Written by Ruby Bafu, Jalessa Bryant, and Yanika Davis
The purpose of this blog post is to be vulnerable about our process for doing research. On April 24, 2022 four members of the Black Madison Voices research lab, Ruby Bafu, Jalessa Bryant, Yanika Davis, and Aireale Rodgers, attended the American Educational Research Association Conference (AERA). AERA is a national research conference that discusses topics and research approaches in education.While at AERA, Ruby, Jalessa, Yanika, and Aireale discussed how our lab approaches humanizing research. Humanizing research is a methodological stance that allows for building of relationships with care and dignity. We believe that humanizing research arises from an ethical need to push against social inequities and anti-Blackness. Conducting research that is humanizing is especially important when researchers are engaging with historically marginalized communities.
To be a humanizing research lab we have focused on specific principles which include vulnerability and refusal. Vulnerability is rooted in safety, support, and trust (Paris and Winn 2013) and is an integral part of our lab which strives to be vulnerable with each other as well as our research participants. In addition to vulnerability, refusal is also an important aspect of Humanizing Research and a concept that our research lab has reflected on deeply. During our AERA presentation, we also discussed intentional refusal.
Some of the political commitments we’ve discussed as a group are protection, joy, and wellness.
We are working with what these commitments look like in our lab so that we can ensure that it is something we can provide in this community. We are extending the principles that we are engaging with in our lab to the community because we believe it can help to address historic mistrust between the University and the community. We also want to ensure that you all know we are committed to the work that we do. To read more about Ruby, Jalessa, and Yanika’s reflections on our conference experience and how we go about enacting our political commitments in our lab and in our lives, read more HERE.
