Handbook of Race and Refusal in Higher Education: Like a Path in Tall Grasses(Elgar Handbooks in Education)

This cutting-edge Handbook goes beyond discourses of equity, inclusion, and diversity, carving a space for critical discussions about the relationships between Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and the university. In doing so, it forges new paths and alternative conceptual starting points to consider in making a commitment to social justice in higher education. Kenjus T. Watson, Nora Cisneros, Lindsay Pérez Huber and Verónica Vélez bring together a dynamic collective of scholars, educators, students, community members, and activists to ask the critical question: how do we work towards justice through a lens of refusal in higher education (HE)? The Handbook presents both traditional and non-traditional scholarship, including creative and artistic work, to explore the distinctive ways white supremacy, settler colonialism, and antiblackness impact students, faculty, and communities within HE, with chapters providing insight into everyday strategies of refusal, radical imaginaries of abolitions and futurities, and projects of decolonization. Taking stock of the tensions and contradictions in ‘undoing’ the university while occupying positions within it, the Handbook concludes that the study of education cannot be divorced from the sociohistorical, political, and economic architectures that have shaped it. This path-breaking Handbook will be a crucial resource for BIPOC students, scholars and faculty within HE institutions, as well as students of the sociology of education, the sociology of discrimination, education policy, and race, ethnicity, and colonial studies.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Foreword: the before, beyond, and elsewhere of refusal xvi Sandy Grande Artist’s statement xix Marion Parajes Like a path in tall grasses: introducing the Handbook of Race and Refusal in Higher Education xx Race and Refusal Collective: Nora Cisneros, Lindsay Pérez Huber, Verónica Vélez, and Kenjus T. Watson PART I REFUSAL ALONG THE PATH Introduction to Part I 2 Race and Refusal Collective 1 Freedom dreaming: visions of refusal and collectivity from the past, present, and future 5 Tanya J. Gaxiola Serrano, Socorro Morales, and Alma Itzé Flores 2 My journey in the tall grass of resistance and refusal: from race, ethnic, and gender studies to Freirean critical pedagogy to critical race theory to the RAC 25 Daniel G. Solorzano 3 Disrupting the novice/master dichotomy as refusal: a critical race counterstory about mentoring 42 Michael W. Moses II 4 Letters to our children: mothering in the academy and a global pandemic 58 Alma Itzé Flores and Mercedes Valadez 5 The spectacle of chicanx system-impacted youth: my path towards refusal 79 María C. Malagón 6 The political economy of military recruitment and education privatisation 92 Nina Monet Reynoso PART II ABOLITION AND FUGITIVITY: INVESTMENTS IN THE ‘NOT YET’ Introduction to Part II 106 Race and Refusal Collective 7 the canary 112 Alexander Morrison Henry (henry poetry) 8 Abolition, BlackCrit and the perpetual necessity of refusal in education: a necessary path forward 120 David Stovall 9 The Black smugglers of higher education: how Black students, scholars, and faculty members disrupt schooling institutions to educate Black youth 128 Earl J. Edwards and Elianny C. Edwards 10 Black feminist otherwise: within and against the university 142 Mary Senyonga 11 Lessons learned: Black student leadership and the progressive university 159 J.P. Lesure 12 No university at the end of the world: notes towards an abolitionist university 174 Gene McAdoo 13 Embracing revolt & exile: a conversation on the perpetual refusal of the academy 187 edxi, (J)une Bee, and Estelle Ellison PART III DECOLONIZATION AND FUTURITIES Introduction to Part III 211 Race and Refusal Collective 14 A shattered Coyolxauhqui writes her heart whole: on refusing colonisation and fragmentation in creative writing 214 Elizabeth Parker Garcia 15 Decolonising higher education (we) through a collaborative (us) program-wide approach 228 Robin Zape-tah-hol-ah Minthorn, M. Billye Sankofa Waters, and Christopher B. Knaus 16 From compliance culture to liberatory access: reimagining disabled & deaf futurities on college campuses and beyond 241 Anna Acha and Danielle Mireles 17 Recipe for ritual 269 Andii H. 18 Creating a pedagogy of Afro-Indigenous epistemic disobedience: notes on reimaging care and healing in education 271 Cindy Bonaparte 19 dancing in the wake | like moss over modernity 281 simple ant 20 Drawing from the Well: ‘I never remember hearing that healing was going to feel good.’ 294 Tiffani Marie, Kenjus T. Watson, and Jewell Bachelor 21 Where might we go from here? An inconclusive conclusion to the Handbook of Race and Refusal in Higher Education 318 Race and Refusal Collective and Race and Refusal Handbook Contributors Index 327

About the Author :
Edited by Kenjus T. Watson, School of Education, American University, Washington D.C., Nora Cisneros, Department of Ethnic Studies, California State University, Bakersfield, Lindsay Pérez Huber, College of Education, California State University, Long Beach, and Verónica Vélez, Woodring Collective of Education, Western Washington University, US