“PUTTING YOUR POWER ON THE LINE”: TOWARD EMBODIED ALLYSHIP IN MENTOR-MENTEE AND PEER RELATIONSHIPS

Abstract

Although relational and multicultural feminist mentoring models have interrogated the role of relationships and power in graduate mentor-mentee relationships, less work has examined graduate student mentoring within psychology in the context of social justice and equity goals, and the processes by which ally and accomplice actions might emerge in doctoral mentoring and peer relationships, in particular. Using Collaborative Autoethnography (CAE), we examined the ways that doctoral mentors, mentees, and peers navigate power, privilege, and allyship in the academy, and how relationships and ally actions are connected. Our data was generated through individual autoethnographic writing and subsequent dialogue among the four authors. Qualitative analyses generated three action-oriented themes that illustrate a mutually constituted and interactive process by which we, as collaborators, strive for allyship within the confines of the academic status quo, and where resistance, authenticity, and identity-affirming relationships are integral to equity-based action and change.