The Pedagogy of Renewal: Black Women, Reclaiming Joy, and Self-Care as Praxis

Abstract

The 2020 quote defining the pandemic era was “The New Normal,” which, for Black women, implies a need for structural and personal transformation. In this essay, we incorporate the concepts of culturally relevant pedagogy (Bell & Jackson, 2021) and critical autoethnography (Boylorn, 2020; Boylorn & Orbe, 2021) to amplify a Black feminist ethos of self-care as an embodied praxis. Reflecting on the embodied experiences of two Black women professors, we advance a crucial notion of self-care as a pedagogy of renewal to reclaim joy through generative and transformative modes, methods, and meanings.

Keywords

• self-care
• renewal
• embodied praxis
• culturally relevant pedagogy
• critical autoethnography
• black women
• higher education