By Dr. Tara Lee
In an interview with Guy Beauregard, Roy Miki—academic, teacher, poet, activist—talks about the liminal position he inhabits in relation to academic institutions. He stresses that “knowledge production is not innocent and can be used against people” (qtd. in Beauregard, 2009, p. 83). In response to these institutional threats, he speaks of his attempts
to develop modes of critical performance that can help students—and me too—work our way toward knowledge production that can generate ethical forms of interacting with each other. I enjoy seeing students becoming performing scholars—in other words, scholars who can take control of but also be accountable for their research and their work, right down to the sentences they write.
(p. 83)
This is important to acknowledge because “people’s positionality, the power inherent in their immediate respective social positions, greatly influences the differences in what individuals have access to in society” (Misawa, 2010, p. 26). In other words, your intersectional identities influence how you teach and interact with your students and their writing.
While positionality can seem daunting, Sarah Hunt/Tłaliłila’ogwa (Kwagu’ł of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation) recommends starting with the question “where are you?” (qtd. in Webb, n.d.). In this way, responsibility is first grounded in the land on which you teach (Webb, n.d.).
- Keeping Hunt’s question in mind, think about how your teaching practices are informed by the legacy and ongoing presence of colonialism. In what ways do you reinscribe and/or challenge colonial notions of territory, knowledge production, and power?
- Spend time thinking over your relationship to race, both within the classroom as well as outside of it. What does race mean to you? How does race intersect with other social locations of your identity?
Consider Your Relationship to Standardized English
Asao Inoue (2021) highlights the lack of “grammar or style guides that are written by BIPOC authors,” as well as the decontextualized nature of writing handbooks. He argues, “this grammar book problem tricks us into believing that English standards are beyond culture and race, beyond history and location, beyond the people who came up with those language standards. But that ain’t so.”
- As a teacher of writing, your relationship to standardized English informs your work in the classroom. What assumptions do you make about how this language should circulate within academia?
Examine the Structures
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (2017) recounts that her “experience of education was one of continually being measured against a set of principles that required surrender to an assimilative colonial agenda in order to fulfill those principles (pp. 149-150). She resituates herself within a Nishnaabeg epistemology, advocating for the interconnection and diversity within “land as pedagogy,” as well as for a “coming face-to-face with settler colonial authority, surveillance, and violence” (p. 166).
- As you explore alternate ways of knowing, become more conscious of the dominant epistemologies within which you teach, and how they inform your teaching practices.
Commit to Being Anti-Racist
Ibram X. Kendi (2019) defines an anti-racist as “one who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea” (p. 14), arguing that anti-racism is premised on equality and a recognition that “racist policies are the cause of racial inequities” (p. 21). He calls being an anti-racist “a radical choice” that necessitates “a radical reorientation of our consciousness” (p. 23).
In other words, decide if you wish to make a commitment to anti-racism in your teaching of writing, and be clear about what you are advocating for by doing so. Understand that engaging in anti-racist pedagogy is continuous active work requiring patience and perseverance.
Three Things to Try for Now
- Come up with a positionality statement to include in your course syllabus, as well as one that you could use to introduce yourself and your pedagogy to your students. Positionality statements are complex and evolving, so think of your first one as a step towards understanding how your social identities inform your pedagogy. The following resources may help you:
- Critically examine your syllabus, assignments, and teaching practices for a course. Make a list of any implicit assumptions, expectations, or beliefs that guide your teaching (e.g., “Only articles that adhere to conventional academic discourse in their discipline should be included on my reading list”). Try rewriting them to explore alternate ways of viewing your teaching and your students (e.g., “Students should be exposed to scholars’ work that reimagines the norms of academic discourse within their disciplines”).
- Commit to three actionable ways (e.g., specific readings, workshops, meeting with expert colleagues) that will expand your understanding of anti-racist pedagogy in writing.
References & Recommended Readings
- Beauregard, G. (2009). After Redress: A conversation with Roy Miki. Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review 201, 71-86.
- Inoue, A. B. (2021, November 10). The circular logic of standardized English. Asao B. Inoue’s Infrequent Words. https://asaobinoue.blogspot.com/2021/11/blogbook-circular-logic-of-standardized.html
- Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an antiracist. One World.
- Misawa, M. Queer race pedagogy for educators in higher education: Dealing with power dynamics and
positionality of LGBTQ students of color. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 3(1), 26-35. http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/view/68/53 - Simpson, L. B. (2017). As we have always done. University of Minnesota Press.
- Webb, K. Positionality. UBC: What we learned in class today. https://intheclass.arts.ubc.ca/renewed-project/discussion-topics-prompts/discussion-prompts-positionality/