The South (still) got something to say: an Atlanta-centric analysis of intergenerational pedagogies

This dissertation explores Black women’s lived experiences to conceptualize education, broadly, not solely confined to an institution of schooling. I rely on a historical and contemporary examination of Atlanta for a place-based inquiry to offer insight regarding regional sensibilities and landscapes as pedagogy, the practice of teaching and interactions when learning transpires. Rooted in theoretical groundings of Black girlhood and archival haunting(s), I concentrate on exclusions and silences in Atlanta’s dominant narrative as assumed by “outsiders” juxtaposed to local “insider” narratives by Black women who call it home. To do so, I draw on literature from Southern Studies; Black Feminism; and Black Speculative Studies to investigate potential lessons from Black women selected Atlanta-centric landscapes and sensibilities to challenge hegemonic paradigms toward an intentional practice of otherworld making. Specifically, I utilize critical fabulation and autoethnography as writing practices to trace hauntings undergirding Atlanta’s infrastructural transformations and “Black Mecca” image. Documenting the deep-rooted relationship between Black women and futurity, I engage speculative methods producing an interpretive analysis to imagine an alternative history and future barring neoliberal, industrial development as ideal for Atlanta. This dissertation’s significance highlights layered displacement between schooling and society by conceiving multiple educative practices. Moreover, this project contributes to Education, Gender and Women’s Studies, Black Studies, and History fields by offering alternative approaches to investigate how power systems insidiously function in U.S. South modernity while simultaneously acknowledging the radical potential of agency and empowerment.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Policy Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Harris, Tiffany Octavia

Contributors dc:contributor

• Brown, Ruth Nicole
• Welton, Anjalé
• Barnett, Bernice
• Smalls, Krystal
• Bradley, Regina

• alternative archives
• history
• U.S. South
• speculative
• pedagogy
• Black girlhood
• SOLHOT

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Tiffany Harris

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115770

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115770