Speak truth! The role of Black women's dialogue in the production of scholarship

Abstract

In this article, we offer insights derived from an analysis of a structured dialogue on methodological decision making. Our analysis highlights the ways in which our dialogic process for revising a manuscript reflected key onto-epistemic qualities of Black women's ways of knowing. Drawing from an Afrocentric feminist epistemological standpoint, we tease apart how shared ways of knowing can facilitate heightened clarity about one's engagement in the research process. By positioning structured dialogues as a methodological tool, we offer several insights regarding their generative nature in facilitating researcher clarity on methodological decision making and in elucidating key shifts in the evolution of a researcher's methodological self. Indeed, as a form of facilitated reflexive praxis, engaging in structure dialogues about one's methodological choices is requisite for defining and understanding oneself as a researcher, scholar, and intellectual.