Journeying “Home”: Reflections on Pedagogy, Resistance, and Possibility

Abstract

Being a woman of color in higher education has never been easy, yet, in this historical moment, it has become even more difficult. In addition to endemic diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues facing higher-education institutions—such as the underrepresentation of minorities, the struggle for equitable outcomes in retention and graduation rates, and pervasive organizational climates that offer access but not belonging—the evolving context of the United States is creating a greater sense of dislocation and insecurity at pedagogical and social levels. In a season when it seems the credibility and contributions of minorities are openly questioned in some circles to sanction nativism and the rabid exclusionary needs of the radical right, it feels like the stakes are higher. Many years ago, while I was completing a study exploring diversity and equity issues, one of the participants described the challenge of feeling pressured to conform to a default “white setting” in higher education. For those like me who are underrepresented, this pressure has often manifested as an uncomfortable struggle between asserting one’s unique identity or simply “fitting in” and “playing the game” to graduate, become tenured, or just make it through the next faculty meeting (Oliha 2011). Yet this enduring struggle is only the foreground of a more complex societal problem that is playing out on the national stage today. In the background is a ubiquitous historical legacy of racial hierarchy, a colonializing social order created to discipline and control minoritized bodies, and economic imperatives met through this problematic ordering of