Clanddinin and Connelly (2000) state, “our research interests come out of our own narratives of experience and shape our narrative inquiry plotline” (p.121). My own interest in social justice education is both professional and personal. I have had a career in multicultural affairs for nine years. I support students from various social identities and work to create awareness of dominant and subordinated identities, ally as a verb and not a noun, and microagressions.
Personally, W.E.B. DuBois, in his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk spoke of “double-consciousness” or two selves that are in conflict with who we are and what people expect us to be. I have spent most of my life being an “Other” but also know what it’s like to “Other” someone else based on some of my dominant identities. As a multiple identity being, I in fact belong to two worlds, one of privilege, and one of an empowered person of color. Meaning that I understand racism, oppression, and privilege, and how it affects me without responding as a victim. And I have to reconcile my two-selves. With that said, I am not going to minimize the fact that indeed white and gender privilege are two privileges that I don’t have. But what about my heterosexual privilege? The privilege of having most of my religious holidays recognized?
My professional life is how I live my life mission out loud – a mission of naming myself, engagement in social justice work, dismantling systems of power and oppression, and empowering others to do the same.
As a researcher, my epistemology influences the topics that I am interested in researching. I want to contribute to the body of knowledge that focuses on identity formation, intersectionality of identity, and the social construction of identity because I believe that identity creates knowledge. My understanding of knowledge is based on how I understand the world around me. I make meaning of my world through a set of lenses; my lenses are made up of my multiple identities that are interconnected and cannot exist independently as “identity development in a postmodern world are not fully captured without attention to multiple and intersecting identities” (Jones, 2009, p. 287).
Deconstruction theorists believe that identity, the state of being oneself, is a falsehood because identity is ever changing, depending on context, our environment, and the people within that environment (Tyson, 2006). So I believe that my knowledge, what I know, is always changing. I am constantly learning, unlearning, and relearning. As my identities change or shift, so does the meaning that I make of the world. In constructing knowledge, I have to recognize my multiple identities, those with privilege and those without, as I try to make meaning of the world. As a post-modern deconstructionist, I believe in the fluidity of identity, the power of stories, and multiple realities.
By Angie Hambrick
Personally, W.E.B. DuBois, in his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk spoke of “double-consciousness” or two selves that are in conflict with who we are and what people expect us to be. I have spent most of my life being an “Other” but also know what it’s like to “Other” someone else based on some of my dominant identities. As a multiple identity being, I in fact belong to two worlds, one of privilege, and one of an empowered person of color. Meaning that I understand racism, oppression, and privilege, and how it affects me without responding as a victim. And I have to reconcile my two-selves. With that said, I am not going to minimize the fact that indeed white and gender privilege are two privileges that I don’t have. But what about my heterosexual privilege? The privilege of having most of my religious holidays recognized?
My professional life is how I live my life mission out loud – a mission of naming myself, engagement in social justice work, dismantling systems of power and oppression, and empowering others to do the same.
As a researcher, my epistemology influences the topics that I am interested in researching. I want to contribute to the body of knowledge that focuses on identity formation, intersectionality of identity, and the social construction of identity because I believe that identity creates knowledge. My understanding of knowledge is based on how I understand the world around me. I make meaning of my world through a set of lenses; my lenses are made up of my multiple identities that are interconnected and cannot exist independently as “identity development in a postmodern world are not fully captured without attention to multiple and intersecting identities” (Jones, 2009, p. 287).
Deconstruction theorists believe that identity, the state of being oneself, is a falsehood because identity is ever changing, depending on context, our environment, and the people within that environment (Tyson, 2006). So I believe that my knowledge, what I know, is always changing. I am constantly learning, unlearning, and relearning. As my identities change or shift, so does the meaning that I make of the world. In constructing knowledge, I have to recognize my multiple identities, those with privilege and those without, as I try to make meaning of the world. As a post-modern deconstructionist, I believe in the fluidity of identity, the power of stories, and multiple realities.
By Angie Hambrick
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