“Knowing nothing about EDI:” A collaborative autoethnography exploring how an anti-racist project was created, publicized, and silenced
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v6i1.4882Keywords:
organic partnership, EDI, Canadian higher educationAbstract
This collaborative autoethnography explores how a group of students and professors from across Canada came together following racial justice protests of 2020. Driven by a desire to pressure Canadian higher education organizations to act on statements and commitments they had made regarding anti-racism, the group embraces a students-as-partners framework in the creation of a list of demands for institutions. Despite claims by such organizations that they were addressing racism, the demands were largely ignored. The authors explore both phases of the project, from factors leading to the successful creation of the demands to experiencing dismissal by the institutions they were designed to help. Twin messages are drawn from this work: students-as-partners is a powerful and useful method for engaging in conversations and taking action regarding anti-racism in higher education, yet this has little bearing on the institutions and structures which participate in oppression.
Downloads
References
Abawi, Z. (2018). Factors and processes of racialization in the Canadian academe. Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education/Revue Canadienne Des Jeunes Chercheures et Chercheurs En Éducation, 9(1), Article 1. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjnse/article/view/43032
Ahmed, S. (2006). The nonperformativity of antiracism. Meridians, 7(1), 104–126. https://doi.org/10.2979/MER.2006.7.1.104
Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press.
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Boylorn, R. M., & Orbe, M. P. (Eds.). (2014). Critical autoethnography: Intersecting cultural identities in everyday life (vol. 13). Left Coast Press.
Bovill, C. (2017). A framework to explore roles within student-staff partnerships in higher education: Which students are partners, when, and in what ways? International Journal for Students as Partners, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i1.3062
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. Routledge.
Couser, G. T. (1997). Recovering bodies: Illness, disability and life writing. University of Wisconsin Press.
Couser, G. T. (2017). Disability, life narrative and representation. In L. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (5th ed., pp. 450–453). Routledge.
Cukier, W., Adamu, P., Wall-Andrews, C., & Elmi, M. (2021). Racialized leaders leading Canadian universities. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 49(4), 565–583. https://doi.org/10.1177/17411432211001363
Daniel, B.-J. (2019). Teaching while Black: Racial dynamics, evaluations, and the role of White females in the Canadian academy in carrying the racism torch. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(1), 21–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2018.1468745
De Bie, A. (2020). Respectfully distrusting “students as partners” practice in higher education: Applying a Mad politics of partnership. Teaching in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2020.1736023
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York University Press.
Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography. Altamira Press.
Foran, G., Knorr, K., & Taylor, R. L. (2020). Evaluating factors contributing to positive partnership work in a students-as-consultants partnership program. International Journal for Students as Partners, 4(2), 27–44. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v4i2.4095
Guitman, R., Acai, A., & Mercer-Maptsone, L. (2020). Chapter 3: Unlearning hierarchies and striving for relational diversity. In L. Mercer-Mapstone & S. Abbot (Eds.), The power of partnership: Students, staff, and faculty revolutionizing higher education. Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. https://doi.org/10.36284/celelon.oa2
Hampton, R. (2016). Racialized social relations in higher education: Black student and faculty experiences of a Canadian university [Ph.D., McGill University (Canada)]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2509601844/abstract/81A8698E0D594608PQ/1
Henry, F., Dua, E., Kobayashi, A., James, C., Li, P., Ramos, H., & Smith, M. S. (2017). Race, racialization and Indigeneity in Canadian universities. Race Ethnicity and Education, 20(3), 300–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2016.1260226
Hoffman, G., & Mitchell, T. (2016). Making diversity “everyone’s business”: A discourse analysis of institutional responses to student activism for equity and inclusion. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9(3), 277–289. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000037
Kehler, A., Verwoord, R., & Smith, H. (2017). We are the process: Reflections on the underestimation of power in students as partners in practice. International Journal for Students as Partners, 1(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i1.3176
Meekosha, H. & Shuttleworth, R. (2017). What’s so critical about critical disability studies? In L. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (5th ed., pp. 175–194). Routledge/Taylor Francis.
Mohamed, T., & Beagan, B. L. (2019). ‘Strange faces’ in the academy: Experiences of racialized and Indigenous faculty in Canadian universities. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(3), 338–354. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2018.1511532
Montgomery, N., bergman, c., & Alluri, H. (2017). Joyful militancy: Building thriving resistance in toxic times (Ser. Anarchist interventions series, 07). AK Press.
Peers, D. (2018). Engaging axiology: Enabling meaningful transdisciplinary collaboration in adapted physical activity. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 35(3), 267–284. https://doi.org/10.1123/apaq.2017-0095
Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0003122418822335
Samuel, E., & Wane, N. (2005). “Unsettling relations”: Racism and sexism experienced by faculty of color in a predominantly white Canadian university. The Journal of Negro Education, 74(1), 76–87.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Ethan Pohl, Tari Ajadi, Chloé Soucy, Heather Carroll, Jason Earl, Christl Verduyn, Maureen Connolly
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process - this applies to the submitted, accepted, and published versions of the manuscript. This can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
