Contribution short abstract:

Co-creators of “Documenting Twice As Hard” discuss their episodic documentary as an autoethnographic reflection key to their ongoing process of grappling with the “messiness” of being black women in academic spaces and using critical creative practice as central to their research.

Contribution long abstract:

“Twice as hard” is a phrase that carries with it the weight of neoliberal ideologies, Eurocentric standards, perfectionism, and white supremacist external and internalized racism. It encompasses the idea that as a black person, especially a black woman, living in white America one must work twice as hard to get half as far—striving mentally, physically, and emotionally to access equitable social, economic, and career levels. “Documenting Twice as Hard” is a co-created, autoethnographic, episodic documentary project inspired by the creation and presentation of our 2018 art installation titled, “Twice as Hard.”

In this presentation on the project, we, the co-creators, discuss our ongoing practice of autoethnographic reflection as key to the creation of the art installation and the process of editing “Documenting Twice As Hard.” Our discussion draws from triple consciousness theory which posits that, beyond W.E.B. Du Bois’s double-consciousness, black women wrestle with the messiness of viewing ourselves through the lenses of Eurocentrism, blackness, and womanhood while at the same time recognizing ourselves through our own internal logics. In the creation and presentation of this project, we also find ourselves wrestling with the importance of creative practice as central to our academic scholarship and academic expectations for research publication in traditional outlets. In line with Tamura Lomax’s use of ‘ugly readings’ to reconcile dynamic and often contradictory perceptions of blackness, our presentation grapples with the politics of our frontstage academic selves, social and institutional expectations, and our backstage preparations as demonstrated through “Documenting Twice As Hard.”