Disrupting Discourses in Place: Youth Protesters in the Rural Midwest

• In Event: Toward Critical Multimodality: Exploring Theory, Research, and Practice in Transformative Educational Spaces

Abstract

On June 5, 2020, over one hundred residents lined the grounds of the county courthouse in a rural Midwestern town and protested for Black Lives Matter. When students arrived, the nature of the protest dramatically shifted. Led by Latinx youth, students shouted chants, held signs, and repositioned themselves away from the courthouse and closer to the street. This historically white community was now considered part of the New Latino Diaspora (NLD) (Hamann, Wortham, & Murillo, 2002) with Latinx residents representing almost 30% of the population. Latinx youth are historically marginalized and forced to navigate deficit discourses in institutions and policies (Nogueron-Liu, Hall, & Smagorinsky, 2017). Deficit stereotypes of people in rural places are still perpetuated in both research and the media (Eppley, 2017), and the Midwest is often perceived as homogenous, uneducated, and conservative (Sanchez-Jankowski, 2002). This research problematizes deficit notions of youth and rurality while exploring the intersectionalities and literacy practices of students as they co-constructed the space of public protest.

Language and literacy practices are multimodal and are situated across a variety of social contexts beyond the walls of schools and into spaces in the community (Mills & Unsworth, 2016). Examining youth as activists expands the consideration of “learning space” by noticing the literacies students practice in protest and the embodied and spatialized practices of their activism. Spatial justice (Soja, 2010) asserts that whatever is social is also inherently spatial, including justice. Considering spatiality and the power dynamics that influence a space’s co-construction is crucial for noticing how youth meaned and resisted at this protest. Intersectionality is a spatial metaphor (Collins, 2019; Crenshaw, 1989) that foregrounds the relationships of race, class, geography, and age to consider how power relations are structured and constructed. This study uses spatial justice and intersectionality as frameworks to critically situate the social, cultural, historical, and spatial literacies of youth in protest.

It is important to consider how students use semiotic resources to demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of issues like racism and social justice (Siegel, 2012). Using geosemiotics (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) and social geography (Soja, 1989) as methodological approaches, this research analyzes publicly-sourced photographs of the protest, focusing on students’ actions, emplacement, and protest signs. This workshop will discuss the literacy practices and intersectionalities of students, the ways students resemiotized school objects to call community residents to antiracist action, and how students used semiotic resources to co-construct space.

This interactive breakout session adds to the understanding of literacy, resistance, and youth by considering how protest spaces are literacy spaces while discussing the intersectional ways in which students protest for Black Lives Matter. Participants will examine how semiotic resources work together to mean, resist, and co-construct in a space of protest. Within this workshop, our group will reflexively discuss ideas of resistance, solidarity, and activism and how a critical multimodal approach to research can aid in dismantling existing hierarchies, disrupting stereotypes of youth, reconstructing how power is wielded, and fostering equitable learning practices and communities.

Author

• Amy Walker, Indiana University - Bloomington