In beauty, I walk: toward a maternal praxis of Diné decolonization

This dissertation proposes a potential pathway to rethink how Diné matrilineal knowledge can work to inform a Diné female academic identity. In keeping with the decolonizing traditions of Indigenous scholars, I will use a Beautyway lens—as mediated by Diné traditional learning modalities—to explore how the narrations of three generations of Navajo rug weavers, Shimásáni (my maternal grandmother, Sally Yazzie), Shimáyázhí (my mother’s sister, Lena Yazzie), Shimá (my mother, Nora Wilkinson), and Shideezhi (my younger sister, Sallie Wilkinson), point to the contemporary criticality of the primacy of feminine agency—a heuristic and familial intelligence. To this end, I will engage the transformative possibilities that can dialogically emerge from a rewoven matrifocal understanding of the world, and its implications for conducting doctoral research, as well as how it informs institutional persistence as a Diné research doctorate.

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

2014

Author dc:creator

• Davidson, Charlotte

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gilbert, Matthew S.
• Darder, Antonia
• Anderson, James D.
• Emerson, Larry

• Indigenous Decolonization
• Higher Education
• American Indian
• Traditional Knowledge

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2013 Charlotte Elizabeth Davidson

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46903

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/46903