Krystal M. Perkins
Krystal M. Perkins received her PhD in Social/Personality Psychology from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
In various projects, Perkins explores minoritized subjectivities, not grounded in an implicit deficient model, but minoritized subjectivities as complex and multifaceted, negotiating histories-nation-ideologies-identities, etc. Her research also considers constructions and discursive contexts of racialized, nationalist, and diversity discourses and, most recently, critical sustainability/environmental justice and the intersection of Black radical/liberation movements and Black identity. More broadly, Perkins utilizes psychological theory and research for doing counter-storytelling and critical consciousness-raising work.
Curriculum
Perkins’ project has both research and curricular components.
Research: The struggle for liberation and “analyzing and creating imaginative responses to injustice is/has been at the heart” of Blackness (Collins, 2000). Drawing from this rich history of resistance against injustice by people of African descent, she has developed a research project investigating resistance/liberation movements in Benin, in terms of how they developed/are developing, what are/has been its governing ideas, and the relationship between Black/Beninese identity and protest thought.
Curricular outcomes: She will develop a course that will explore the ways in which history, political and social power, social forms, and creativity, constitute and socially construct Blackness around the world. A central theme of this course will be the ways in which liberation and resistance are central analytic frames to the Black/African lived experience (Etoke, 2023).