On Critically Conscious Research

I was really surprised by this book in how different it is from the other NCRLL volumes we've been looking at--it seems like something that would be assigned in the social justice class. Since this is research methods, the one thing I had in my mind while reading the first three chapters was how I would use this in my own research. Maybe the instructional nature of the other texts we've read that I fought against for so long has finally sunken in, because now that we're reading a text that isn't instructional I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I was grateful for their explications of Kant, Hegel, and Marx in the first chapter because I always shied away from undergraduate philosophy classes. The overview and historical background of critical race theory as well as whiteness studies was also helpful. For those of us who are white, having an awareness of how we are privileged can lead us toward exploring the biases that might impact our research. It's not about eradicating white privilege, which would be nearly impossible because it is so ingrained within our society, but acknowledging its existence so that we can point to the ways in which it is wrong and begin to move away from it--something that sounds simple, but isn't when you consider how many white people would be vehemently opposed to the suggestion that they are privileged. The line that resonated the most with me was "While the West envisages itself as transcending race/ethnicity and gender oppression, silences about past and current colonization, genocide, imperialism, and mass murders are constant reminders of human rights abuses and human suffering" (33). I can't help but be reminded of my students here--if you ask them, we are long past racism and sexism, and if you speak Spanish in today's society, you have an advantage because you can get jobs more easily. So many people are blissfully ignorant of the fact that humans are still being oppressed--our country isn't the happy melting pot that our elementary school teachers have made it out to be.

I'm interested to see where else this book takes us and how I can implement more critically conscious research into my own projects.