Adrian Godboldt, "Filling the Dead Air: How Local Radio Amplifies Community Voices in Times of Crisis"
Amidst the initial wave of the COVID-19 crisis, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear provided daily press briefings on the rapidly unfolding situation—but only in English. This left non-English speaking communities across the state without vital information. In response, a local community radio station in the city of Lexington, called RADIOLEX, translated Beshear’s press conferences into multiple languages, addressing the needs of a city with over 185 languages spoken. However, to avoid this information gap in future crises, the station decided to develop its own communication infrastructure. Collaborating with RADIOLEX, I developed an onboarding training guide to integrate diverse community journalists into the radio station, filling in for the dead air left by the state. Guided by feminist theory, this training guide served as a miniature ethnographic toolkit, aimed at resisting exclusionary practices and fostering spaces of inclusion through radio waves—amplifying voices often overlooked by the state. This presentation will explore how a feminist ethnographic framework can empower community members to reflect on their own positionalities, build relations, and produce knowledge that resonates throughout their community.
Taylor Harmon, "Made by Madre: the Mexican-American Kitchen as a site of kinship and knowledge reproduction"
Open any Latin-American cookbook and the introduction will emphasize the strong ties that food has to culture. Speak to any Mexican-American family and you will hear about the significance of the conversations held around abuela’s kitchen table. These stories hold the key to conversations that have plagued scholars for decades: about kinship, about nation and identity, cultural knowledge, and the role women play in all of it- we just need to listen to who is telling them. Questions of domestic spaces and gendered labor have been an area of focus within the field of feminist studies, including scholars such as Shoniqua Roach (2022) who presents the Black Living Room as a space of Black becoming, and Rhacel Salazar Parrenas (2000) who focuses on migrant Filipina domestic workers as reproductive laborers. Nira Yuval-Davis (1996) argues women as “biological reproducers of the nation” and writes about the ways in which national and ethnic processes affect and are affected by women. Indigenous cultures have also long revered women as reproducers and keepers of cultural knowledge (Cutcha Risling-Baldy, 2018; Carol Schaefer, 2006), but epistemological biases have largely prevented these wisdoms from being considered valid sources of knowledge production that are worthy of citation in academic work. Additionally, gendered domestic labor in the kitchen, specifically among Mexican immigrant women and their postgenerations, has not been credited as the capacious space for cultural knowledge reproduction and kinship ties that it is. As such, my paper aims to challenge citation politics by holding scholarly work, indigenous knowledge, and knowledge produced through art- specifically live theater (Christin Eve-Cato, 2024)- to present a feminist reading of The Mexican-American Kitchen as a site of cultural knowledge reproduction, kinship, and identity, that is facilitated by immigrant women and their successors.
Elisabeth Lucien, "Who is there to save the hero? A Generational Perspective of the Socialization of Strength among African American Women"
The concept of strength has been foundational to the identity of many Black American women, shaping how they are perceived and how they perceive themselves. Over time, this strength has become more than just a characteristic; it has evolved into a prescriptive social discourse upheld by societal expectations and cultural narratives. This has led to the perpetuation of the "strong Black woman" trope. This stereotype paints Black women as unyielding, resilient figures, often likened to superheroes capable of enduring immense mental, emotional, and physical challenges. While the physical and emotional consequences of this trope have been well-documented by scholars, there remains a significant gap in the literature: how Black American women across generations perceive and engage with this trope. This study seeks to address this gap by examining the attitudes and perceptions of Black American women toward the socialization of strength across four distinct generational cohorts—Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. Through interviews with women from each generation, the research aims to uncover both the commonalities and divergences in how the "strong Black woman" trope is understood and internalized over time. Employing a qualitative phenomenological approach, this feasibility study serves as a pilot and lays the groundwork for more expansive future research. Data was collected via four cross-sectional focus groups, each comprising 5-7 participants, recruited primarily from Sacramento, California. The study's findings are expected to deepen theoretical understandings of the gendered racial socialization processes that shape Black women's lives. By amplifying Black women's voices and lived experiences, this research will offer a more nuanced and generational perspective on the enduring and evolving legacy of the "strong Black woman" trope and its impact on identity formation across time.
