Temporalities of [no] harm: navigating trauma through research with minoritized populations in higher education

In this paper, four scholars with minoritized identities explore the impact of harm and/or trauma when engaging in research alongside minoritized student populations. Using collaborative autoethnography, the researchers engaged in a process of individual journaling and collaborative dialogue to understand the ways in which they prepared for, navigated, and processed aspects of harm and/or trauma through their research. In particular, affect theory was used as a theoretical framework for this study. Four main subcategories of the temporalities of harm emerged: (a) harm as temporal; (b) harm as affective; (c) harm as embodied; and (d) harm as shared. Implications for pedagogy, practice, and research are shared based upon the study’s findings.