Alliances, Assemblages, and Affect: Teacher Activists’ Perceptions of Union and Grassroots Activism Through Photo Elicitation

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: The Work of Teachers, Teacher Organizations, and Unions (Table 12)

Abstract

Employing photo elicitation, this paper explores teacher activists’ perceptions of their activism both within the union and beyond. Sources included focus groups with ten teacher activists and an online follow-up survey. Findings suggested that, despite individual differences, teachers developed common understandings on both intellectual and emotional levels. Intellectually, they understood the union to be slower at activism compared to grassroots movements with fewer regulations or accountability. Emotionally, meaning making was evident as teachers agreed that though obstacles seemed insurmountable, they focused on hope rooted in learning. Within a poststructural framework of alliances, assemblages, and affect (Harding et al., 2018), the paper illustrates teachers’ visceral passions to better understand how teachers build new alliances that are more able to resist neoliberalism.

Author

• Trudy Lynn Keil, University of Regina