Collaboration across difference: a joint autoethnographic examination of power and whiteness in the higher education anti-cuts movement

Parts of this paper were presented at the 8th biennial conference for the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues in New Orleans, LA, and at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis conference entitled ‘Beneath the University, the Commons.’ The primary author was supported by the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. The authors thank the CPRAT Lab at UCSC, Wanda Alarcon, Bettina Aptheker, Sara R. Smith, Amrit Kaur Sidhu, Christine Sleeter, Megan Thomas, Gina Ulysse, and comrades in the anti-cuts movement.

Abstract

We outline structures of whiteness and analyze how forms of dominance embedded and enacted in higher education structures have been made salient, through a self-reflexive account of the authors’ anti-cuts organizing. The authors implicate themselves, reflexively incorporating positions as a white, female, working class-raised doctoral student and a white, female, working class-raised professor situated in the cultures of California, University of California (UC) at Santa Cruz, and organizational cultures of groups within the movement. The authors explore organizing activities, intersectionality, positionality, privilege, collaboration, solidarity and links to literatures regarding whiteness within this context. We raise questions about how the anti-cuts movement is unfolding, how individuals and groups work with each other, and how we negotiate privilege.

Keywords:

• Organizing
• whiteness
• autoethnography
• collaboration

Notes

Parts of this paper were presented at the 8th biennial conference for the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues in New Orleans, LA, and at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis conference entitled ‘Beneath the University, the Commons.’ The primary author was supported by the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. The authors thank the CPRAT Lab at UCSC, Wanda Alarcon, Bettina Aptheker, Sara R. Smith, Amrit Kaur Sidhu, Christine Sleeter, Megan Thomas, Gina Ulysse, and comrades in the anti-cuts movement.

1. The concept of ‘noise,’ from communication studies, refers to stimulus that obstructs the meaning of a message. Common types of noise include external (e.g., loud noises, heat), internal (e.g., feelings, prejudice), and semantic (e.g., unfamiliar vocabulary; Steinberg 2007). Cornford (1997) adds to this typology by coining ‘white noise.’.

2. Whiteness might not be a structure of domination in all places that are involved in this international movement against cuts to public education.

3. We use the term ‘liberal’ to mean a commitment to incremental reform, with an emphasis on individualism.

4. Note that, in response to budget cuts, UC San Diego faculty called for the closing of UC Merced, Riverside, and Santa Cruz, the three campuses with the largest percentage of Latina/o and black students, but that is a topic for another article.

5. Occupation is a tactic, often intended to escalate struggles, which re-appropriates space for use by those engaged in struggle, thus reimagining who gets to use and enjoy space. Whether one agrees with the tactic, an important concern is the decolonization critique, which calls for attention to group differences in the historical relationship to the term ‘occupation.’ The critique rightfully questions how the movement could be ‘occupying’ land without recognizing that it is already occupied (Montano 2011). For example, UC Santa Cruz is on the lands of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Ohlone Indians (http://amahmutsun.org/history/history-sub-page).

6. Dance party protests are a tactic of the new global revolutions of the 2000s, including but not limited to the struggle against austerity and neoliberalism (Mason 2013).