Advancing antiracist methodologies in qualitative research

The 2025 Qualitative Psychology special issue “Qualitative Methodologies to Advance Anti-Racism Scholarship,” edited by Roberto L. Abreu and Tiffany R. Williams, emphasizes the crucial role of qualitative research in understanding, confronting, and resisting racism in research and scientific inquiry. This issue highlights how qualitative methods can richly document the multifaceted impacts of racism for people in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, including experiences of violence, trauma, resilience, and the pursuit of justice and joy. Beyond merely documenting, the issue also provides frameworks for all qualitative researchers to integrate antiracist principles into their work and showcases how BIPOC scholars are innovating qualitative methodologies to actively advance antiracist scholarship. Ultimately, it describes qualitative methods as robust tools not only for demonstrating the effects of racism but also for contributing to systemic antiracist change through qualitative research methods.

The articles highlight the utility of antiracist intersectional frameworks that requires researchers and scholars to challenge themselves to be innovative in their investigations by thinking outside of traditional theories and creating new inclusive critical frameworks (e.g., racism-conscious reflexivity; Adames et al., 2025) to address race, gender, sexual identity, and other intersecting stigmatized identities (Singh et al., 2025). Antiracist qualitative methodologies are presented as vital in capturing complex concepts, experiences, and events deriving from intersecting oppressions, racism, and racial discourse (Atari-Khan et al., 2025; Moreno et al., 2025; Wilkins-Yel et al., 2025). Finally, autoethnography is showcased as an emerging antiracist methodology suited to elevate, liberate, unite, and empower BIPOC communities in combating racism (Hargons & Thorpe, 2025; Kim et al., 2025; Lockett et al., 2025; Wang, 2025). Together, these articles support the importance of using qualitative methodologies as advocacy tools for antiracist scholarship.

In a society contending with the persistent legacy and ongoing manifestations of racism, adopting an antiracist qualitative approach is essential for knowledge generation to inform meaningful systemic change while also contributing to liberation and healing in BIPOC communities. This first-to-date special issue highlights how qualitative frameworks and methods can empower marginalized voices; expose systemic racism; challenge dominant narratives; and inform effective antiracist research, clinal practice, and policies. Adopting these methodologies is an ethical imperative, leading to more rigorous, relevant scholarship to transform pedagogy into a more just and equitable antiracist landscape. This special issue serves as a call to action, emphasizing that qualitative methodologies are not merely tools for observation and inquiry but also are powerful instruments for social justice.

• Exercise cultural humility and sensitivity at every stage of the research process and demonstrate critical awareness of intersecting social identities (e.g., oppressed and privileged), biases or beliefs, experiences, and power dynamics.
• Acknowledge and confront the roles in perpetuating racism, challenge reliance on traditional theories or concepts deriving from colonization or White ideologies, and abandon engagement in damaged-centered research (Tuck, 2009), as it inflicts harm on, further marginalizes, and sustains violence on BIPOC communities.
• Increase development of community-engaged and participatory research to center BIPOC voices by shifting from “studying” communities to collaborating with them.
• Implement protocols for community-engaged and participatory research to prioritize and provide specific guidelines and resources for this research and other collaborative methodologies. Research ethics boards and funding agencies must evaluate proposals not only on scientific merit but also on the authenticity of community engagement, equitable power-sharing, and clearly defined benefits for the communities involved.
• Obtain training on how to genuinely engage communities in research design, data collection, analysis, and dissemination, moving beyond tokenistic inclusion to foster reciprocal relationships where communities have agency and ownership over the research process and its outcomes.
• Transform learning environments and pedagogy with the creation of inclusive learning environments that will facilitate conversations on antiracist qualitative methodologies in research and training, and teach critical thinking about race and power. A diverse, equitable, and supportive context is necessary to analyze social phenomena through an antiracist lens to understand the historical and contemporary manifestations of racism.

This article is in the General Psychology topic area.

Adames, H. Y., Chavez-Dueñas, N. Y., Jernigan, M. M., & Helms, J. E. (2025). Racism-conscious reflexivity in qualitative research: A practical methodological framework. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000315

Atari-Khan, R., Alshabani, N., Rabgay, S. D., Elhedk, F. R., Clifford, A., Gomariz, S., & Sahib, W. (2025). Understanding intergenerational trauma among Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African (Arab/MENA) Americans. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 200–214. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000310   

Hargons, C. N., & Thorpe, S. (2025). Sexual healing: Qualitative methods as a radical pleasure intervention against anti-Black sexology. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 234–248. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000307

Kim, G. S., Shah, T. N., Songtachalert, T., Wong, L., & Rosenzweig, L. (2025). Existing as Asian/Asian American women: A collaborative autoethnographic exploration of racial trauma, coping, and resistance. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 269–288. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000334

Lockett, G. M., Klein, K. G., Mejia, J., Sostre, J. P., & Abreu, R. L. (2025). Coming home to Black feminist qualitative methodology: A reflexive perspective. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 215–233. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000323

Moreno, O., Tirado, C., Garcia-Rodriguez, I., Muñoz, G., Gomez Giuliani, N., & Cadenas, G. (2025). The intersection of immigration-related racism and xenophobia shaping undocumented immigrants’ experiences with liminality. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 186–199. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000319

Singh, A., Estevz, R., Parker, B., Finan, R., & Awachie, T. (2025). Engaging antiracist qualitative research with Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), trans, and nonbinary communities: Using critical, decolonial, and liberation approaches. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 142–161. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000326

Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.79.3.n0016675661t3n15opens in new window

Wang, S. C. (2025). Storytelling as activism: Combatting anti-Asian racism with Asian American feminist, critical autoethnography. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 249–268. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000316

Wilkins-Yel, K. G., Coley, B., Bekki, J., Rhodes, D., Ahandani, M. D., Maitra, D., Gutiérrez, J. D., & Campbell, M. (2025). Towards dismantling anti-blackness in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through photovoice: Examining how Black womxn in STEM protected their mental health and wellness through resistance. Qualitative Psychology, 12(2), 162–185. https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000313

Roberto L. Abreu, PhD, he/him; they/elle, is an associate professor at the University of Florida’s Psychology Department, as well as Affiliate Faculty in the Center for Latin American Studies and the Department of Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies. Abreu is the director of the Collective Healing and Empowering VoicEs through Research and Engagement (¡Chévere!) Lab. Their research utilizes mixed-method approaches and critical intersectionality frameworks to focus on how BIPOC and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people and their families and communities are impacted by systemic oppression, as well as ways in which these communities engage in resilience and resistance. Abreu’s research has been recognized by multiple APA early career awards. Contact Roberto L. Abreu.

Tiffany R. Williams, PhD, she/hers, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine and is the director of the Perinatal-Postpartum Mental Health Clinic at Indiana University Health. Her research focuses on investigating systemic factors that contribute to health and work disparities for marginalized communities, particularly BIPOC. Williams’ research has been recognized by multiple APA early career awards. Contact Tiffany R. Williams.