I Am Invisible,Nevertheless: A Narrative of Two Black College Music Faculty

Abstract

Through this narrative inquiry, I examined the experiences of two Black music faculty members teaching in predominantly White institutions (PWIs). Using in-depth interviews and a composite narrative approach to protect participant anonymity, I explored how these faculty members navigated the unique challenges of music academia. My analysis yielded three interconnected themes: (a) the paradox of hypervisibility and invisibility, (b) identity negotiation in music academia, and (c) cultural taxation in music-specific contexts. The participants described challenges specific to music academia, where physical presence played a central role in performance and pedagogy—complexities that extended beyond what researchers had documented in broader studies of Black faculty experiences. Through Clandinin’s three commonplaces of narrative inquiry (temporality, sociality, and place), I analyzed how participants negotiated their visibility, maintained cultural authenticity, and managed additional unrecognized labor while teaching and performing in predominantly White spaces. This study contributed to existing scholarship on faculty of Color by documenting discipline-specific challenges at the intersection of racial identity, musical tradition, and performance. Based on these findings, I recommended reforms to evaluation criteria, support structures, and curriculum requirements to better serve Black music faculty in PWIs.