Working through and with whiteness in fieldwork practice: activating an ethic of solidarity in race research in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

This article examines how whiteness operates within research projects – specifically projects where white researchers undertake studies on race – and offers possibilities for activating an ‘ethic of solidarity’ within and through skewed power dynamics. An ‘ethic of solidarity’ offers five areas for white researchers to reflect and act on: probing positionality, interrogating epistemic assumptions, disrupting hierarchies of power, shifting asymmetrical dialogue, and practicing decolonial research. With examples from my participatory theatre research with white, Black, and Brown Dutch youth in the Netherlands, I demonstrate how these reflections can turn into action. I offer the term an ‘ethic of solidarity’ to refer to a process of reflection, self-positioning, and action that is, in fact, an essential methodological component in social justice research design and process. In doing so, this article provides insight into how white researchers can undertake politically engaged research by activating solidarity.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethic of solidarity
• arts-based inquiry
• theatre
• whiteness
• the Netherlands
• race

Acknowldgement

I would like to acknowledge the University of Amsterdam for hosting me as a guest scholar and The Seed for generously collaborating with me on the Theatre School of Resistance. I would like to thank Dr’s Xioabei Chen, Luisa Veronis, and Jacqueline Kennelly and the anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This is not to place responsibility for reflexivity and marking whiteness on to people of colour; rather, I believe cross-racial dialogue reveals particular insights about whiteness that may be obscured in all-white conversations.

2. All names are pseudonyms.

3. For a video synopsis of the final performance, see valeriestam.com/theatre/. This excerpt starts at time stamp 1:14.

4. Ubuntu is an Nguni Bantu term which means ‘human kindness’ or ‘I am what I am because of who we are.’ (For more information see Tutu 1999).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship; the TD Fellowship in Migration and Diaspora Studies [2017-2018]; and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.