Strategies for Scholar Activists
Jesse Daniels and Stefanie Deluca were our guest speakers this week, they were also our last two guest speakers for this semester’s “Seminar on Scholar Activism”. They shared with us their experiences and their ways of conducting scholar activism.
Jesse talked about what they’d been doing, “we are trying to build a marriage between scholarship and activism.” They tried hard to open the academia, so that knowledge could flow out, and people used to stay out of academia could come in. There are different ways to strengthen the “marriage”, such as e-books, online videos, etc. She said they did their very best to hold accountability to the neighborhood, with an open access to all the learning resources of their website. It wasn’t easy, but they succeeded.
Making your works accessible is a very important strategy she learned from someone else. She remembered being told, “if you really want to make a difference, you pitch it (your dissertation) that an undergraduate can use it.” So she did, she chose her tones, and the languages carefully to make sure the readers would understand. And her book is still being used after many years.
About Twitter, Jesse commented, “going to twitter is one way I can find people who want to hear what I want to say.” And she thought it’s very useful to keep your mind open about other platforms, keep learning to use new platforms.
. When our teacher Sara asked Jesse, were there ways to prepare yourself for attacks in advance? Because it’s worth knowing what you are getting into. Jesse said she had done some push back. But luckily she didn’t get as many attacks as women of colors do. She talked about three strategies: the first one is “you have to think about where you are, and where you sit, academically, politically, and where your vulnerabilities are, etc. And what the rules the platforms are, what the rules of the institutions are, they (the rules of the institutions) are catching up. The institutions don’t have much limits about online platforms, but they don’t have any support either.” The second strategy is to create more distance. Like when you get upset or angry by reading some negative comments, just close the laptop, go out for a walk. You can choose to get away from those attacks for a while. The third strategy is to ask someone else to read some comments for you, then let them decide if you should read it. Have some one on your back is always a nice thing.
When being asked about building the audiences, she said, “When I’m talking about audience, I’m talking about Little audiences.” It’s not about a gigantic mass of audiences. It’s about who you want to reach, what kinds of audience you want to reach. She didn’t think in academia, there’s something millions of people will be interested. Although there’re exceptions, but most of us won’t have that many audiences. What’s great about the internet, is that you can find these overlaps.
Stefanie accentuated the importance of good writing skills at the very beginning. She said, “if we want to be heard, we need to be better writers.” “Everyone teaches you how to write. My undergraduates, they say they don’t understand; and the reviewers from peer review, they always helped.”
Both Stefanie and Sara suggested, if you were not the expert of certain field, probably you should not make implications about those policies. However, the truth is, people do that all the time.
Stefanie highly valued human conversation, she thought the whole history relied on that. She thought one way to be careful is to work with a lot of people. You don’t stick your head with you are the long time expert. She said when she was a young child, she heard opposite opinions, she would get into fight. Later she stopped fighting, and tried to begin listening. Now she tries to get into conversations with people who don’t agree with her. She suggested, “if you can spend more and more time with people you don’t understand, it helps. ” “It’s fun to continue to do different things. In academic, you just do what you are already famous for. ” She emphasized that modesty and openness is always important. Every minute is being refreshing. “Modest and open is the key, even if you are sure.”
It seems to me that different activists have their individualized strategies of conducting scholar activism. Jesse is an expert of computer skills, Stefanie is outstanding at communication with people, so both of them used their strengths in scholar activism. So I suppose to be a good scholar activist, you have to find out what your strength is, and then maximize it. It could be a long journey, but would definitely worth the efforts. I also think it maybe be the best way to be a scholar activist, and the best way to live one’s life, too.
