Liberation in Higher Education: A White Researcher’s Journey Through the Shadows

Liberation in Higher Education introduces and expands on the notion of Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (EFE) based on a qualitative case study of Cynthia B. Dillard and her students as well as the white researcher and author, Sarah Militz-Frielink, as she became transformed through her research in higher education. Dillard, who created EFE as a teaching and research paradigm in 2000, grounded it in several frameworks: Black feminist thought, standpoint theory, the tenets of African American spirituality, and the work of Parker J. Palmer on non-religious spirituality in education. The book delves into EFE’s origins and students’ meaning-making experiences with EFE―including related themes such as healing, identity development, cultural histories, spirituality, and the evolution of the phenomenon over time. This book also includes a chapter in which Militz-Frielink applies EFE as a methodology to herself, which is one of the recommended practices of EFE as a research tool. Liberation in Higher Education concludes with implications and recommendations for practitioners, particularly white practitioners in higher education who work with African American students in predominantly white institutions.