Critical Race Theory collective Resistant Knowledges Special Issue Part II

Community will always matter: 

Being in community (or building community) in both intimate and collective settings offers the opportunity to create space for a local to global range of resistant knowledges. Excerpt from the Resistant Knowledges Call for Papers- The CRTc

The CRTc, from our first conversations (2023) about focusing an editorial effort on coloniality and its anthesis decoloniality through the delivery of this the current and second of a Resistant Knowledges double issue, considers community an integral part of the editorial process and the contributions. That is, our editorial and media efforts are reflective of not only our personal creativity and professional acumen but also our intentionality to be in community with each other and, in turn, be in global community toward dismantling white supremacy and oppressive hierarchies. We are clear that Who We Are, is a global community of interdisciplinary, and intersectional scholaractivists who are committed to cultivating knowledge and information across borders.

Keywords: coloniality, communities, Critical Race Theory, decoloniality, re-search, resistant knowledges, storymaking

Community will always matter: Introduction to the Resistant Knowledges Special Issue Part II

 A call for justice following a call for papers: A book review of Kehinde Andrews’ The Psychosis of Whiteness: surviving the Insanity of a Racist World.

Peter Carter (UK) & Natasha Howard (UK)

Authors

The Resistant Views section has two contributions, both book reviews. In the first book review, A call for justice following a call for papers: A book review of Kehinde Andrews’ The Psychosis of Whiteness: surviving the Insanity of a Racist World, Natasha Howard and Dr Peter Carter offer a glimpse at both the work and the author. Sharing that Andrews’ writing style positions him as both journalist and novelist, but never far from the central theme of disenfranchisement, prejudice, and of course the psychosis of whiteness which on occasion feels like a chorus, or a call to power. While Howard and Carter have previously collaborated in a professional context through their shared agenda in Medical Education in the London (England) National Health Service (NHS) Trust, yet, on the other hand, is their first co-authored book review.

RENATE CHANCELLOR (US)

Author

Work Should Not Be Killing Us: Understanding the Racial Battle Fatigue Minefield for Black Women in Higher Education

In Work Should Not Be Killing Us: Understanding the Racial Battle Fatigue Minefield for Black Women in Higher Education, Dr Renate Chancellor offers an opportunity to further understand the experiences of Black women faculty in higher education, through Critical Race Theory, Racial Battle Fatigue (RBF), and Black feminist theoretical frameworks. Dr Chancellor, who is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, offers the issue’s Resistant Commentary, which is a follow-up to “Racial Battle Fatigue: The unspoken burden of Black women faculty in LIS” published in the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science in 2019.

ANTHONY W.DUNBAR/TONY (US) &

YUJAY MASAH (US)

Authors

Reintroducing Derrick Bell into Contemporary Discourse: A Review of ‘Racism and Resistance: Essays on Derrick Bell’s Racial Realism’

The second book review, Reintroducing Derrick Bell into Contemporary Discourse: A Review of “Racism and Resistance: Essays on Derrick Bell’s Racial Realism,” edited by Timothy J. Golden, presents a diverse set of perspectives from scholars in philosophy, law, theology, and rhetoric that critically engage with and expand upon Derrick Bell’s theories and scholarly works. This contribution is co-authored by Yujay Masah, Black Studies Librarian at Northwestern University Libraries, and Tony Dunbar who serves as the Global Lead for the Critical Race Theory collective (CRTc) and also conceptualized CRiTical Race information Theory (CRiT). The review approaches this work from outside the disciplines of its contributors and evaluates the volume for its accessibility, interdisciplinarity, and application of Bell’s theory of racial realism in contemporary discourses on racism and anti-racism.

KOURTNEY KAWANO (US)

Author

Enacting Kūʻē through Makawalu Discourse: A KanakaʻŌiwiCrit Study of Native Hawaiian Students

Kourtney Kowano is a wahine ʻOiwi (Native Hawaiian woman) who is completing her doctoral studies at UCLA in the social sciences and comparative education division of the School of Education and Information Studies. She provides this issue’s Resistant Re-search contribution, Enacting Kuʻe through Makawalu Discourse: A KanakaʻOiwiCrit Study of Native Hawaiian Students. Kourtney, who is a 2024 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow, applies a Kanaka ‘Oiwi (Native Hawaiian) Critical Race Theoretical (Kanaka‘Oiwi Crit) framework to examine Native Hawaiian students’ experiences with ku‘e (resistance). Through these resistant voices, we get a clear and powerful articulation of Indigenous knowledge systems.

JESS REED (US)

Author

Curbside Pedagogy: Bringing Glocal Black Curricula to the Streets

The issue’s Resistant Pedagogy discussion is authored by Jess Reed, who is from Detroit, Michigan. This innovative contribution is entitled Curbside Pedagogy: Bringing Glocal Black Curricula to the Streets. Jess shares her exploratory experiences that led her to ask, How do Black storytellers honor, imagine, and amplify Black curricula, revelatory counter-narratives, and possibilities via curated city-based “street” tours? Her unique point-of-view comes from her own experience as a storyteller. Jess is completing her doctoral studies at Michigan State University in the Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education program.

ACKNOWLEDGING THE RESISTANT KNOWLEDGES EXTERNAL REVIEWERS

One of our goals as a collective when we initially organized to engage in collaborative scholarly editorial work was to provide honorariums to external reviews. Honoring our external reviewers along with making our EFI editorial work freely accessible remains quite important to the CRTc. In the 38:4 (2022) CRT Special Issue through the support of the EFI managing editor, Fidelia Ibekwe, we are able to provide free access. Yet, we were not able to modestly compensate our external reviewers for our initial effort. For this 2024 (40:4) Resistant Knowledges Special Issue we were able to achieve both our goals: honorariums for reviewers and free access to the special issue content.

SUMAYYA AHMED, PhD

Sumayya is the Executive Director of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) at the University of Chicago. Prior to this appointment, she taught as an Assistant Professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science and at University College London’s global campus in Doha, Qatar.  Her published research has focused on documentary heritage, societal provenance, archival history, oral history, and the politics of cultural heritage preservation in North Africa and the region called the Middle East. Dr. Ahmed has also published on racism in the university and responses to calls for social justice in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museum(GLAM) workplaces. 

LORENA CAMARGO GONZALEZ, PhD

Lorena [she/her/ella] is an Assistant Professor of Undergraduate Studies in Education and Gender Equity at Sacramento StateUniversity. Dr. Camargo Gonzalez earned her Ph.D. from UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies with a specialization in Race and Ethnic Studies. Her educational experiences as an immigrant and first-generation college student inform her interdisciplinary approach in drawing from Critical Race theories, Chicana/LatinaFeminist theories, and historical methods such as oral histories and archival research to address the following areas: 1) the activism of Latina/o/x librarians; 2) racial justice within library services, and 3) the history of Latina/o/x children’s literature.

SUJIN HUGGINS, PhD

Sujin is a Professor in the School of Information Studies at Dominican University, River Forest, IL. Dr. Huggins teaches in the areas of youth services, reference, and community informatics. Among many professional associations, she is a member of the American Library Association (ALA), the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) and the United States Board of Books for Young People (USBBY). Her research interests include children’s literature of the African Diaspora, with a specialization in Caribbean children’s literature, critical pedagogy, and community-based participatory projects.

VANESSA IRVIN, EdD

Vanessa is an associate professor with the Master of Library Science Program at East Carolina University (USA). Dr. Irvin has authored three books, over 60 peer-reviewed publications and presentations, and has been an invited speaker to over 30 panels and events. She has also led grant-funded research projects exploring how heritage-based knowledge systems impact information-seeking behaviors and literacy practices in daily life. Irvin’s work investigates libraries as collaborative communities for literacy justice for diverse and local/Indigenous populations. DrV is equally interested in the social informatics of informal learning and the evolution of librarian professional practices with reference services and emerging technologies. Irvin serves as Co-Editor of the open-access peer-reviewed journal, The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion (IJIDI), where she manages an editorial team of 20 librarians and an editorial board of 35 LIS scholars worldwide. ​For  2024-2025, Dr. Irvin will be President of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). 

CECILIA SALVATORE, PhD

Cecila is a Professor in the School of Information Studies (SOIS) at Dominican University (DU), River Forest, IL. Dr. Salvatore is SOIS’ Archives/Cultural Heritage Certificate Program Coordinator. She has an international reputation for critical compassion and consciousness related to cultural heritage. Cecilia is a member of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and active in its Institutions Local History and Genealogy Collections Section. She is also a founding board member of the Indigenous Pacific Islands Knowledge United as well as an editorial board member for the journal Libraries: Culture, History, and Society, which is the official peer-reviewed journal of the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association. Dr. Salvatore is one of the Co Principal Investigators for DU SOIS’ portion ($750,000) of a multi institutional collaborative faculty Mellon Foundation Public Knowledge Program grant ($5,967,700): Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support (FOCAS). 

KENJUS WATSON, PhD

Kenjus (he/him) is a father, partner, brother, uncle and son who is passionate about reaching back to grounded wisdom, seeding into present challenges, and bridging towards more loving and sustainable futures. Kenjus is also an Assistant Professor of Urban Education at American University where he teaches courses in the EdD Educational Policy and Leadership Program within the School of Education. Additionally, Kenjus works as research lead, educator, and co-founder of the Institute for Regenerative Futures in the College of Education at San Jose State University. His research has focused on the biopsychosocial impact of every day anti-blackness and colonization (i.e.,racial microaggressions) on Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, as well as the promise of school abolition and apocalyptic education to bring about healing and  wellness for people and the planet. Kenjus earned his PhD in Education with an emphasis in Race and Ethnic Studies at UCLA.

2023-2024 Critical Race Theory collective Community

Stephanie Birch

Jon E. Cawthorne, PhD

Vanessa (Chacha) Centeno

Marilyn Clarke

Alice R. Corble, PhD

Rebekah Cumpsty, PhD

Amanda DeSimone-Shabrack

Anthony W. Dunbar (Tony), PhD

Elizabeth (Liz) Grauel

Alison Hicks, PhD

Natasha Howard

Aisha Johnson, PhD

Edith Mendez

Ramona Naicker

Ana Ndumu, PhD

Fezile (Fez) Sibanda

Mikaela Slade

Angela D. R. Smith, PhD

Evangeline (Vann) Stanford