S.I.D.E. Ways: horizontal peer mentorship for blackwomen doctoral students’ sustainment

Doctoral education often positions mentorship and intellectual community as foundational, while institutional structures make access inconsistent for Blackwomen. In response, three Blackwomen doctoral students employed Sista Circle Methodology grounded in Black Feminist Epistemology to cultivate horizontal peer mentorship as a culturally grounded practice of doctoral sustainment. Analysis of more than 400 in-person and virtual sista circles revealed how an informal peer network developed into a durable mentoring infrastructure. This work cultivated the S.I.D.E. Ways framework, theorizing solidarity, intentional interdependence, dialogue as resistance, and epistemic empowerment as interrelated practices through which Blackwomen doctoral students generate cultural, relational, and intellectual resources absent from many doctoral programs. Findings position peer mentorship as epistemic labor and collective infrastructure, and expand prevailing conceptions of doctoral support, inviting scholars to recognize doctoral mentorship as a collective, relational practice produced beyond individualized institutional provisions.