LATINA FACULTY/STAFF TESTIMONIOS ON SCHOLARSHIP PRODUCTION

• Published in: Chicana/Latina studies 2016-04, Vol.15 (2), p.124-149
• Main Authors: Chang, Aurora, Fonseca, Vanessa, Soto, Lilia, Cardona, Dolores Saucedo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Essays
• ISSN: 1550-2546

This article explores four Latina faculty and staff perspectives on scholarship production using Chicana Feminist Epistemologies and testimionio as a theoretical tool. Inspired by an inaugural Faculty/Staff of Color Writing Retreat at the University of Wyoming, we draw from our collective experiences as Latina faculty/staff to analyze our specific institutional setting in regard to the rewards, challenges, motivations, and hesitations involved in writing for publication. Reflecting on our backgrounds, we examine how we each arrived at this context, our experiences thus far in academia, and our visions for our futures. We situate our approaches toward scholarship production within existing literature and argue that the act of writing for publication is not a straightforward process. We stress that explicitly identifying complex factors involved in this social, cultural, and academic endeavor is critical in encouraging other rising Latina scholars—and faculty from marginalized communities in general—to persist in scholarly production amidst an often-hostile environment.