Jamila Lyiscott, assistant professor of social justice education, was awarded the 2022 Ernest D. Morrell African Diaspora Emerging Scholar Award by the Comparative & International Education Society (CIES).
“For me, this award affirms the global impact of my work and connects me to a Diasporic community that is not limited by borders,” says Lyiscott, who is also a co-founder of the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research (CRJ).
Broadly speaking, the African Diaspora refers to decentralized global networks of African-descended peoples and communities. In his essay “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” cultural theorist Stuart Hall notes that “diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference.” Decolonization, the slave trade, (forced) migration, and globalization are a few of the historical factors that contributed to the displacement and resettlement of people who share African heritage.
Lyiscott’s work seeks to engage with these global communities through spoken word, research and activism.
“I look closely at the ways that the linguistic and cultural identities of Black people across the globe are sites of power, resistance, and reclamation, particularly as it relates to decolonizing education...I work to connect with Black youth to foster youth leadership and activism grounded in the very languages, cultures, and histories that have been dismissed by white coloniality,” Lyiscott says.
In addition to working with Black American, Black Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian communities, Lyiscott will soon begin a new project—strengthening bonds with schools and communities across Ghana, in collaboration with a group of Black women colleagues through a Fulbright-Hays Group Study Abroad Award.
The fact that the CIES award honors Ernest Morrell is “humbling,” Lyiscott added. Morrell, now the associate dean for the Humanities and Equity at Notre Dame, is best known for his groundbreaking work on Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), a methodology that dismantles traditional hierarchical views of knowledge production—the idea that adults are experts—and instead empowers youth to actively engage with issues that they are experiencing in real time. In other words, YPAR puts youth at the center of important conversations, rather than sidelining them as mere observers. In line with the CRJ’s focus on youth engaged research, Lyiscott also teaches a YPAR class at UMass.
YPAR “laid the ground-work for my research to better understand how youth of color can be placed at the center of policy change and social justice in education,” said Lyiscott. “Importantly, his [Morrell’s] emphasis on the power of literacy development as an avenue for liberation, is essential to my work.”