Counter-existing: Black and Latine PETE faculty narratives on transformational resistance and counterspaces

The requisite nature of Physical Education Teacher Education as hand-in-hand with whiteness means that racially minoritized faculty have a documented history of implications, both material and immaterial. Critical Race Theory, specifically emancipatory and liberatory tenets of resistance, counternarratives, and counterspaces, informed the qualitative visual narrative work. Participants were 11 Black and Latine PETE faculty at Predominantly White Institutions, who engaged in a series of two individual interviews, both semi-structured and conversational, along with discussion of participant-chosen visuals, plus a final member check. Verbal and visual data were analyzed using inductive and deductive approaches. Results are presented in two themes: (1) transformational resistance as layered practice, which included being present and visible, building sustaining relationships, and using institutional roles to advocate, disrupt, and pursue equity in ways that mattered to students and communities, and (2) formal and relational counterspaces affirmed identity, provided protection and guidance, and made it possible to persist in white-dominant institutions. From the results, we argue that departments of higher education often increase visibility through mere representation while leaving intact the norms that make visibility costly. Racialized power dynamics are maintained, providing lip service to ‘diversity work’ without actually instigating change towards racially just academic environments. A cohesive interpretation of both themes led to the idea of ‘counter-existing;’ participants’ presence is, in and of itself, a direct confrontation of whiteness and affirmation of a racialized sense of self. Thus, counter-existing becomes a new agentic lens to view participants’ decisions to work at Predominantly White Institutions, along with direct implications for institutional responsibility to recognize the importance and value of the work of counter-existing.