Searching for Mami & Abuelita: Reimagining Ethnic Studies Praxis Through Women of Color Feminisms, Art, and Archiving

Author

Wendy S. Barrales, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

6-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Urban Education

Advisor

Ariana Mangual Figueroa

Committee Members

Wendy Luttrell

Michelle Fine

Leigh Patel

Subject Categories

Art Education | Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education | Chicana/o Studies | Curriculum and Instruction | Digital Humanities | Ethnic Studies | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Latina/o Studies | Secondary Education

Keywords

PAR, art-based methods, ethnic studies, woc feminisms, latinas & chicanas, digital humanities, girls of color

Abstract

Weaving art-based methods, women of color (WOC) feminisms, digital participatory archiving (PAR-chiving), and Ethnic Studies pedagogy, this dissertation investigates how I explored and produced knowledge collectively with young women of color that reimagines classrooms as learning spaces for liberation. This dissertation, searching for mami & abuelita, is an extension of the women of color archive (wocarchive) a digital storytelling project documenting, preserving and sharing the experiences of our matriarchs of color. This project, born out of an interview with my abuelita Aída about her life in rural Veracruz, sought out to document and preserve the stories of women of color in my community as a way to learn from their experiences both in and outside of K-12 classrooms. Drawing from this transformative experience of documenting stories where I position art as a research methodology of analysis, the archive was incorporated as a praxis.

Through an intentional curation of artifacts that showcase the processes and journey in creating this digital dissertation, this project explores: my visual autoethnographic reflections on relationality, key moments on research design from the pre and post launch of the archive, and multimedia participatory tools that invite you, the reader, to co-create knowledge within this project. This dissertation details how I turned to art, woc feminisms, and ancestral knowledge through oral histories, to engage in knowledge production towards re-imagining and creating spaces of liberation in the classroom and beyond.

Comments

Online component: https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/projects/searching-for-mami-abuelita

Recommended Citation

Barrales, Wendy S., "Searching for Mami & Abuelita: Reimagining Ethnic Studies Praxis Through Women of Color Feminisms, Art, and Archiving" (2023). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5412