Defining the Flow—Using an Intersectional Scientific Methodology to Construct a VanguardSTEM Hyperspace

Abstract

#VanguardSTEM is an online community and platform that centers the experiences of women, girls, and non-binary people of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. We publish original and curated content, using cultural production, to include a multiplicity of identities as worthy of recognition and thus redefine STEM identity and belonging. #VanguardSTEM is rooted firmly in Queer, Black feminisms which delineate that the experiences and critiques of Black women matter and that these insights can foster a restorative and regenerative construction of the cultures in which we exist. In describing how #VanguardSTEM descended from counterspaces, we draw on speculative fiction to define a #VanguardSTEM hyperspace as a fluid “place-time” that is born digital and enabled by social media, but materializes in the physical world for specific purposes. As Black women in STEM, we consider how our situated knowledges and scientific expertise inform our process. We propose an intersectional scientific methodology to address the influence of embodied observation, embedded context and collective impact on scientific inquiry. Through #VanguardSTEM, we assert, without apology, the right of Black, Indigenous, women of color and non-binary people of color to self-advocate by fully representing ourselves and our STEM identities and interests, without assimilation.

Keywords

• culture-centered interventions
• community organizing
• decolonizing methodologies
• education
• mental health
• healing