Abstract
Centering Blackness in educational research is a pursuit of liberation grounded in process, inquiry, and relational praxis. This approach recognizes liberation as an ongoing, unfinished endeavor, urging researchers to disrupt the normative systems that constrain Black life and knowledge. Black methodologies emerge as flexible and transformative, drawing on Black creative and intellectual labor to challenge dominant epistemologies. In this context, centering Blackness involves using citation as a method-making practice—a critical approach to knowing, relating, questioning, and imagining otherwise. The articles in this collection embody these principles. Together, they advocate for referential, relational, and rebellious approaches to knowledge, expanding the possibilities of research rooted in Blackness. This collection reorients educational inquiry by proposing Black living as a method to rethink, disrupt, and transform systems of knowledge and power.
Sculpting is the process of shaping and carving clay, a method for creating detailed figurines, busts, and other intricate art forms (Leigh, 2023). Similarly, researchers are sculptors of knowledge, using methodology as a set of detailed processes, applying various techniques in pursuit of findings and outcomes. Wynter (1994, 2006) has commented on the role of academics and researchers in shaping and maintaining discourses of non-humanness. She asks why, as intellectuals, we can disagree so strongly with what is being done, yet still create the discursive rules that make these behaviors possible. The articles included in this themed issue take up a similar question in unique and pressing ways relative to the educational enterprise.
Sustaining discourses of non-humanness is partly a question of how knowledge is constructed and the methods used in that construction. Western methodological – those that prioritize categorization, standardization, and replicability – practices have engendered the overrepresentation of “Man” and the current order of knowledge, contributing to certain forms of life and humanity while erasing others (Wynter, 1994). Through discourses of rationality and reason, racialized logics and methods cohere around the notion of objectivity and linearity in the research process. Methodology, then, legitimates Western knowledge production and the rigid sense-making that constrains otherwise possibilities. Blackness, however, disrupts traditional methodologies, as its presence raises critical questions and opens up new possibilities for what it means to be human (Okello, 2024).
Accounting for Black liveliness and living—an anticolonial stance—demands that researchers work with raw materials differently. It requires that our starting point “be one of disobedient relationality that always questions, and thus is not beholden to normative academic logics” (McKittrick, 2020, p. 45). This must go beyond merely studying Black people, or having Black people involved in processes (Okello, 2024).
Studying Black experiences has the potential to expand the visibility of Black life, history, cultural production, and experiences. Deploying traditional methodological approaches has effectively deepened understanding of Black experiences in the diaspora and, for our purposes, in the educational context. Yet, this attentiveness does not fully address how Blackness has been deployed as a social and political matrix that orders Western knowledge. Put another way, studying Blackness as a biological or cultural descriptor (i.e., through a race and racism framework) cannot always encompass Black life because racialized logics prevent versions of Blackness that are not “solely or absolutely defined by and through abjection, subjection, and objectification” (McKittrick, 2020, p. 46).
An Invitation
Rooted in and routed through the belief that Blackness is multifaceted and brimming with potential, this themed collection explores how we perceive and, more importantly, how we might develop new ways of seeing and understanding Blackness—particularly within educational spaces. To this end, the authors engage with multiple sites of Black knowledge and cultural production to theorize Blackness as a force capable of reshaping the ways we come to know. Central to this inquiry are Black creative intellectuals who facilitate this transformative knowing. We critically examine how academic disciplines, along with their invested scholars, discursively produce and sustain social hierarchies, especially in human development, research, and knowledge production. In doing so, we echo Sylvia Wynter’s pressing question: “What have we had to do, and still have to do, with the putting in place of the classifying logic?” (Wynter, 1994, p. 44). Black method-making here is informed by Okello (2024), who follows and thinks with Wynter in On Blackness, Liveliness, and What It Means to Be Human, offering not only a critique of disciplinary boundaries but a deeper meditation on how individuals experience being in the world. Okello, like other Black writers, artists, and cultural workers, shows how turning to Black knowledge and cultural production can expand our conceptions of community, justice, and Black interiority—and, in turn, broaden our understanding of what it means to exist.
For artist Simone Leigh, histories of Blackness produce and shape the conditions for living, knowing, undoing, and existing differently in the world, with clay serving as a vessel to articulate the depth and complexities of Black being. Sculpting, as a method of Black liveliness and living, is exemplified in her sculpture Last Garment.
Sculpting Knowledge
The sculpture (Figure 1) is monumental, intimate, contemplative, and disruptive. Made of bronze, it depicts a woman bent at the waist, washing clothes in a large reflecting pool. Last Garment is distinguished by “the texture and precision of the woman’s wet clothing as it adheres to her body,” more than eight hundred handmade rosettes, and hands meeting a rock, momentarily still amid rhythmic labor. The scene is inspired by an archival photograph taken in Jamaica in 1879 by C.H. Graves, which captures the work of a laundress. In line with methodological logics of capture and the use of documenting methods like photography, it was the type of image sadistically circulated to reinforce voyeurism and normative social and political beliefs about Black inferiority—an outgrowth of colonial power imbalances in British-occupied territories. Woman, bent at the waist, washing clothes.
Capture is the consistent, underlying thread binding documentation, cataloging, logging, fieldwork, findings, and research. Capture, as in apprehending, seizing, arresting, trapping, and imprisoning. Capture, as in forcing into custody and taking hold; capture, akin to abduction, carrying off, and detaining against one’s will. We are concerned with the way method holds Black people—their histories, memories, and experiences—without their consent and against their will. In the original photo, the viewer learns nothing about the laundress—her name, her home, her family, or whether she consented to being photographed. However, in Simone Leigh’s hands, the photograph and Black people possess otherwise possibilities for life, as raw materials become instruments of futurity, life-making building blocks, and acts of rebellion that bring Black living into view.
The woman, objectified and reduced to a fungible commodity, is made to appear on different terms, exceeding the ethnographic gaze. With exquisite detail, the once caricatured figure, devoid of humanness, now possesses agency and an interiority—a prism through which to reckon with the depth and fullness of African diaspora epistemologies. Or, following Wynter, to rethink the very frameworks through which we consider ourselves human. Last Garment, as Sharpe (2023) noted, is an invitation “to seeing the subject of the statue, the person, and the labor, and then to see the world and ourselves within a set of power relations at work, and to perhaps, see them differently” (p. 239). It invites the viewer into the complex positionality of Blackness and its implications for the self.
For Leigh, confronting non-humanness can be understood as the work of abstraction. The sculpture does not bear features typically associated with human representation, nor does it attempt to replicate the photo; instead, through the figure, Leigh offers an instance of Black female subjectivity, a deliberate refusal of the onto-epistemic terrains that reject it. In Leigh's hands, we might not only consider the reality of this woman’s labor but the nature of her work—can she see herself reflected in the pool of water? How often does she pause, stand, and stretch out her bent back? What is the rhythm of her hands? What lies ahead, above her head?
Leigh works against histories of scientific production primarily concerned with documentation, mapping, representation, and resolving complex issues with reasonable outcomes. Her hands operationalize an onto-epistemological disruption, serving as the fulcrum for a methodology of beingness that unsettles normative patterns of what constitutes knowledge and research evidence. Toward the question of what it means to center Blackness in educational research, Leigh’s aesthetic and epistemic intervention embodies Wynter’s (2003) insistence that Black rebellious activities—expressions of creativity, genre-bending, and otherwise world-making—provide the grounds for materializing new ways of being human.
Leigh’s attention to detail, purposeful omissions, and choice of materials not only articulate new meanings and inquiries into the conditions of Black living, but also invite us to consider “racial knowledges as encoded practices, traditions, and materials, parts of the assemblages of racialization that fall outside the domain of recognition, desires, and bounded subjectivity” (Leigh, 2023, p. 201). Leigh invites us to think of method-making as an enactment of Black living.
Citation as Method-Making
At its core, centering Blackness in educational research is about pursuing liberation—and doing so in communion. The use of the verb pursue is intentional, reflecting a commitment to process, seeking, inquiry, and curiosity. To suggest that centering Blackness is the pursuit of liberation—an orientation toward process—provides a route for researchers and cultural workers to understand liberation as ongoing and unfinished. This frames methodology as praxis, or method-making (McKittrick, 2020). This effortful praxis calls for breach (McKittrick, 2023), or the interruption of normative functions, an epistemic dislodging from rubrics of fixity that lock one into recursive practices concerned with referencing and replicating normative systems of examination, analysis, and evaluation. This loosening, animated by liberatory longings, recognizes the ways that research arrangements are bound to automated and recursive logics that sustain the present order of knowledge, while simultaneously rendering illegible the activities of Black living.
On this premise, creative, intellectual, and rebellious labor and activities are buried beneath racialized scripts. But methodology, like clay, is pliable. In the hands of those who take up the complexity of Blackness as something that questions, imagines otherwise, and struggles against normative constraints, methods can mold us and, in turn, transform research processes.
For Simone Leigh, clay is a medium for Black methodology, one that enables us to trace the lineage of diasporic pasts, meditate on the shifts and textures of the present moments we inhabit, and imagine futures. Embodying habits of knowing, being, and doing rooted in Black feminist theorizing, Leigh’s process illuminates the essence of centering Blackness in processes of inquiry— citation (Agard-Jones, 2023). Put another way, centering Blackness in educational research involves taking up citation as methodology. Citation, as method-making, is about how we know and how we come to know what we know (Hill, 2018). Citation also matters because it is at the core of our questioning, critiques, evaluations, and disapprovals. On the subject of liberation, for example, citation as method-making teaches that there are no ready-made solutions or definitive analytical frames, and that to begin with such propositions is ineffective (McKittrick, 2020). Alternatively, there is struggle—a genealogy of radical theory- and method-making that considers the work of struggle as praxis for being. Returning to Leigh and her work with Last Garment, three analytical habits surface as a framing for citation as method-making: referential, relational, and rebellious.
With regard to the referential, Agard-Jones (2023), following Morrison (1995), describes the way clay “remembers from whence it came,” (p. 105) how it bears the inscriptions of the grounds and processes that brought it into existence. The convergence of various minerals, clay embodies and performs memory. Guided by diasporic literacy (Clark, 2009) and an insistence on collective knowing, Leigh’s referential labor is both capacious and intimate, annotating proximate connections and the cultural forms that inspire her work. Last Garment, as noted, draws on diasporic knowledge to honor the long history of Black women’s labor and critique spectatorial logics.
Concerning relationality, Leigh has been clear that her intended audience is Black women. Last Garment can thus be read as a practice of sharing ideas toward liberation. In the sculpture, there is an exchange between Leigh, Black women, and the lineage of Black women that precedes the clay modeling. Leigh compiles a bibliography, accentuated by every detail, that codes for collective navigation.
As it relates to rebellion, citation is the work of noticing Black living as capacious, creative, and intellectual. More pointedly, citational rebellion goes beyond recognizing Black creative activities as oppositional; this habit of mind is about what those creative activities do—what possibilities do they open? What critiques do they offer? On what conversations do they apply pressure? The scale of Last Garment compels one to adjust to its presence, to see differently, rebelling against normative systems of knowledge that relegate Black women’s labor to the periphery. In what follows, we discuss how these habits–referentiality, relationality, and rebellion– are reflected in the articles within this themed issue.
Referentiality
Black method-making is inherently referential, as demonstrated by the authors of this volume. Here, referential can be understood as careful enunciations of Black living–deeply reading, making sense of, and putting overlapping discourses into conversation. In “A Beauty Full of Healing”, Abdi calls for a deep engagement with Black aesthetics as a method for understanding Black living and for rejecting modernity. This article investigates how Black aesthetics can function as methodological practices to reclaim imagination and redefine humanness beyond the boundaries set by modern, positivist knowledge systems. In response to Sylvia Wynter’s critique of our “truth-making-positivist-biocentric system of knowledge” that overlooks storytelling as a fundamental aspect of being human (McKittrick, 2015), and bell hooks’ call to move beyond sight into a metaphysical awareness that deepens our experience of reality (hooks, 1995), this offering considers Black aesthetics as a radical tool for method-making. By positioning Blackness as an active force rather than a passive category, Black aesthetics emphasize the capacity of Black communities to create, define, and interpret their own worlds.
In like manner, in “Invoking ‘re’ towards Potentialities for African Agency in (Re)search,” Amuzu traces African-centered conceptual genealogies as an entry point for rethinking research. Specifically, the article critically examines how certain terms, often used superficially, can be revitalized to foster a deeper engagement with African agency and self-determination. Moreover, Amuzu contends that African scholars must actively challenge and reflect on their perspectives, embracing alternative viewpoints as part of an essential intellectual practice. Positioned within an Afrocentric and decolonial framework, the article reimagines the prefix “re”—typically associated with meanings like “again” or “repeat”—to expound on the potential for African agency and creativity. By exploring the generative possibilities of “re,” the article advances critical African thought and education.
In “Re(cover) Revelations,” Nagbe and Teague engage Black intellectual texts and historical archives to recover alternative forms of knowledge, acknowledging the layered past of Black intellectual traditions as foundational to its analysis. By analyzing texts that capture Black historical and literary voices, Black Ancestral Text Analysis enables researchers to recover unseen, embodied, and alternative knowledges within Black intellectual traditions. The method involves a structured protocol of research questions to guide the excavation of multi-genre texts, examining not only the narratives but also the storytellers, storytelling techniques, and archival “storage” of these knowledges. Researchers engage in meditative reflection to uncover ancestral wisdom and consider the silences within these texts, allowing for an encounter with knowledge that goes beyond what is immediately visible. Ultimately, Black Ancestral Text Analysis encourages communal responsibility and ethical engagement in education research, promoting practices that honor and sustain Black knowledge traditions.
Relationality
Relation, as a habit of mind, is concerned with gathering ideas “across-with-outside-within-against normative disciplines” (McKittrick, 2020, p. 47) for the multiple ways they might offer clues about living differently in the world. In this volume, we understand relation as an affective laboring that is persistently and perpetually working toward deeper understanding. In “Bone-Deep Engagement,” Okello emphasizes embodied intensities, arguing that ethical response-making involves looking, feeling with, and alongside the continuum of the Black quotidian. This relational approach honors the depth of Black living. By critically addressing the question of what it means to be human, the article disrupts conventional methodological approaches that often rely on detachment. Instead, it introduces “Black methodological intonations,” a praxis of attentiveness that engages deeply with the nuances of Black living, emphasizing relationality over mere observation. Fundamentally, response-making considers attunement, impressions, slowness, and emanation. Together, they inform a methodological approach that resists the limitations of objective observation and instead commits to a close engagement with the precarity of Black living. This work ultimately encourages scholars to develop research practices that honor the depth and precarity of Black living, fostering an ethical approach to methodology that moves beyond spectatorship to relational participation.
Relatedly, in “Liming as Black Methodology”, Stephens-Peace calls on researchers to connect with Black and Caribbean knowledge systems, positioning Liming as a communal practice that enables deeper discourse and knowledge exchange across cultural divides. In particular, it explores the Black Caribbean practice as a valuable research methodology. Liming emerges as a powerful tool for fostering dialogue and learning in diverse community contexts, enriching educational research, and extending its relevance across various fields. Stephens-Peace asserts that methodologies like Liming, rooted in Caribbean, African-centered, and Black traditions, are inherently liberatory. Moreover, they offer pathways for creating inclusive, culturally resonant research practices that honor the wisdom and lived experiences of the communities they serve.
In “Where We Live and Be,” Nyachae et al. theorize Black girlhood as an epistemic and methodological site that holds praxes for being in and bringing forth otherwise worlds. Here, the authors advocate a shift towards Black girlhood frameworks and theories as vital contributions to Black educational research, positing that Black girlhood redefines our understanding of humanity and humanness by centering Black girl epistemes as starting points. Nyachae et al. introduce Project-Praxes of Black Girl Otherworld-Making, a framework guiding scholars in their responsibility to Black communities and the interdisciplinary fields of Black Studies, Black Girlhood Studies, and education. Project-Praxes of Black Girl Otherworld-Making is structured around seven key pursuits: (1) envisioning humanness beyond the white gaze and post-“Man”; (2) honoring the places where Black girlhoods have lived and thrived; (3) fostering ethical engagements with Black girl(s)/hoods; (4) integrating Black girlhood approaches into educational research; (5) practicing reflexivity in the pursuit of freedom work; (6) exploring alternative, liberatory worlds; and (7) embracing humility as a guiding principle. The article closes with a call for educational research to (re)turn to Black girlhood, emphasizing its unique role in fostering a liberatory vision for the future of Black education.
Rebellion
Rebellious acts—uprisings, marronage, revolts—at various scales are rejections of normative epistemes and the conditions of being they assume. These rebellious activities serve as sites of invention and reinvention, acting as critical responses, interruptions, and transformative spaces that render Black humanity both imaginable and intelligible as a site for being. In “Radically Re-Reading Youth Feedback with Anticolonial Black Feminist Critique,” Carter critiques the racial and colonial assumptions embedded in the interpretation of youth feedback, rejecting normative research approaches, and calling for a radical shift in how Black youth voices are understood and utilized in educational discourse. Specifically, while scholars emphasize the importance of youth perspectives to understand educational injustice, this article suggests that existing methods often overlook the coloniality embedded in how youth feedback is analyzed and represented in academia. Through an anticolonial Black feminist lens, the author develops a “radical reading practice” for examining youth feedback from a summer program aimed at advancing racial and educational justice and preventing summer learning loss. Fundamental elements of this radical reading practice involve re-evaluating initial interpretations of youth feedback, tracing racial themes in educational texts to reveal how these texts use modern signifying strategies that reinforce entrenched power structures, and uncovering how coloniality and raciality manifest within out-of-school programs.
On What it Means to be Human
Together, this collection operates as a rebellious act against the knowledge order anchored in Western epistemes, elevating praxes of referentiality and relationality, while grounding rebellions in Black knowledge and cultural production. On this premise, we invite readers to consider the following related to centering Blackness in research: • What is my relationship to Blackness, and how am I working through the implications therein? • Where is my engagement with Blackness leading–genealogically, ecologically, somatically? • How might researchers engage Black knowledge and cultural production in ways that prioritize how we know, rather than what we know? • How does engaging Blackness allow for, and make available, methods of liberation?
In the ways Black people move, sing, gather, create, care, and resist, they express vital coordinates and codes for being in a world marked by gratuitous anti-Black violence. To account for these rich, expansive expressions of life and being demands a kind of attunement that arises from elsewhere—one that embraces specificity. For Wynter, Okello, and this collection, theorizing Blackness moves beyond simply examining Black “life” (whether in terms of individual experiences, biology, or culture) and instead recognizes Blackness as a social, political, and historical matrix that shapes society and determines who is allowed to claim full humanity. What is at stake, then, is not the organization and disciplining of Black being through categorization, but an opening—an invitation to come alongside Black living as method-making for how we might think, unthink, ruin, and undermine the limits of the prevailing order of knowledge while engendering otherwise ways to be.
