The Emancipatory Power of Collaboration in Educational Research

By Dwuana Bradley

January 1, 2023 marked the beginning of my second year as a tenure-track faculty member and member of the Pullias Center. As a newly-minted member of USC’s faculty, with much of my research agenda centered on understanding educational barriers to inclusive access and excellence for Black students, this date subsequently led to a deep reflection on a year’s worth of emancipatory efforts within and beyond the academy. More importantly it led to a deep reflection on what’s to come in the year ahead.

In this article, I share insights gleaned from those reflections birthed from my first year as a new community member (on campus and off campus) forever committed to what I refer to as ‘emancipatory relationality.’ This concept asks educational stakeholders (i.e., faculty, students, administrators, and policy-advocates) to consider the degree to which our labor (and labor relations) serve to liberate Black people and Black communities from anti-Blackness, coloniality, and other forms of oppressive domination (i.e., racialized realities of class, in-accessibility, spirituality, homophobia and gender-binaries). Beyond considering these dynamics, it asks that we act on that consideration in ways that aim to further emancipate Black people as individuals, and the communities from which we hail, on a daily basis.

I consider emancipatory relationality, as a way of being and relating to others. As a Black woman, it is embedded in the way that I relate within, and beyond, myself. As a faculty member, it marks the relationships I strive to create through formalized research partnerships and collaborations. It is reflected in the way that I engage learners in my professional practice of teaching. Ultimately, it is an expression of the motivations that undergird the endeavors I invest time into, for the sake of transforming the field of education into a more equitable space, particularly for Black people who have survived and continue to endure what Saidiya Hartman refers to as the “after-life of slavery.”

Even for critical scholars, many norms and requirements of the academy stifle our ability to exist in a state of emancipatory relationality. As educational stakeholders, within the academy we are inudated with traditions that distort our emancipatory statuses. By emancipatory status, I mean—how far removed one is from U.S. chattle slavery in every way humanly possible. Navigating my first year in the academy as an individual only three generations removed from the reality of a sharecropper’s existence, I was intuitivly determined to consider my own emancipatory status and the emancipatory status of those who I study; those who I support through my role on campus; and those who I seek to create policy change on behalf of. Moreover, considering the emancipatory status of myself and those who I engage meant maintaining my determination to consider the influence of that fiscal, physical, emotional, and spiritual proximity on our daily interactions.

Over the course of 2022, in collaboration with Black students, colleagues, and parents across the P-20 pipeline, I have worked toward establishing emancipatory relationships with those inside and beyond the academy through the praxis of embodied emancipatory relating and collaboration. One example of these efforts, that I’m most excited about nurturing going into 2023, is my commitment to support community-engaged research to practice efforts that center Black students and their parents, such as Long Beach Unified School District’s (LBUSD) Black Student Achievement Initiative (BSAI). This initiative and its Sankofa program for Black student achievement is led by University of Southern California Ed.D. student and 20+ year administrative veteran, Elyssa Taylor of LBUSD, in collaboration with Shervaughnna Anderson-Byrd (another 20+ year educational veteran) of UCLA’s Center X. BSAI centers the needs of Black students across the LBUSD, and prioritizes the concerns of those who love them most—their guardians and family members.

Curious about the liberational capacity of a community meeting named for the practice of retrieving what is lost—“The Sankofa Village”—I was integrated into the fabric of this initiative through my commitment to establishing emancipatory relationships. I entered, what we now lovingly call “The Village” as a new neighbor in Long Beach and a concerned parent of a Black public school child. Indeed, the Village is a liberating space. It is one where the trajectories, and well-being, of Black students from Pre-K to higher education are deeply considered by everyone in attendance, because our futures are intricately related and dependent on the success of our efforts. In November of 2022, members of the Sankofa Village saw that nearly 40 LBUSD high school students had the opportunity to go on free college tours that inspired them to consider the nation’s HBCU’s, which graduate the majority of Black judges, doctors, lawyers, and STEM professionals, while providing a sense of belonging that is unmatched.

On average 50-80 parents gather on a monthly basis in the Village to break bread, build friendship and coalitions, and discuss our dreams, desires and deepest concerns for Black students in the district.  In turn, educational researchers within the community like myself, Elyssa (a budding scholar and veteran K-12 administrator), and Shervaughnna (a literacy consultant and project director at a public research university) meditate on the whispers of the village and amplify them back to the district, whose leaders are poised to respond with meaningful change toward equity. I entered the village with liberation and equity for Black students on my mind and found an entire community committed to the same efforts.

As we start the new year, we at the Pullias Center invite you to reflect on how we might center emancipatory relationality as the foci of educational research and practice, for the sake of advancing high impact collaborations that hold the power to transform the U.S. education system into a more equitable space for us all. This year we challenge you to engage in an ongoing reflexive practice that engages any one of the following points of reflection:

What aspects of my praxis (i.e., evidence-based practices of teaching, administration, and policy advocacy):

• Rely on innovative collaborative approaches that center co-constructive ways of knowing and being in community with Black people;
• Spans disciplinary silos towards aims of deconstructing and reconstructing issues of practice and education for Black people;
• Disrupts patterns of elitism perpetuated by institutional disparities in knowledge production fueled by institutional resources (I.e, multi-tiered carnegie status collaborations) in ways that continue to emancipate Black people;
• Challenges power dynamics through intentional and humanizing relationships across institutional roles (staff, faculty, and students) among Black people;
• Illustrates the importance of asset-based community-centered research with intentionality toward improving the liberatory capacity of research-to-practice partnerships and initiatives for Black communities.