Conversations With Researchers: Black Feminist Research Ethics: The role and impact of black feminist researchers locally and globally (Dr. Baldwin 4/9/2021))

On April 9, 2021, Dr. Andrea Baldwin discussed the responsibility Black feminist academics have to their communities --scholarly and otherwise -- to conduct research that produces knowledge which bear witness to their humanity.  These types of scholarly interventions by Black feminists who have recently been included in the academy are necessary to speak back to a space which has historically theorized Black people as nonhuman and nonpersons and used their bodies as evidence against them.  Black women, who bring with them to the academy knowledge practices and traditions, have learned from the past, and as such are beholden to an ethics of care in their research which does not caricature, which focuses on doing research with their communities, and is committed to its futurity.

Dr. Andrea N. Baldwin is an assistant professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana studies in the Department of Sociology at Virginia Tech. Her scholarship centers the experiences of Black women globally with a specific focus on Black transnational and decolonial theorizing, care in Black feminist communities, and Anglophone Caribbean women’s migration. Dr. Baldwin is the recipient of a 2020 inaugural Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Juneteenth scholarship and several other awards including, the 2018 John S. King Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2020 Certificate of teaching excellence from College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, and the Lisa Tabor Award for Community Service.