Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Quiza, por alla: Potential Dissertation Reserach Topics
Explorations of the Transnational flux and flow of narrative and embodied knowledge through material culture produced by indigenous women, transgender women, and girls living in Mexico and the U.S.
Performance and material culture in Muxe (transgender women of Zapotec decent) communities living in Oaxaca, MEX.
The nature and implications of Reclaiming ancient indigenous forms of cultural production, such as the Codices, for alternative history making, within contemporary indigenous communities such as the Zapotec and Mexica living in Oaxaca.
More to come. . . . .
Performance and material culture in Muxe (transgender women of Zapotec decent) communities living in Oaxaca, MEX.
The nature and implications of Reclaiming ancient indigenous forms of cultural production, such as the Codices, for alternative history making, within contemporary indigenous communities such as the Zapotec and Mexica living in Oaxaca.
More to come. . . . .
My Present Identity as Researcher
Since childhood, I've always been a bit hyper-sensitive to my place and visibility within various communities--Never feeling fully part-of, yet simultaneously knowing I am part of everything and everyplace.
My mother would tell me stories about the first year we lived in a working-class neighborhood of shotgun houses in Lubbock, TX. When I was three months old, a woman five houses down started a four city-block petition to have our family removed from the nrighborhood. The year was 1978. Of course, none of the woman's efforts were legally binding, nonetheless, the sheer performance of a sheet of paper drifting from door to door with an inaccurate description of my family as "Mexican and commonly dirty"introduced me to xenophobia and racism, young. This story was shared with me when I was eight. There are other stories that I will share over the course of my blogging here, as each narrative thread and residual emotion informs my identity as a researcher and my interrogative priorities.
As researcher I am interested in producing valuable transformative information, experience, and reflection in collaboration with women, girls, and transgender women of indigenous communities in Mexico and the U.S. I feel a sense of obligation to use the highest ethical standards in my work, honoring the beliefs and life ways of each "research subject" (There must be a better term that this). At the moment I am working towards understanding the investigative tools for research and my position as a researcher using ethnographic, feminist transformative, postmodern, queer theory, and borderland, lenses. I am a novice and look forward to path opening ahead, hence the blog name: ABRIENDO CAMINOS/OPENING PATHS.
My mother would tell me stories about the first year we lived in a working-class neighborhood of shotgun houses in Lubbock, TX. When I was three months old, a woman five houses down started a four city-block petition to have our family removed from the nrighborhood. The year was 1978. Of course, none of the woman's efforts were legally binding, nonetheless, the sheer performance of a sheet of paper drifting from door to door with an inaccurate description of my family as "Mexican and commonly dirty"introduced me to xenophobia and racism, young. This story was shared with me when I was eight. There are other stories that I will share over the course of my blogging here, as each narrative thread and residual emotion informs my identity as a researcher and my interrogative priorities.
As researcher I am interested in producing valuable transformative information, experience, and reflection in collaboration with women, girls, and transgender women of indigenous communities in Mexico and the U.S. I feel a sense of obligation to use the highest ethical standards in my work, honoring the beliefs and life ways of each "research subject" (There must be a better term that this). At the moment I am working towards understanding the investigative tools for research and my position as a researcher using ethnographic, feminist transformative, postmodern, queer theory, and borderland, lenses. I am a novice and look forward to path opening ahead, hence the blog name: ABRIENDO CAMINOS/OPENING PATHS.
What is Research?
Research is a complex process involving consistent focused interrogation of a particular issue or question, and adept listening and seeing of the multi-modal ways answers arrive. Not all research needs to be academically derived to merit attention and value. Ideally, epsistemology and methodology should be grounded in the beliefs and world-view of those "researched". This way the knowledge gained will created in partnership with community and have a relevant sustainable use after the research work has finished. Art Education research hast he capacity to transform the world, especially at the grass-roots level where damaging hegemonic discourses of power, voice, and agency can be displaced with a indigenously rooted consciousness of empowerment and truth.
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