Calling our souls home: A HMong epistemology for creating new narratives.

Abstract

This article highlights the intersections of political and psychological aspects in the construction of HMong identity and knowledge in academic research. Specifically, in politicizing the psychological and bringing psychology into politics, we intervene in the dehumanizing and limiting representations of HMong Americans that inflict material, ideological, and psychological violence toward HMong Americans. Drawing on interdisciplinary theories, research, and our own personal narratives, we show HMong creative agency in self-construction and determination. We center HMong people as knowledge holders and producers to uncover HMong ways of knowing. Our conceptualization of a HMong epistemology is both theory and praxis and rooted in (a) life, art, and culture, (b) seeking coherence, and (c) spirituality. The article concludes with implications for centering HMong culture, identity, and experiences to construct new understandings of HMong and the world. What is the public significance of this article?This article suggests that HMong perspectives are necessary for advancing HMong inclusion and understanding in research, scholarship, and practice. Focusing on HMong lived experiences and voices offers possibilities for holistic, inclusive, and socially just theory and practice, especially in psychology and related fields.

Feeling the Threat of Race in Education: Exploring the Cultural Politics of Emotions in CRT-Ban Political Discourses

“…Another dimension of complexity involves the multiple and conflicting discourses that make sense of policy, which is emphasized here to appreciate how such discourses leave open possibilities for both narrow and distorted conceptions and broader, more expansive conceptions of justice (Guinier & Torres, 2014). Realizing this, we urge substantive engagement with BIPOC emotions, knowledge, and stories, which can bring about not only different, but also liberatory possibilities (Guinier & Torres, 2014; Vue, 2021a; Vue et al, 2023; Vue & Mouavangsou, 2021). Furthermore, noting how all discursive practices, even those that proclaim to be neutral and objective, are emotionally laden (Ahmed, 2004) means that closely attending to the complex systems and environments of policy demands inquiry into racialized emotional dynamics.…”

Conceptualizing loneliness among a Hmong older adult group: Using an intersectionality framework.

“…Prior investigations of the Hmong experience and perspective have been represented through damage-centered research as “culturally maladaptive and structurally determined by white supremacy and coloniality” (Vue & Mouavangsou, 2021, p. 267). This approach rarely considers the social, cultural, political, and historical context and broader structures of power influencing the lives and narratives of Hmong people.…”

Recentering AAPI narratives as social justice praxis: Reclaiming and honoring our experiences.

“…It reimagines what it would mean to have a voice and agency in one's own epistemology. Vue and Mouabangsou (2021) present another epistemological examination, in their article "Calling Our Souls Home: A HMong Epistemology for Creating New Narrative." They present an interdisciplinary analysis of HMong ways of knowing that center HMong culture, meaning-making, and spirituality.…”

“…It reimagines what it would mean to have a voice and agency in one’s own epistemology. Vue and Mouabangsou (2021) present another epistemological examination, in their article “Calling Our Souls Home: A HMong Epistemology for Creating New Narrative.” They present an interdisciplinary analysis of HMong ways of knowing that center HMong culture, meaning-making, and spirituality. Through an interdisciplinary dialogue that brings the political lens to psychology, the authors challenge the pathology-focused narratives on the HMong people and present ways in which liberatory psychological perspectives align with centering HMong lived experiences.…”

“…Through an interdisciplinary dialogue that brings the political lens to psychology, the authors challenge the pathology-focused narratives on the HMong people and present ways in which liberatory psychological perspectives align with centering HMong lived experiences. Vue and Mouabangsou (2021) emphasize the importance of validating HMong knowledge that comes from within the community (emphasis in original) in order to pursue humanizing and community-centered research and clinical practice.…”