Doesn't Your Work Just Re-Center Whiteness?

The Fallen Impossibilities of White Allyship

Authors

  • Pauli Badenhorst The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  • James C. Jupp The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  • Jenna Min Shim University of Wyoming
  • Timothy J. Lensmire University of Minnesota
  • Zachary A. Casey Rhodes College
  • Samuel J. Tanner The Pennsylvania State University – Altoona
  • Veronica Watson Indiana University of Pennsylvania
  • Erin Miller The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Keywords:

Race, identity, whiteness, antiracism, currere

Abstract

Our purpose is to engage performative dialogue incorporative of currere on a central question in critical White studies (CWS). After precautionary notes and positionalities, we frame our dialogue within second-wave CWS. As its main section, six CWS scholars respond to the central question: Doesn’t research on White identities re-center whiteness? Analyzing the scholars’ responses, the performative dialogue is followed by an analytical discussion of CWS’ epistemological, ontological, and axiological convolutions. Via these convolutions, we recognize the impossibilities of facile “White allyship” within antiracist scholarship, curriculum and pedagogy, and related social movements. Instead of White allyship, we propose situated, relational, and process-oriented notions of alliance-oriented antiracist work. 

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Published

2022-12-06

Issue

Vol. 37 No. 3 (2022): Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

Section

Cultural Studies and Curriculum

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