ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes a paradigm/metaphor for the construction of a theoretical framework via scholarship one would name in literature reviews. The understood structure of academic scholarship as a theoretical framework and literature review establishing intellectual viability of a research question and methodology for inquiry are deconstructed and then reconstructed as decolonizing methodology of critical narrative and presumed ‘conversations’ among research ideas. Post Fulbright-study, the teacher returns to the texts that encircle her developing concretization of pueblo pedagogy and decolonizing philosophies of urban public education. To establish a foundation for these practices, the teacher surfaces scholarly conversations among theorists of critical whiteness studies, culturally-sustaining pedagogy, decolonial philosophy, transcultural trans-languaging, and grassroots community activism in schooling and other community empowerment struggles. Her theorizing is challenged not just by the hegemonic structures of the public school district that employs her, but also by challenges to her authenticity and embodied whiteness. The teacher invests in this tension as she builds a classroom environment in ways symbolizing the manifestation of a teacher theorizing into practice. Her classroom serves as the contested territory of decolonial ideals and white normativity as she works to open her theorizing and practice to co-generative development with her community of students and families.
