Self-Reflexivity and Reciprocity Amid Neoliberal Racism in Student-Led Work

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Engaging Students in Systems Change: Embracing Multiple Research-Practice Partnership Stakeholders in Transformative Student Voice Work

Abstract

The authors reflect the embodiment of research practice partnerships as both authors straddle academia and a community organization. The authors ground their praxis in critical civic inquiry as a conduit toward education for liberation in youth led work (Hipolito-Delgado & Zion, 2017). The authors illuminate the possibilities and limitations within student led work within a community organization led by women of color in a context of neoliberal racism (Giroux, 2015). Neoliberal racism reflects race neutrality as beneficial. However, while student led work is framed as students as the holders of knowledge, the smog of neoliberal racism can take up space. The authors grapple with what is necessary to sustain an organization while remaining committed to the ethos of student led work. The ways in which we as facilitators and leaders must play the game of philanthropy to sustain student led work while navigating varied levels of sociopolitical development (Watts et al, 2003) within students and ourselves creates possibilities and limitations within the space.

Knowledge generation grounded in whiteness presumes that there is only one way of understanding the world and how to approach research and theory (Bernal & Villalpando, 2002). The authors explore the ways students and we as facilitators have to simultaneously adhere and can challenge these epistemologies within schooling contexts by breaking these frameworks of conducting student led work. Delgado (1989) critically states that oppressed groups being able to express their stories is an “essential tool to their survival and liberation” (p. 2436). Centering our experiences is imperative not only to challenge traditional methods of student led work, but to humanize the challenges students, facilitators, and organizational leaders of color face in the process.

To understand the possibilities and limitations of student led work with the context of neoliberal racism, the authors used data from an evaluation conducted through the lens of the sociopolitical development framework. This framework is used to assess our pedagogical and curricular work with students. With this framework in mind, we desire to create a space envisioned by students. Focus groups were conducted with students to situate them as the experts to depict the role the community organization plays to limit or enhance the possibilities of youth led work. However, we must consider the neoliberal context the organization navigates which implicates efficiency and time bound outcomes. While not wanting to constrict students in navigating their sociopolitical development amidst organizational outcomes they set forth, we as facilitators must ground ourselves in reciprocity (Velez-Ibanez, 1988) and self-reflexivity (Milner, 2007) through the lenses of racial equity. Reciprocity and self-reflexivity are often discussed in research contexts within academia, but we argue that these concepts must be embodied by staff of community organizations as well in order to navigate the possibilities and limitations of youth led work alongside students rather than for students. In doing so, we co-create a space in which students are supported to increase their sociopolitical development and be exposed to the hidden curriculum (Giroux, 1983) of student led work amidst a context of neoliberal racism.

Authors

• Janiece Zalina Mackey, Young Aspiring Americans for Social and Political Activism (YAASPA)

• Jihee Yoon, Young African Americans for Social and Political Activism