Introduction to A Dialogue on the Status of Junior Women of Color in the Discipline

Introduction to A Dialogue on the Status of Junior Women of Color in the Discipline

By Jenn M. Jackson, Syracuse UniversityMelina Juárez Pérez, Western Washington University, Jamil Scott, Georgetown University and Diane Wong, Rutgers University–Newark

Dear Political Science, We address you, but we want you to recognize that this is not for you. The contributions to this symposium are for the women of color who identify as political scientists: to those who remain in the confines of the discipline and to those who have broken free at all stages. This symposium was inspired by a three-day writing retreat that the authors attended preceding the 2020 Southern Political Science Annual Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We were 10 early-career women of color from universities around the country. During the retreat, we engaged in accountability partnerships, thought exercises, and in-depth writing experiences paced by our own needs. Moreover, we each found space at the retreat to engage in authentic dialogue about what it means to be a woman of color in political science, how graduate school shaped our early-career experiences, and what we hope our work will provide in terms of intervening in the broader discipline.