Actions for Advocacy, activism, and allyship

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Advocacy, activism, and allyship / Jessi Parrott

Author
Parrott, Jessi
Published
Los Angeles, CA : SAGE Publications, Inc., 2024.
Physical Description
1 online resource
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Summary
This skill begins by defining inequity and discussing how it differs from the related concept of inequality. Referencing inequities related to ethnicity, gender, sexuality, gender identity, socioeconomic status, and disability and impairment, the skill goes on to explore the theoretical and practical implications and impacts of inequities at universities. Consequently, this skill links to and engages with other skills referencing the importance of understanding individual and collective identities as well as personal positions and privileges. Thinking about identity, equity, inequity, and oppression also requires an encounter with the idea of intersectionality. This theory (developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw) emphasizes the presence-and impact-of multiple marginalizations or the experience of several intersecting oppressions at the same time. This skill was created by thinking about inequity through a prism of intersectionality, and it foregrounds the importance of considering its significance in a university context. Alongside this, exploring related concepts (such as Kobena Mercer's theory of the burden of representation) allows an opportunity to investigate 1. individual and collective responsibilities for confronting inequity at university, 2. the importance of acknowledging privileges and oppressions as well as how these function in relation to other people, and 3. how these personal experiences may be integrated into work around equity and inequity at university-not just in terms of advocacy and activism but also in terms of research and study. This last point, in connecting to individual responsibility and personal experience around inequity, links both to the importance of intersectionality and to the idea of the burden of representation by highlighting some of the expectations that may be placed on marginalized people and groups when addressing inequity. It also therefore links to another issue-termed institutional responsibility. In addition to referencing the approaches universities might take to equity and inequity (and related ideas, including allyship, advocacy, and activism), this skill explores some of the (formal and informal) support structures available at and from universities. Discussion of institutional responsibility provides a basis to return to ideas of individual and collective advocacy and activism as students via thinking about advocating with and alongside others. The skill examines and interrogates different kinds of allyship-and the importance of knowing when and how to take up space or to make space for others in what can often feel like fraught or difficult discussions-before returning to ideas around individual identity. Finally, the skill ends by exploring how personal experiences of relative privileges and oppressions might meaningfully facilitate productive support for one another in struggles against inequity. This grounding, cemented by the closing comprehension questions, aims to enable and encourage a constructive curiosity about individual and collective positionalities and the impacts and implications of these in a university context. It seeks both to help students orient and advocate for themselves and to promote positive consideration of and communication with others-by equally embracing the differences and similarities found through experiences of sharing time in this educational environment.
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ISBN
9781071935729 : SAGE Skills: Student Success
View MARC record | catkey: 47390006