Red dirt pedagogy : an arts-based investigation into a curriculum of family and white supremacy

This arts-based dissertation explores the stories and silences of the Winston branch of my family in order to consider how families reproduce ideologies, with the focus of this study being white supremacy and to lesser extents capitalism and patriarchy. In social studies education, is one way not only to learn about each of us, but to demystify history from a story that happened to some people, to having consequences that impacted our ancestors (Mokuria, et al., 2020). The Winstons, my father's mother's father's family, were some of the first white people to settle-colonize what is now Alabama, USA and, in that process, they enslaved unknown numbers of people in order to first gain and then consolidate wealth. This project began from my desire to learn about my family, the atrocities they committed in the name of wealth and white supremacy, and the people they enslaved. Framed by Sleeter's critical family history (2008, 2016, 2020) and Althusser's contention that families are ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) and thereby reproduce the conditions of a society, my historical investigation uses two arts-based methodologies-research-creation and evocative autoethnography-to create both processes and products that I analyze throughout my dissertation. Therefore there are two foci of this dissertation: 1. What my enslaver ancestors did and how their ideologies of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy have passed down to me and 2. How arts-based methodologies can allow one to confront internalized oppressive ideologies. As part of this dissertation I created two pieces of art: the Red Dirt Series and Red Dirt, White, and Blue. Red Dirt Series, composed of three pieces of mixed-media visual art discussed in Chapter 4, was created as I learned more about Alabama and my family's history. During this process, I conceptualized red dirt as a metaphor for white supremacy in the Southern United States. Finally, I put my work in conversation with Dean's (2018) argument for considering oneself a comrade in struggles for justice. Chapter 5 focuses on Red Dirt, White, and Blue, a disconnected quilt. In this chapter, I explore the historiography of white, enslaving women in the U.S. South, thereby confronting myths about who my female ancestors were. Following my grandmother Wray, 5x great grandmother Keziah, and untold numbers of women throughout history, I stich my thoughts. By using found words, found fabric, and found handwriting, Red Dirt, White, and Blue expands the ideas of comradeship and red dirt as a metaphor for white supremacy that I articulated in Chapter 4. Therefore, Chapters 4 and 5 respond to the research foci by blending historical research with arts-based investigation and sense-making. Though I expected to be confronted by my internalized white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy before starting this research, I did not anticipate that in the process I would come to terms with my internalized ableism I have learned during graduate school about my own brain difference. In this way, this dissertation has been an unforeseen freeing experience.