About me

Culturally Hybrid

As a researcher, Deanna Watson is culturally hybrid.  She has interacted with individuals from numerous socio-economic statuses, allowing her to adapt to others.  She understands that everyone is not going to have the same ability to understand things the same which allows her to be culturally hybrid.  Deanna is inclined to disclose her positionality during the research process.  She is not only a researcher but a passionate child of God concerned with the issues that impact marginalized communities.  

Positionality refers to researchers being able to understand overlapping identities through intersectionality to culturally ascribe through, transparency; explicit reflexivity of self-consciousness awareness; the acceptance of ‘the other’ positionality; and the repeated continuation of self-analysis.  Positionality is shaped by preconceived notions of beliefs, ascribed influences, and philosophical assumptions.  Subsequently, it is imperative to clarify by disclosing the positionality of the researcher during the research process to prevent the researcher’s positionality from influencing the research process. 

She is a 39-year-old, female, that identifies as an African American.  She grew up in a poverty-stricken urban community in Chicago, Illinois.   She endured many adversities and has oppression narratives through direct experience and observations.   Understanding both oppression and black privilege is something that she resonates with.  Essentially, her positionality allows her to be culturally hybrid to ascribe and accept the sensitivities of ‘the other’ positionality by providing explicit reflexivity of self-scrutiny and the repeated continuation of self-analysis, specifically, from the lenses of herself enduring marginalization, oppression narratives of other individuals and being a child of God.

Opposing Positionality

Subsequently, her positionality opposes the positionality of those that maintain privilege and disparities in society by the way they ignore it; chose not to identify as privileged; chose not to help in creating change (doing nothing) to influence the people they know that maintain privilege in society, and individuals that continue to uphold a capitalist society.  Indeed, racism is going extinct and the fall of capitalism is inevitable.  Many would say why is racism going extinct?  Please tune into the podcast to hear some amazing discussions surrounding these issues.  

Attenuating to her positionality is that oppressed people are minority voices that are unheard of.  Advocating for the voiceless is one of her goals.  The word of God tells us in Proverbs 21:13 Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered. .   If society is to change and allow for the liberation of those marginalized, researchers need to understand the approaches of the psychology of those that maintain the need to always want to control the voices of minorities.  Some psychological approaches should be eradicated and replaced with psychology that would enable minority voices for liberation.  Understanding the positionality of ‘the other’ allows for the discovery of new psychological approaches to be adapted into society.  Change needs to occur by dismantling the continued implementation of principles, theories, and approaches that have kept minorities marginalized.  Principals such as gentrification, educational de facto residential segregation (new colonialism), and many others.  James 1:17  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  God loves us and he wants the best for us.  He died so that we can live a life of abundance, not for us to be marginalized.  

For this reason, many have adapted perspectives of pseudoscientific faulty premises, which have disadvantaged those marginalized.  Deanna has been transparent to the voices of ‘the other’, including ‘the other’  she opposes as it requires an understanding of the opposition to facilitate change in ideologies.  Some continue to be transparent to ideologies that continue to bandage the voices of those marginalized.  However, as a researcher, understanding the positionality of ‘the other’ shapes her interpretation to report the facts of their support on issues such as racial de facto segregation, inequality, inequity, and disparities in America.  She must analyze the data through ‘the other’ perspective and not her own.  This allows future outlets of opportunity that would allow her, and others to dismantle outdated psychological approaches that have protected the continued rise of privileged voices in society and birth minority ‘voices’ from being voiceless into liberation.  

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Discussions will include widespread issues with resolutions that can enable change