Im/possibilities of Responding to Racist Harm on the Front Line of Student Affairs

• In Event: The Importance of Context: Institutional Diversity and Disparities

Abstract

This paper examines the institutional process of responding to racist harms from the standpoint of frontline student affairs educators striving to enact antiracist practices at a predominantly and historically white institution (PHWI). Using an institutional ethnographic approach, I identified the disjunctures frontline educators experienced when attempting to support harmed students, prevent future racist harms, and seek institutional recognition for the nuanced impact of racist harms. I trace the disjunctures in frontline work to illustrate how educators were tied into institutional systems in ways that worked against their aims. The challenges that striving antiracist frontline educators experienced pointed to institutional ideas and practices that created expectations, norms, possibilities, and impossibilities for the work of responding to racist harms.

Author

• Ashley N. Robinson, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author