A review by as_a_tre3
Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life by bell hooks, Cornel West

5.0

I was learning about this arguably new qualitative method called duoethnography in one of my classes, when I encountered this book. I contend that this is an earlier version of the method despite being theorized years later by Norris and his colleagues in 2012. This book shows exactly what duoethnography is: a dialogue within a research to make sense of shared experience or interest. Having been reading hooks’ works previously, not much I found in this book as news, but West’s way of dialoguing is visibly different from his essays included in the book. bell hooks on the other hand, may she rest in power, has always let herself “vulnerable” for accessibility. For what is the use of knowledge if it is not for everybody? Sadly, as hooks also revealed in this book, it is precisely for that reason that hooks is not heavily cited nor studied in higher education courses. Gatekeeping in (white) elitist academia must be interrogated if we truly believe that education is a powerful tool to change a system.