Reflections on Saldaña's Chapter 1:
I've always considered myself to be pensive. Yet, until combing through Saldaña's chapter 1, I've never fully processed my own "process" of thinking. Thankfully qualitative research is seemingly compatible with the way I "naturally do things". The chapter has been helpful in highlighting opportunities for my continued development as a researcher.
In my first year as an APU student, I discovered that my epistemology is centered on constructivism. After reading the chapter, I revisited my first paper.
[Constructivism is
knowledge constructed in conjunction with the individual experience. (Crotty, 2003;
Feast, 2010; Takacs, 2003) Those who subscribe to constructivism believe that
understanding is formed as the mind interacts with the world. (Feast,
2010) Crotty
(2003) explains, “There is no objective truth waiting for us to discover it. Truth, or meaning, comes into existence in and
out of our engagement with the realities in our world. There is no meaning without a mind. Meaning is
not discovered, but constructed” (pp. 8-9). Constructivism recognizes the
importance of the phenomenon and research rooted in participant observation.
(Feast, 2010) Constructivism equally values the scientific and non-scientific
aspects of research. (Feast, 2010) Mixed method research, the blending of
quantitative and qualitative research, is most compatible to this form of
epistemology.]
From the reading I identified the following components to my lens:
Black - Woman - Higher Ed Practitioner - Cisgender - Heterosexual - Middle Class -Differently Abled - Womanist
I will continue to reflect on this chapter throughout my research.
Monica Johnson's Blog for Social Justice in Higher Education and Beyond
Monday, October 2, 2017
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Trouble in My Way
Trouble in my way... A message for my people in 2017... Blog Post
Listen... my parents, grandparents, great grandparents (ancestors) sang these songs and they made sure that I knew them too. These are elements of my self care, part of the narrative of Black Liberation Theology. They are the evidence of the continued struggle of my people towards freedom in this country. They are the battle cries of our resilience and resistance. In a world and among people that intentionally dispute our value, they are the reaffirmation of our humanity. They embody the defiance that we demonstrate simply by existing in the face of all that attempted/ attempts to kill us.
On their surface they seem to indicate the complacency of our spirit in the face of adversity. But they, like the spirituals that they descended from, were always meant to appear less powerful or impactful to our oppressors. Our captors impose our suffering without understanding the complexity of our souls or the power of our minds, therefor they are ignorant to our strength. Our oppressors believe the things they say about us... so to them, our songs indicate that all we would do in our struggle is lazily pray pain away and sit silently in wait of a savior.
Think it through...
- Trouble in my way ( I am on the way to a place, a space, a freedom that I do not occupy and something/ someone/ some injustice is attempting to stop me.)
- I have to cry sometimes ( I am human, I am frustrated, I am pained because I can't get to what I deserve. I am allowed to release this. I have through this struggle been taught to care for myself. This is how I have survived when others could not.)
- Trouble in my way. I have to cry sometimes. (Regardless of the persistence of the trouble, I still got somewhere to go and it don't matter if I'm still crying or if you still causing me trouble cause I'm still moving forward cause I got somewhere to be)
- I lay awake at night but that's alright ( Yeah I'm tired. No I can't sleep, cause I have something to accomplish and I don't trust you or my surroundings, so I got to stay alert and moving. I'm WOKE. I see you)
- Cause I know Jesus, he will fix it, after while. (When I get to where I'm going, I'm going to be fixed up/restored and... my trouble (oppression/injustice/antagonizer/prince/principality/"president" whoever you pretending to be these days) gone get dealt wit. It may not come to you today, but when you finally get dealt with... you gone get all the hell you planned for me and more.
If you don't know these old songs, if nobody ever told you, gone find you an old Big mama/ Madea (mother dear)/ Mother of the Church/ Big daddy/ PawPaw/ Deacon... and get your tool kit for resistance... and come on here cause we got work to do.
Trouble in My Way Medley
Listen... my parents, grandparents, great grandparents (ancestors) sang these songs and they made sure that I knew them too. These are elements of my self care, part of the narrative of Black Liberation Theology. They are the evidence of the continued struggle of my people towards freedom in this country. They are the battle cries of our resilience and resistance. In a world and among people that intentionally dispute our value, they are the reaffirmation of our humanity. They embody the defiance that we demonstrate simply by existing in the face of all that attempted/ attempts to kill us.
On their surface they seem to indicate the complacency of our spirit in the face of adversity. But they, like the spirituals that they descended from, were always meant to appear less powerful or impactful to our oppressors. Our captors impose our suffering without understanding the complexity of our souls or the power of our minds, therefor they are ignorant to our strength. Our oppressors believe the things they say about us... so to them, our songs indicate that all we would do in our struggle is lazily pray pain away and sit silently in wait of a savior.
Think it through...
- Trouble in my way ( I am on the way to a place, a space, a freedom that I do not occupy and something/ someone/ some injustice is attempting to stop me.)
- I have to cry sometimes ( I am human, I am frustrated, I am pained because I can't get to what I deserve. I am allowed to release this. I have through this struggle been taught to care for myself. This is how I have survived when others could not.)
- Trouble in my way. I have to cry sometimes. (Regardless of the persistence of the trouble, I still got somewhere to go and it don't matter if I'm still crying or if you still causing me trouble cause I'm still moving forward cause I got somewhere to be)
- I lay awake at night but that's alright ( Yeah I'm tired. No I can't sleep, cause I have something to accomplish and I don't trust you or my surroundings, so I got to stay alert and moving. I'm WOKE. I see you)
- Cause I know Jesus, he will fix it, after while. (When I get to where I'm going, I'm going to be fixed up/restored and... my trouble (oppression/injustice/antagonizer/prince/principality/"president" whoever you pretending to be these days) gone get dealt wit. It may not come to you today, but when you finally get dealt with... you gone get all the hell you planned for me and more.
If you don't know these old songs, if nobody ever told you, gone find you an old Big mama/ Madea (mother dear)/ Mother of the Church/ Big daddy/ PawPaw/ Deacon... and get your tool kit for resistance... and come on here cause we got work to do.
Trouble in My Way Medley
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