Mobilizing betrayal: Black feminist pedagogy and Black women graduate student educators

Abstract

This article addresses Black women graduate students' educational labor in higher education teacher training programs. We ground this reflective account of our respective teaching praxis in the educational betrayal we endured as younger students, connecting it to our engagement of Black feminist pedagogy. We illustrate how this praxis empowered us as undergraduate educators to implement pedagogies of equity and justice. Employing a structured vignette analysis framework, we draw on a Black feminist paradigm and Black feminist autoethnography to examine field notes of our teaching praxis. These two field notes, one from Francena and one from ArCasia, demonstrate challenges that emerged in our instruction of mostly white undergraduates. Despite the precarious nature of our political and professional positions, we discuss why working toward an anti‐oppression praxis remains our ultimate pedagogical aim.

Workplace hate speech and rendering Black and Native lives as if they do not matter: A nightmarish autoethnography

“…There is a growing body of autoethnographic research that addresses issues of race in educational organizations which include solo and collaborative autoethnographies of women of color (James-Gallaway and Turner, 2021; Minnett et al, 2019; Overstreet, 2019; Rodriguez, 2009; Rodriguez and Boahene, 2012; Rodriguez et al, 2012; Suriel et al, 2018) as well as works by men of color (Squire et al, 2018), white men (Collins, 2017; McGill et al, 2020), and white women (Ellison and Langhout, 2016) that discuss raced aspects of organizational behavior in educational organizations. Additionally, some researchers have published research that uses multipositional autoethnography to explore differences in experience that cross the Black-white color line (Bohonos and Duff, 2020; Johnson-Bailey and Cervero, 2004, 2008) There remains, however, significant gaps in relation to autoethnographic research that foregrounds race in organizational contexts outside of education.…”

“…The majority of recent autoethnographic research in top organization studies journals fail to substantively address race (Boncori and Smith, 2019; Bourgoin et al, 2020; Learmonth and Humphreys, 2012; O’Shea, 2020; Zawadzki and Jensen, 2020) with the notable exception of James-Gallaway and Turner (2021) whose work demonstrates the value of using Black feminist paradigms to challenge epistemologies which maintain racial oppression. While some white organizational autoethnographers have argued that operating in homogeneously white workgroups is a reason to leave race unmarked in their research (Tienari, 2019).…”

“…While there is a growing body of literature that addresses racism in organizational settings, “analysis that specifically focus on anti-Black racism remain rare” (Mir and Zanoni, 2021: 27) as do problematized conceptions of whiteness (Bohonos, 2019a). Several recent studies have pointed to the prevalence of white norms in organizational settings including talent management (Simon, 2019), customer service (Grandey et al, 2019) higher education (Bell et al, 2021; James-Gallaway and Turner, 2021), construction (Bohonos, 2020), public service (Bohonos and Johnson, in press) and high-level corporate leadership (Glass and Cook, 2020; Sisco, 2020), and on how racial minorities navigate white dominated working environments (Bohonos and Duff, 2020; Lewellen and Bohonos, 2020; Rabelo et al, 2020; Sisco, 2020; Small, 2020; Smith et al, 2019). Some studies have also focused on negative reactions of whites to growing levels of diversity (Bohonos, 2020; McDonald et al, 2018; Novicevic et al, 2019; Rabelo et al, 2020).…”

Taking Back the Narrative: Gendered Anti-Blackness in Predominantly White Schools of Social Work

“…Recent literature examining RBF and SJF has contributed to emerging scholarship exploring the coping mechanisms and survival strategies of Black women faculty and graduate students in academia. These strategies include seeking supportive mentorship and safe counterspaces (Grier-Reed et al, 2021), setting boundaries as a form of self-protection (Davis & Brown, 2017; Grier-Reed et al, 2020), utilizing identity shifting as an anticipatory coping strategy (Jones et al, 2021), and mobilizing strengths and resilience (Chance, 2021; James-Gallaway & Turner, 2021). For instance, a literature review of the experiences of Black women faculty by Davis and Brown (2017) noted the need for Black women faculty to actively resist internalized oppression by seeking those academic spaces like HBCUs that encourage and foster a sense of belonging.…”

An editorial in three parts

“…I would like to lie and say that adult education and human resource development (HRD) might respond to Russia's war of aggression with research that will help strengthen the Ukrainian resistance, but I do not think that is actually going to happen. And I would like to lie and say I believe that the outpouring of writing regarding racial justice since Floyd's murder (Alexander, 2022; Bell et al., 2021; Bohonos, 2021a, 2021b; Bohonos & James‐Gallaway, 2022; Bohonos & Sisco, 2021; Davis et al., 2020; Henry, 2021; James‐Gallaway & Turner, 2021; Lewellen & Bohonos, 2021; McCluney et al., 2021; Muzanenhamo & Chowdhury, 2021; Rosser‐Mims et al., 2020; Rudel et al., 2021; Sisco, 2020; Sisco et al., 2021; Wicker, 2021) is moving us quickly toward a more racially just society, but I cannot pretend to be that naïve.…”