Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This poster describes and problematizes the praxis of ‘politically motivated’ engagement of radical academics. Derived from more than thirty years of political activism and drawing from literature in the field, the poster suggests the different and sometimes contradictory emphases in the terms ‘community-engaged scholarship’ (CES) and ‘activist scholarship’ (AS) and illustrates how the more politically explicit approach of AS allows its practitioners to name and embrace the unsettling power differentials, in-commensurabilities and contradictions of all engaged scholarly work oriented toward social change. The observations are bolstered with examples and learnings accrued from dialogues with non-academics in social movements in which I have worked in long-term engagements in Canadian and Nicaraguan feminist, social justice, anti-mining and student movements. The intent of the dialogues was: 1) to articulate community-located activist perspectives on university-located activist scholarship, both locally and globally, and 2) to reflectively engage with activist colleagues to clarify the most valued modes of activist/academic and student engagement in my own AS praxis. The literature, dialogues, and reflections revealed how a radical subject position in the academic environment calls for constant shape-shifting and re-imagining both inside and outside of academe, and highlighted contradictions and tensions, raising five unsettling questions: about academic authenticity and commitment in (especially) global engagements, about privilege, about the reification of dichotomies and othering in the language and practice of CES, about the perverse incentives of engaged scholarship currently flourishing in academe, and about the liberal and/or settler-colonialist “strive toward innocence” that implicitly runs through much community engagement.