Terca, pero no pendeja: Terquedad as Theory and Praxis of Transformative Gestures in Higher Education

Abstract

In this article, the author explores the concept of terquedad or waywardness as a blueprint towards gender/queer justice in education. Using Maria Lugones’s (2003) theorizing resistance against multiple oppressions, the author presents Gloria Anzaldua’s' writings in Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) and This Bridge Called My Back (1981/2015) as a project of storying the plurality of terquedad. In doing so, the author calls for a theory and praxis of terquedad as a framework to understand the embodied resistances queer and trans-Latinx/e students deploy as textual inconveniences to push back and resist the “institutional grammars” of U.S. universities (Crawford & Ostrom, 1995; Bonilla-Silva, 2012). Through a platica methodology (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016), the author introduces Quiahuitl, a doctoral student engaging with a praxis of terquedad when confronted with institutional and sexual violence as she moves within and against the geographies and power structures of the university.