Mapping Queer Cultural Capital in Doctoral Education: A Visual Autoethnography

Abstract

Context:

Doctoral students with intersecting marginalized identities face persistent barriers in predominantly white, heteronormative academic institutions. Although research documents high attrition rates and experiences of isolation among underrepresented doctoral students, less is known about the cultural assets and forms of capital that sustain multiply marginalized students through doctoral completion. Access to critical mentorship, peer support networks, and geographic location significantly shape doctoral experiences, yet these factors remain underexamined for queer students of color navigating academia.

Purpose:

This visual autoethnography maps the development and deployment of queer cultural capital throughout my doctoral journey as an Afro-Latina queer PhD student in New York City. Building on Yosso’s community cultural wealth framework and Pennell’s extension to queer contexts, I examine the processes through which different forms of capital emerge at the intersections of race, sexuality, and class in doctoral education. This work examines how critical mentorship from both faculty and peers either activates or constrains these forms of cultural wealth.

Research Design:

Using visual autoethnography as methodology, I analyze pivotal moments in my doctoral journey captured through photographs, creative artifacts, and reflective text. Each visual component corresponds to specific forms of capital activated during key transitions. This multimodal approach challenges text-centric academic conventions by foregrounding the embodied, spatial, and relational dimensions of identity negotiation in doctoral education (Azzarito, 2013; Woodley-Baker, 2009).

Conclusions:

This visual essay demonstrates that queer students of color possess profound cultural wealth that, when recognized and supported through critical mentorship, enables not just survival but also transformative scholarly contributions. Key findings reveal that: (1) peer mentorship functions as critical mentoring alongside faculty support; (2) geographic location in urban, queer-affirming contexts provides access to community and resources unavailable in isolated settings; and (3) recognition of one’s scholarly worth, despite systemic devaluation, emerges through accumulated moments of affirmation from multiple sources. By documenting how queer cultural capital operates within doctoral education, this work provides a framework for reimagining mentorship as a tool for collective empowerment and institutional transformation.