Get to know me, homey: exploring critical, relational and racial literacy possibilities in co-excavative letter writing
Journal for Multicultural Education
ISSN: 2053-535X
Article publication date: 16 March 2022
Issue publication date: 20 September 2022
Abstract
Purpose
There is currently a dearth of research on the implications of the epistolary as a site for knowledge production. This paper aims to demystify the process of academic theorizing through the co-authors’ co-excavative epistolary method.
Design/methodology/approach
Through co-excavative epistolary practices, the co-authors’ relationship was deepened, the collective sense was made of Covid-19, and racial literacy-centered academic theorizing commenced. In the co-authors making meaning of their letter-writing data, they provide examples of and analyze their co-excavative letter-writing process.
Findings
The co-excavative epistolary method deepened the co-authors’ relationship to one another and improved their ability to produce useful and complicated knowledge.
Research limitations/implications
The co-excavative epistolary exchanges mark a new site for academic theorizing and incite creative approaches to academic co-writing, as well as more transparency about the academic writing process in general.
Social implications
Co-excavative methods disrupt traditional academic sites of knowledge production and engender space for relational intimacy.
Originality/value
The work introduces both a new method, co-excavative epistolary writing and a new rational framework, the critical dignity relational framework.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Authors would like Sherry Deckman, Limarys Caraballo, and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, as well as many unnamed folx, for their constant support, mentorship, and love. Authors would also like to thank the Urban Education program for being their academic home.
Citation
Bell, J. and Zaino, K. (2022), "Get to know me, homey: exploring critical, relational and racial literacy possibilities in co-excavative letter writing", Journal for Multicultural Education, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 309-322. https://doi.org/10.1108/JME-07-2021-0114
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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