Lourdes Diaz Soto

Bio: Lourdes Diaz Soto is an academic researcher from Dalton State College. The author has contributed to research in topics: Reflexivity. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 2 publications receiving 38 citations.

The Xicana Sacred Space: A Communal Circle of Compromiso for Educational Researchers

Abstract: The Xicana Sacred Space resulted from an effort to develop a framework that would center the complexities of Chicana ontology and epistemology as they relate to social action projects in our communities. Claiming indigenous roots and ways of knowing, the Xicana Sacred Space functions as a decolonizing tool by displacing androcentric and Western linear notions of research in favor of a Mestiza consciousness (Anzaldua, 1999). Organically born, the space proved to be an important source of knowledge, strength, inspiration, and reflexivity for the authors in their journey as graduate students. Here the authors explain how the space evolved and detail its promise as a tool for raising consciousness, gaining strength, cultivating cultural intuition (Delgado Bernal, 1998), examining positionalities and standpoints, and achieving intellectual growth among those interested in conducting decolonial, emancipatory, and feminist research and action projects.

Hearts of Compassion: A Concern for Violence against Children

Abstract: This article documents the global concern of violence toward children in the post-modern society. The possibility of pursuing altruistic possibilities is explored in light of recent research conducted with children who experienced the events of 9/11 in New York City and immigrant border crossing children. The conclusion explores how early childhood and progressive educators can work toward alleviating violence against children. (My father) came to see us one time (after our mother was killed by soldiers), but only once and then they told us he'd been killed. We were very sad ... as time went by, I began to forget ... You learn to adapt to not having parents. (Juan) I had trouble sleeping. I kept thinking about dead people. So I wrapped myself up in the covers because I thought, here comes a ghost. Now I'm not having those dreams anymore. (Chico) Sometimes I dream that the soldiers are chasing and killing us. Sometimes I'm so afraid I stay awake all night until dawn. (Sebastian) Around here I don't spend much time with other Mayas. Most of them live far away. The Mayas here are afraid to say who they really are. They know in their hearts, but they don't say it. (Dora) (M. Brinton Lykes gathered these quotes. http://www.newday.com/guides/mango/16psychosocial.html)

A Chicana Feminist Epistemology Revisited: Cultivating Ideas a Generation Later

Abstract: this article, the authors simultaneously examine how education scholars have taken up the call for (re)articulating Chicana feminist epistemological perspectives in their research and speak back to Dolores Delgado Bernal's 1998 Harvard Educational Review article, “Using a Chicana Feminist Epistemology in Educational Research.” They address the ways in which Chicana scholars draw on their ways of knowing to unsettle dominant modes of analysis, create decolonizing methodologies, and build upon what it means to utilize Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research. Moreover, they demonstrate how such work provides new narratives that embody alternative paradigms in education research. These alternative paradigms are aligned with the scholarship of Gloria Anzaldua, especially her theoretical concepts of nepantla, El Mundo Zurdo, and Coyolxauhqui. Finally, the authors offer researcher reflections that further explore the tensions and possibilities inherent in employing Chicana feminist epistemologies i...

The Process of Reflexión in Bridging Testimonios Across Lived Experience

Abstract: From Latinas’ locations in the margins of academe and society emerges a unique set of challenges complicated by racism, sexism, and classism. One form of resistance to these multiple marginalities involves drawing upon and (re)telling one's lived experience to expose oppression and systemic violence. Testimonio is a conceptual and methodological tool that transforms personal narrative into this type of resistance. In this article, the authors employ testimonio to document, from an intergenerational perspective, critical consequences and benefits of the academic socialization process for Latina academics. In examining the exchange between and among four established and four emerging Latina scholars, the authors uncovered an innovative methodological technique for bridging testimonios across lived experience; this technique is referred to as reflexion and enhances the level of knowledge construction that testimonio offers in formulating a collective consciousness across generations and social identities, cr...

Toward a Pedagogy of Border Thinking: Building on Latin@ Students' Subaltern Knowledge.

Abstract: Based on Walter Mignolo’s (2000) notion of border thinking , that is, the subaltern knowledge generated from the exterior borders of the modern/colonial world system, this article extends current conceptual frameworks for the implementation of a decolonizing border pedagogy with Latin@ students in secondary schools. In particular, Cervantes-Soon and Carrillo draw from their own positionalities as border pedagogues, from Mestiz@ theories of intelligences (Carrillo, 2013) and Chicana feminist thought as exemplary articulations of border thinking, and from ethnographic research at a high school in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands to offer three pedagogical practices with the potential to cultivate border thinking and foster student agency toward social transformation.

Ancestral knowledge systems: A conceptual framework for decolonizing research in social science

Abstract: Building on the seminal work of Linda T. Smith in decolonizing research methodologies, this paper introduces Ancestral Knowledge Systems (AKS) as a conceptual framework for social science research ...

The U. S.-Mexico Border-crossing Chicana Researcher: Theory in the Flesh and the Politics of Identity in Critical Ethnography

Abstract: Grounded in Chicana feminist perspectives (Delgado Bernal, 1998; Sandoval, 1998; Villenas, 1996) that situate the Chicana researcher as a political self, and building on the concepts of cultural intuition (Delgado Bernal, 1998) and theory in the flesh (Moraga & Anzaldua, 1981), this article examines issues of power and identity that emerged from a yearlong ethnography in the city of Juarez, Mexico during the most violent drug-war era in its history. Focusing on the role of the border-crosser researcher who returns "home" to do fieldwork south of the U. S.-Mexico border, the article exposes the researcher's intimate struggles in negotiating the emotional distress involved in returning to one's own devastated community, the multiple identities that were perceived and produced during the data collection process, and the transformations and lessons learned from these experiences. The article examines the role of power inherent in the researcher's ability to control how data are interpreted and reported and th...