Keywords
conterstories
diasporicans
funds of knowledge
How to Cite
Abstract
In the process of developing a formal mentoring relationship designed to support a Boricua scholar‘s entry into the academy, counterstories of persistence and endurance emerge from the give and take of written conversations over how to navigate institutional requirements for tenure and promotion. This article traces the journey of two diasporican scholars from their first encounter in July 2011, in a new space of co-existence, where they meet regularly to share and make sense of challenges they confront as community oriented scholars in teacher education programs, in large urban institutions. Writing, reading and reflecting on email exchanges, they gain consciousness of similar and different trajectories and unique cultural strengths (biliteracy, knowledge of U.S. diasporican communities, and bilingual teaching experience in public schools) that enable them to transform challenges into opportunities to meet institutional demands for teaching, scholarship, and service. At a time when scarce resources and increased workloads complicate the tenure-promotion process, shape scholarship, and get in the way of family responsibilities, counterstories by working class Puerto Rican women who successfully navigate the academy may motivate other narratives of hope that make theory building from practice (or praxis) possible.
How to cite:
Mercado, C. I., & Rodríguez-Arroyo, S. (2015). Sense-making encounters of the biographical kind: Understanding and theorizing community-oriented scholarship of Puerto Rican women in the academy. Pedagogía, 48(1), 49-71. Retrieved from https://revistas.upr.edu/index.php/educacion/article/view/16307
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