Open AccessEngaging in Testimonio as a walk through el laberinto (the labyrinth) of higher education: Releasing, receiving and returning to the field with deeper purpose
Author(s) -
Farima Pour-Khorshid,
Margarita Machado-Casas,
Katherine Talati,
Diana Carolina García Gómez,
Guillermo Castillo
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
tequio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2594-0546
pISSN - 2594-0538
DOI - 10.53331/teq.v3i9.0659
Subject(s) - metaphor , praxis , agency (philosophy) , field (mathematics) , politics , soul , sociology , aesthetics , resistance (ecology) , pedagogy , psychology , art , political science , social science , epistemology , law , philosophy , theology , ecology , biology , mathematics , pure mathematics
Latinx first-generation college graduates often experience a myriad of structural, emotional, financial and academic barriers while navigating higher education as undergraduate and graduate students and later, if they become faculty members. While many studies have documented these struggles within the field, the political, methodological and pedagogical praxis of testimonio has been used to reflect on and document these struggles in ways that give the authors agency in retelling and reclaiming their experiences of marginalization and resistance. In this paper, the authors build on the metaphor of a labyrinth to describe how higher education can often feel similar to a maze-like path to navigate, yet, the spiritual and reflective practice of labyrinth- walking involves three stages of soul development which can also be experienced through testimonio: releasing, receiving and returning to oneself