Performing Radical Black Womanhood: Black Women Artists as Critical Public Pedagogues

• Main Author: Carter, Nicole April
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: Ann Arbor ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 2015
• Subjects: African American Studies; Art education; Social research
• ISBN: 1339397978; 9781339397979

This project draws from research on critical public pedagogy to explore the pedagogical experiences of Black women artists and performers from Detroit, Michigan, using qualitative methodological components from autoethnography, ethnography, phenomenology, and art-based inquiry. The researcher used criterion sampling in order to select six of the women who were part of this project. The researcher attempts to explore how Black women counter stereotypical representations of Black womanhood, the role that art and performance play in maintaining or countering those representations, as well as how artistic endeavors transform the social, cultural, and political experiences of Black women. The findings demonstrate that by engaging as Critical Public Pedagogues, the women complicate and expand notions of the private and public sphere. This project provides insight into doing research from Endarkened Feminist and Black Feminist frameworks. The information in this project can provide insight and direction for research related to the role of Critical Public Pedagogy in the exploration of the nuances of the private and public sphere, the creation of an Endarkened Feminist Epistemology of place, and the construction of radical subjectivities. The methodological approaches can help researchers who wish to explore forms of inquiry that are artistic, disruptive, and emancipatory. Keywords: Critical public pedagogy, Endarkened Feminist Epistemology, Black Feminist Epistemology, Endarkened Feminist Epistemology of Place, radical Black female subjectivities