Nnenna Odim

Associate Director, Participatory Action Research She/Her

Nnenna Odim is the Associate Director of Participatory Action Research. Her time listening to young children as a Kindergarten teacher, supporting regional leaders implementing state/city policy, designing academic research plans with communities in migration, and everyday moments laughing with family are testimonies of the ways that we build the archive. These experiences drew her to the practices of Beloved where there is an explicit desire to center Black thought, experiences, and needs while developing equitable infrastructures for many communities. This feels like futurism in practice.

Drawing on the intersections across Black Geographies, Indigenous & Place-Based Studies and Early Childhood Education, her dissertation is an interdisciplinary study into how families with mahogany, ash, and oak skin reinforce multiple ways of knowing. She has published articles about futuristic visions in early childhood, resisting anti-Black violence and inequity in Caribbean childhoods and Black geographies in early childhood studies.

Nnenna’s parents migrated to Turtle Island from Biafra and Nassau, Bahamas. She brings memories of Hammertan breezes and emerald waves to her current place on the lands of the Choctaw and Chitimacha (New Orleans). You can find her searching for french fries with a strong crunchy/soft ratio, listening to music shows with a magical trumpeter, and reading about migration policy.