Reimagining And Enacting Possibilities For Social Justice In The Academy

Abstract

This article explores the myriad ways in which it is possible to imagine knowing and doing social justice in higher education contexts. In addition, the article explores the relationship between social justice and reader’s theater as a particular method for presenting autoethnographic data. In order to further understandings of knowing and doing social justice, the authors see a need for not only interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners, but also the creation of texts that can be inclusive of multiple voices, modes, and genres. We seek to understand how ways of knowing and doing social justice can be made possible in multimodal and polyvocal texts. This article seeks to engage the imaginative, creative, and playful minds of its readers with a discussion of how these aspects of human experience are critical to the creation of socially just praxis in the academy. Finally, we ask our readers to consider the extent to which social justice work in higher education is hindered by the conventions of field-specific academic writing and argumentation styles. In an effort to highlight the interdisciplinary nature of social justice, this article uses theatrical and literary frameworks to draw attention to the artificial boundaries among art, philosophy, and social science texts.