THE HOMEPLACE RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
What is the Homeplace?
The homeplace is a safe space where black people can affirm one another and heal many of the wounds inÂflicted by racist domination. This space will foster love, respect, growth, and development which is intended to nurture our spirits. We view this homeplace as a community of resistance. (bell hooks, 1990).
Homeplace Goals:
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To engage in radical healing with Black graduate students.
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To foster a space of support for scholarly development, authenticity, and resistance to systems of oppression.
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To build community with Black students, faculty, and staff to operate as a collective within UF
Radical Healing in the Homeplace Collective:
Radical healing is designed to assist marginalized groups with coping with racial trauma that negatively impacts their well-being (French et al., 2020). Radical healing moves beyond individual blame to calling out systems of oppression. We will use this framework to resist oppression and move towards liberation with our Black graduate students through five key components: critical consciousness, strength and resilience, emotional and social support, radical hope, and cultural authenticity.
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The Research Project:
Utilizing the Black feminist epistemology of homeplace (hooks, 1990), the psychological framework of radical healing for communities of color (French et al., 2019), and a critical race counternarrative (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002), this study will explore the racialized experiences of Black graduate students at the University of Florida.
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Drawing on the visual methodologies of photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997) and photo-elicitation (Harper, 2002), this study will explore and amplify the voices of Black graduate students at The University of Florida. Embedded in critical participatory action research (CPAR), this study seeks to promote racial healing for Black graduate students within the university by centering their voices and experiences and engaging them as researchers collectively towards the provision of actionable policy and practice recommendations for key stakeholders (Manis et al., 2018).
Visual methods enhance the richness of data by discovering additional layers of meaning, adding validity and depth, and creating knowledge (Boucher, 2018; Harper, 2002; Wang & Burris, 1997). Photo elicitation evokes information, feelings, and memories due to the photograph's particular form of representation. In the expansion of photo-elicitation, the research team will also use the critical participatory action research (CPAR) approach of photovoice simultaneously, which also uses participant-generated photographs.
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This project is currently being sponsored by The Advancing Racial Justice Through Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Grant from the University of Florida.
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