It’s been awhile, but KCF and I are ready to be (even) more diablogical! Having decided that regularly blogging was too time consuming for our busy schedules (and because we always like to experiment), we’ve decided to try out Tumblr. Here’s the description from our “about this project” page:
In 2010 Sara L. Puotinen (The Problematizer) and Kandace Creel Falcón (The Bridge Maker) created the collaborative blog It’s Diablogical to document our interests in feminist pedagogy, new feminist (social) media practices, and as a platform to document our experiences co-writing a chapter for Feminist Cyberspaces entitled “Teaching while Blogging and Blogging while Teaching: Using Blogs to Expand Access to Feminist (Cyber)Spaces” published in 2012 (Cambridge Scholar Press). Recently we’ve realized this blog is too time consuming alongside our other projects despite our enthusiasm for it. We look forward to using this tumblr space as a means of fulfilling some of the goals of It’s Diablogical in fun, creative, and less stressful ways. This is a challenge to us to have fun with our work and for us to disrupt the binaries of academic/non-academic writing and serious/fun critical engagement.
About Sara:
As the PROBLEMATIZER, I am particularly invested in exposing the problems with how binaries are constructed—for what purpose and at whose expense. In doing so, I don’t always want to bust them. Sometimes I like to rework, distort, or flip them with my magic pixie dust.
I don’t understand all binaries to be bad. Instead, I see them as dangerous and therefore always in need of careful (as in critical and creative) attention.
SPECIAL POWER: I sprinkle my magic pixie dust to make visible the frequently hidden/invisible webs of power and privilege that undergird oppressive structures and systems.
About Kandace:
The BRIDGE MAKER derives from Gloria Anzaldúa’s conceptualization of the ways women of color are uniquely asked to and function as bridges in our many communities. As a Queer Chicana feminist my role of bridge maker is both forced upon me as one of few faculty of color at a mid-size public university in Moorhead, Minnesota and shaped by the simultaneous (purposefully and positive) desire to understand my role of combatting racism, sexism, homophobia/heterosexism, classism in its many forms through fun means like popular culture, social media, and witty sarcasm. Busting binaries symbolizes the tension of living in in-between spaces as a practice of living la conciencia de la mestiza (embracing ambiguities and contradictions) instead of hierarchically opposing two concepts. Busting binaries forces us to think critically about their origins and creatively about their interpretations and significance.
SPECIAL POWER: The subtle shocker – calmly addressing inequalities through creating bridges with popular culture and synthesizing critical commentary through fun connections to inspire and empower others.