Carrying a Double Load

Abstract

Navigating academic spaces is challenging for first-generation college students, particularly for Black women doctoral students who produce decolonizing research at historically White institutions. For these Black women scholars, the workload is doubled. While learning to conduct research, Black women scholars must also survive the hidden curriculum of hegemonic academia while simultaneously doing the emotional labor of leading their committees towards an understanding and respect for Black women's intersectionality and its impacts on Black women scholars' ways of knowing. This chapter is an autoethnographic counternarrative of one Black woman doctoral student's endeavor to design and conduct Endarkened feminist research that honors the sacred, revolutionary work of Black classroom teachers. Consequently, this chapter aims to inspire more decolonized research and suggest meaningful ways that higher education institutions can support decolonizing researchers.