Pláticas as a methodological praxis of love

In this paper, I explore how pláticas allowed for my former high school students and I to conceptualize love. This work is a response to overwhelming statistics regarding child trauma and literature that named loving relationships as a pivotal but under-conceptualized intervention. Specifically, we participated in three different iterations of pláticas: communal, peer, and individual. Through our plática structures and commitments to safety, accountability, and joy, we were able to conceptualize love and ultimately argue that based on the similarities between the five tenets of Chicana Feminist pláticas and our definition of love, that pláticas can not only serve as a methodological praxis that challenges centuries of epistemological and methodological harm but also serve to foster the type of love that is integral to the well-being of our communities.