Chicana M(other)work: Radical Disruptions Within and Beyond the Academy

We propose a roundtable discussion based on our theorization of the term Chicana M(other)work—a Chicana feminist and decolonial approach for individuals who provide care and labor within and beyond the academy. In this... [ view full abstract ]

We propose a roundtable discussion based on our theorization of the term Chicana M(other)work—a Chicana feminist and decolonial approach for individuals who provide care and labor within and beyond the academy. In this discussion, we will be sharing our testimonios of institutional boundary disruptions through the lens of Chicana M(other)work. Through nonfiction creative essays, poetry, and videos, we will illustrate how we negotiate our intersectional identities as Chicana mothers in the academy. We ask: if the work we perform in academia is gendered—where research is masculinized and teaching is feminized—in what ways can we radically transform the academy? How do we develop conscious alliances with other Latinas/os and people of color within and beyond institutions? What does radical self-care and healing look like within the context of hostile institutions?

Our project builds a working definition of what we call Chicana M(other)work. We expand upon black feminist Patricia Hill Collins’s theorization of “motherwork,” who employs this term to eradicate societal expectations for mothers by situating mothering as labor. We are also in conversation with other scholarship that has published on academic mothers (e.g. Presumed Incompetent, Mama PhD, and Revolutionary Mothering) but our specific position as self-identified Chicana feminist mother-scholars emphasizes the care, activist, and healing work we provide in our classrooms, communities, and homes.

Our one-year collaboration, which includes a collaboratively written manuscript for publication and video project, was born out of our shared experiences of racial and gendered microaggressions that come from our (in)visibility as Chicana mothers in the academy. Although we write from our positionalities as Chicana feminist mother-scholars, we situate this collaborative project into the larger body of Latina/o Studies by offering Chicana M(other)work as a theoretical framework which disrupts traditional academic boundaries and disciplines. Our project also aims to challenge these boundaries through the cultivation of social media activism with the hashtag we coined #chicanamotherwork and circulation of a collaborative video we created about this project. We imagine both can serve as a means to include new coalitions of solidarity.

In the spirit of the conference theme, this project reflects on the “un-disciplining” that is central to the field of Latina/o Studies because we expose the disciplining that we as academics have to submit to in order to fully realize the radical potential through our erasure as Chicana mothers. In the wake of current campus activism led by students of color occurring throughout the United States, we challenge traditional ideas of “belonging” in the academy by asserting ourselves as Chicana mother-scholars who perform Chicana M(other)work to form new coalitions that disrupt these systems of power at work, home, and school.

A/V Request

This roundtable will require audio/visual accommodations for Powerpoint and sound.

Panelists
Michelle Téllez, Ph.D.
Northern Arizona University, Ethnic Studies; Senior Lecturer

Cecilia Caballero, PhD Candidate
USC, Department of American Studies and Ethnicity

Judith C. Pérez-Torres, PhD Candidate
University of Utah, Educational Leadership and Policy