Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Program

Liberal Studies

Advisor

Sherry Deckman

Subject Categories

African American Studies | Africana Studies | Arts and Humanities | Ethnic Studies | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies | Social and Cultural Anthropology | Women's Studies

Keywords

History, Black girlhood studies, storytelling, autoethnography, black feminist thought, critical race theory, Black Studies, African American Studies, Africana Studies, feminist studies, race identity, feminism, love, feminist ethics, sexism, racism, misogynoir, women, beautiful writing, Black women, African American Women, African Diaspora, Black girls, social conditions, love, ethnology, healing, poetry, critical pedagogy, intersectionality, psychology, social justice, intersectional frameworks, black feminist theory, gender studies, gender, hypersexualization, reclamation, joy, Black joy, women and gender studies, queer, lesbian, queer studies, freedom, activism, black feminism

Abstract

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) followed by The Reclamation/Genesis (the journey of self-healing within spaces not meant for us, the self-actualization our worth, our purpose and our power within storytelling), we are able to access ancestral parts of self that allows space for healing. Throughout the journey of The Reckoning, The Reclamation, and then coming into the Possibility (the self-realization of our place within storytelling–existing in our native tongue), comes a space that allows for not only creation of new knowledge and critical theory but also the space to come into our fullest self and capability as storytellers, sharing our lived experiences in ways native to our body, what we feel within our bones, what flows within our veins. It allows for the blueprint to find our way home.

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