Term of Award
Fall 2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
Document Type and Release Option
Dissertation (restricted to Georgia Southern)
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
Digital Commons@Georgia Southern License
Department
College of Education
Committee Chair
Ming Fang He
Committee Member 1
John Weaver
Committee Member 2
Robert Lake
Committee Member 3
Melanie L Harris
Non-Voting Committee Member
Jason Goulah
Abstract
As a Black queer woman who incorporates Eastern philosophical values in the pursuit of happiness, I critically reflect on my lived experiences through my transition from youth to adulthood. I engage speculative memoir (Gonzales, 2022) as a methodology to compose my memoir (Barrington, 2002; Birkerts, 2008; Ledoux, 2006; Roorbach, 2008; Zinsser, 1980, 1998, 2004) while simultaneously speculating (Schubert, 1991) and theorizing the memoir. As a Black woman, I draw upon both womanist and Black feminist theoretical traditions--Africana-melanated womanism (Hudson-Weems, 1997, 2001, 2020, 2022), ecowomanism (Harris, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2023), and endarkened feminist epistemology (Dillard, 2000, 2006, 2012, 2022) to frame the Black autobiographical lens (Braxton, 1989) for which to view my lived experiences throughout this inquiry. To further explore the pursuit of happiness in life and education, I include value-creating approaches to knowledge, society, and power connected to the ideas of Tsunesaburō Makiguchi, Josei Toda, and Daisaku Ikeda. I draw from published peace proposals, essays, poems, and conversations on education by Daisaku Ikeda (1992, 1994, 1995,1999, 2000, 2001, 2010a, 2013, 2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2022), journals past and present from scholars in the field (Gebert & Joffee, 2007; Gebert & Goulah, 2009; Inukai, 2013; Inukai & Goulah, 2018; Goulah, 2021a, 2021b, 2024), and books on the educational philosophies of Tsunesaburō Makiguchi as translated into English by Dayle M. Bethel (1973, 1989, 2002) including a note on authoritative scholarship in the field. I critically question what knowledge is of most worth (Schubert, 2009, 2013) in life and education at the intersection of race, sex, and gender while considering the impact of formal, informal, and hidden curriculum as a Black queer woman. Through the act of composing a Black speculative memoir as methodology, I creatively resist all forms of oppression and aim to transgress traditional qualitative research methods. This research adds to the limited body of existing literature produced by scholars who identify as Black queer women advocating for social justice curriculum as an active process of living as learning in a world of “increasing complexity, uncertainty, and fragility” (He, 2021a, p. 639). Eight speculative wonderings have emerged from my dissertation inquiry.
Recommended Citation
Clark, DaVeeda L., "Pursuit of Happiness in Life and Education: Queer and Womanist Perspectives and Value-Creating Approaches~A Black Speculative Memoir" (2024). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2868.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/2868
Research Data and Supplementary Material
No
