Moving outside of the circle of mainstream inquiry: an examination of Zora Neale Hurston and Katherine Dunham within the framework of the African Jegna

Purpose This study aims to offer an example of stepping outside of the “Master Script” to describe and use indigenous African definitions of education to shift the understanding of what constitutes an educator. Design/methodology/approach This paper seeks to strategically resist hegemonic discourse surrounding education and to support new ways of interrogating black educational traditions. To provide examples of educators frequently overlooked by western-oriented educational literature, the author will examine the lives of Zora Neale Hurston and Katherine Dunham. Findings The author examined the lives of Zora Neale Hurston and Katherine Dunham using their artistic works, secondary literature reviews regarding that work and the Jegna framework. Although each of these women has been acknowledged for their anthropological contributions to the academy, they are often overlooked in their roles as pedagogues in part because of the failure to consider characteristics of education as defined within indigenous African thought. Herein, the author will use the African-centered theory and critical race theory, as well as the conceptual framework of the Jegna, to interrogate the pedagogical efforts of Hurston and Dunham. Research limitations/implications By demonstrating how the Jegna framework can help us interrogate the works of two black women, this paper may also help others shift their thinking regarding whom may be sources of knowledge related to the field of education. Practical implications This paper seeks to shift researchers’ perspectives of the possible sources of best practices for teaching and learning in diverse settings. Social implications This paper seeks to shift and expand the ideologies around educational best practices and practitioners. Originality/value Although there are numerous scholars who have argued, quite successfully, for the inclusion of culturally relevant education within the US school system, the discussions surrounding such cultural relevance have, for the most part, relied on the commonly understood western sense of education. However useful the (valuable) argument for the consideration of student culture by caring pedagogues, the exploration of such culturally relevant implementation could benefit from an expanded notion of what indeed constitutes education and who may (or may not) be considered an educator. This paper seeks to disrupt that limitation.