Coming Home to Black Feminist Qualitative Methodology: A Reflexive Perspective

The American Psychological Association's dedication to social justice, inclusivity, and diversity initiatives has created a necessary emphasis on diversity and inclusion, which has contributed to the increased representation of marginalized participants and researchers. Due to systemic oppression (e.g., anti-Black racism, xenophobia, sexism, cissexism, and heteronormativity), research narratives that center marginalized communities by marginalized researchers (e.g., Black, Indigenous, People of Color, disabled, immigrant, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and gender diverse, to name a few) are rarely prioritized in academic settings. When marginalized narratives are integrated in academic spaces, they are often situated through the lens of white, cisheteropatriarchal, and westernized worldviews, and Black women's and femme's experiences and contributions are often overlooked, stolen, and erased (Bailey & Trudy, 2018). The increasing calls for diverse representation of researchers and participants underscore the critical need for culturally sensitive qualitative methodologies and researcher accountability. This article is a call to action for psychologists and trainees to engage in reflexive practices rooted in Black feminist paradigms as a pathway to disrupting anti-Blackness when engaging in qualitative methods. More specifically, we present: (a) a critique of anti-Blackness within qualitative methods, (b) possibilities for disrupting anti-Black practices through Black feminist qualitative methods and reflexivity, (c) a collaborative autoethnography of our personal experiences that integrate Black feminist praxis and reflexivity within qualitative inquiry, and (d) recommendations grounded in Black feminist praxis for researchers to consider.