkened feminist epistemology, which embodies a distinguishably different cultural standpoint, located in the intersection/overlap of the culturally constructed socializations of race, gender, and other identities and the historical and contemporary contexts of oppressions and resistance for African-American women.