In beauty, I walk: toward a maternal praxis of Diné decolonization

Davidson, Charlotte

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/46903 Copy

Description

Title

In beauty, I walk: toward a maternal praxis of Diné decolonization

Author(s)

Davidson, Charlotte

Issue Date

2014-01-16T18:25:51Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Gilbert, Matthew S.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Darder, Antonia

Committee Member(s)

• Gilbert, Matthew S.
• Anderson, James D.
• Emerson, Larry

Department of Study

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Discipline

Educational Policy Studies

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Indigenous Decolonization
• Higher Education
• American Indian
• Traditional Knowledge

Abstract

This dissertation proposes a potential pathway to rethink how Diné matrilineal knowledge can work to inform a Diné female academic identity. In keeping with the decolonizing traditions of Indigenous scholars, I will use a Beautyway lens—as mediated by Diné traditional learning modalities—to explore how the narrations of three generations of Navajo rug weavers, Shimásáni (my maternal grandmother, Sally Yazzie), Shimáyázhí (my mother’s sister, Lena Yazzie), Shimá (my mother, Nora Wilkinson), and Shideezhi (my younger sister, Sallie Wilkinson), point to the contemporary criticality of the primacy of feminine agency—a heuristic and familial intelligence. To this end, I will engage the transformative possibilities that can dialogically emerge from a rewoven matrifocal understanding of the world, and its implications for conducting doctoral research, as well as how it informs institutional persistence as a Diné research doctorate.

Graduation Semester

2013-12

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46903

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2013 Charlotte Elizabeth Davidson

Owning Collections