The Coal Miner’s Daughter Gets a PhD

Abstract

Using poetry, the author examines the journey that carried her from a coal mining family in a small town in West Virginia to an assistant professorship at a Research I university. Through performance autoethnography, she explores the influences that led to her perception of herself as an outsider in the academic community. She also considers how her background inspires her to establish relationships and conduct research in Latino communities. She questions the positioning/repositioning of the essence of self within the fluidity of moving back and forth between coal mining family roots and academic colleagues and friends. She attempts to understand her story through reflecting, writing, and performing as inquiry.