Envisioning Possibilities for Innovations in Higher Education Research on Race and Ethnicity

Abstract

This article uses the Sankofa principle of going back and getting that which can enable a community to imagine new possibilities. In this article, four waves of current research in race and ethnicity in higher education are offered, as well as some lessons learned from them. These considerations provide the backdrop for imagining how a fifth wave may be ontologically and epistemologically oriented, what themes it might take up, and its possible implications.

A Whitened Rainbow: The In/visibility of Race and Racism in LGBTQ+ Higher Education Scholarship

“…In doing so, these authors further the racism that has long been present in academic knowledge production (Patton, 2016) because they sanitize theories that could have unearthed matters of race. Moreover, these articles' lenses indicate a lack of attention to the complexities of racial analyses, mirroring scholarship in higher education that erases the nuances of anti-Blackness and settler colonialism (Stewart, 2019a).…”

“…Inherent to this statement is the critique that research on race in postsecondary education has not substantially investigated the complexities in this analysis. Relatedly, scholarship on racism has not largely taken up anti-Blackness and settler colonialism (Stewart, 2019a).…”

"I can't give it my all if my heart isn't in it”: Understanding Black undergraduate students’ development of Black Racialized Critical Consciousness at two historically and predominantly white institutions

“…I use Black and Black American interchangeably. Like Stewart (2019), "I do use Black as a pan-African descriptor for indigenous African-descended peoples racialized as Black in the U.S. racial hierarchy" (p.8). I also use terms like Black American, Afro-Latinx, Afro-Caribbean, or African immigrant (including indicating nationality or country of origin), when intraracial distinctions are necessary.…”

“…As I stated in a footnote earlier, I follow the logic of Stewart (2019) and use "Black as a pan-African descriptor for indigenous African-descended peoples racialized as Black in the U.S.…”