Leveraging arts-based methodologies to critically examine monoracism in higher education

While arts-based methods have been used in higher education research broadly, few studies have employed such methods to examine the racialized experiences of multiracial college students. Critical and creative pedagogy that integrates the arts can support multiracial college students in navigating monoracism, a system of power that privileges rigid racial categories. We consider how the integration of arts-based methods might strengthen critical approaches to research on multiraciality in higher education. First, we highlight a study that explored liminal identity experiences, including participants’ visual representations of what their multiracial identity means to them. Second, we discuss the development of choreographic counterstories with a group of multiracial undergraduate dancers as a strategy to amplify embodied knowledge and challenge monoarcism. Third, we foreground the process of co-creating identity artifacts to disrupt the traditional researcher-participant paradigm and capture liminal moments of resistance to hegemonic monoracial categories. We conclude with recommendations for future methodological applications.