Black Relational Methodology: Sustaining Nuanced Joy in Educational Knowledge Co-Creation

Abstract

Our co-knowledged article conceptualized one version of an educator-activist collective’s Black relational methodology (BRM). Co-conceptualization began through Nate’s invitation to the Collective, a relational space dedicated to knowledge co-creation capable of imagining equitable and just educational policy futures. Over the course of four collective sessions, an answerability defense, a conference presentation, and co-authoring this piece, we agreed there was something ancestrally ordained about our Black onto-epistemology. Nate rendered his coding activities answerable to the Collective and we forwarded two epistemic themes—nuanced joy and relationality—as seminal to our BRM. By conceptualizing our BRM, we aim to amplify narratives offering paths towards equitable Black futures, center nuanced joy in educational research, and illuminate the influence relationality has on knowledge co-creation processes. Finally, we implicate how BRM could be an important onto-epistemological component in decisions to mobilize knowledge co-creation in pursuit of equitable educational policy futures.