Chapter 5 of Cotera's Native
Voices illuminated the importance of life histories, experiences,
and the storytelling techniques in the Black feminist tradition. In this
chapter, Cotera delineates the struggles Zora Neale Hurston faced in literary
and anthropological circles when her book Their Eyes Were Watching God was initially dismissed as mere folklore
fiction--without a theme, without a thought, or a message. Cotera reframes
the reading of Hurston’s work as a way to “reveal the world of experience,
testifying to both its limits and its joys, and articulating its fundamental
contractions, which can constitute a path toward transformation.”[1]
This reading is relevant to my work
because I am trying to emulate the writing/research style of Black Feminist
writers like Hurston who blur the lines between ethnographic research,
counter-storytelling, poetry, and literature.
I am taking a humanities-based approach to illustrate the data I am collecting
on Black Feminist Scholars’ definitions, traditions, epistemologies, and life
histories which have influenced and shaped their spiritual practices both
inside and outside the higher education classroom. When I use the word
spiritual I am not referring to the religious connotations of the word, but
rather the non-doctrinaire components and practices which are present outside a
religious affiliation. My sample will include women who are not members of an
organized religion, yet consider themselves spiritual and engaged with regular spiritual
practices.
I want my dissertation to read like a
riveting humanities and research-based novel which employs the poetics of the
writing process to tell my subjects’ stories with all the contradictions, joys,
sorrows, and experiences that lead to transformation. The stories can provide more
nuanced insights as to why individuals make certain choices, how they theorize their
experiences, and how they navigate through a White capitalist, hetero-patriarchy
as academics who engage in spiritual practices.
I believe that Hurston’s approach allows
for a pedagogical relationship between story-teller and researcher. I want to establish
a similar relationship (like the one between the Janie and Pheoby) with the
women I am writing about in my work. I believe a dissertation can be a vehicle
of transformation, especially when published as a novel in the Black feminist
tradition or other types of traditions such a post-colonial or transnational. I
am still left with several questions about how to proceed with my research. How do I decide what to put into my work and
what to leave out of the final draft? How do I find committee members who have
employed a similar approach for advice? How do I find others academics whowill
support such a project since it does not conform to normative standards and
expectations?
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