Social Justice Activism Research Articles

Rethinking the sustainable development goals: Learning with and from community‐led initiatives

AbstractThis paper explores the actual and potential contributions of community‐led initiatives (CLIs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As examples of self‐determined practical action for sustainability and social justice, CLIs prefigure many of the intended outcomes of the SDGs. Existing evidence shows that CLIs are already contributing, at local scale, to almost all of the SDGs, and achieving particular success in bringing different goals into synergy. However, these achievements are based on ethics, guiding philosophies, issue framings, practical goals and ways of organising that differ significantly from those behind the formulation and delivery of the SDGs. Embracing those differences, and with them greater plurality and ongoing critical self‐reflection, would allow the SDGs to transcend certain self‐limiting contradictions, particularly concerning the role of economic growth. Such a shift in orientation is essential if the SDGs are to move from reinforcing to challenging the root causes of unsustainability and injustice.

Voices from the Frontlines: The Challenges and Rewards of Immigration Activism

This consensual qualitative research study explored immigration activists’ perspectives on the rewards and challenges of their work, how they cope with challenges, and their recommendations for how psychologists could best support them. Fifteen self-identified immigration activists completed one-hour, semi-structured, individual interviews. Analysis yielded 25 categories associated with six domains (Catalysts for Activism; Vision for Activism; Rewards; Challenges; Coping Strategies; and Recommendations for Psychological Practice, Research, and Advocacy). Participants reported emotional distress and burnout, but this challenge co-occurred with rewards such as connecting with colleagues or increased skills and tools. Activists used a variety of coping strategies, including maintaining boundaries, and encouraged psychologists to provide them with psychoeducational training, to provide services that are relevant and accessible to immigrant communities, and to advocate for immigration issues. The findings are placed in context with prior research pertaining to social identity, social justice activism, and multicultural competence.

Survival, safety and belonging: An ethnographic study of experiences and perceptions of people who inject drugs accessing a supervised injecting Centre

AbstractIntroductionThe inclusion of people who use drugs in the design and evaluation of their health services remains a relatively new phenomenon. The aim of the research was to explore the experiences and perceptions of people accessing the Medical Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC), and Clinic 180, Sydney Australia, and the factors facilitating and inhibiting their participation. The research was undertaken within a framework of critical ethnography.MethodsTwenty‐three participants who inject drugs at the MSIC and five from Clinic 180 who chose not to use the MSIC were interviewed using semi‐structured interviews to hear and raise their experiences and perceptions of these services within their everyday lives.ResultsPeople who accessed the MSIC narrated a sense of personhood, survivor‐hood, community and belonging. The overarching emerging theme was “I’m Human.” People who accessed The Clinic services spoke of the MSIC as reinforcing the stigmatisation of the “users” and increasing the temptation to continue to inject drugs.DiscussionThis research gathered the experiences and perceptions of people accessing MSIC and Clinic 180. This can inform and reinforce public health and harm reduction approaches that embrace trauma informed care and social justice actions. This research also demonstrates the alignment between critical ethnography and the emerging models of co‐design, co‐production and health partnerships, sharing the shifting of power relations.ConclusionThe experiences and perceptions of people who inject drugs, and an understanding of their everyday lives, are essential to the design and evaluation of the services they access.

Breaking the Dehumanization and Shaming of Asian Comfort Women : Theology of Social Sin and Guilt Shame

The silencing and shaming of Asian comfort women by Japan represent prime examples of dehumanization through female objectification. The Japanese government’s World War II-era sinful and evil predatory actions towards these women have been perpetuated in the years that have followed through the government’s political efforts to silence this history of women’s enslavement. Recognition of two faces of shame—the shame of the perpetrator, guilty of structural and social sin and evil of Japan, and the shame of victims, innocent but wrongly imposed upon by the perpetrator and their culture —can be a pivotal theological line of discussion and reflection. The shame of the formerly subjugated women, and the guilt shame of the Japanese government can only be alleviated with a substantive response to the growing call of social justice activism. This can be supported by theological and psychological reflection for the restoration of Asian comfort women’s human rights and by Japan’s proper apology and compensation directly for the victims and their families. The implications—of a theology of shame and guilt shame—promote awareness of the seriousness of dehumanization through the sex slavery system of sex-trafficking orchestrated by imperial Japan and invite comfort women, Japan, and their communities to move forward in reconciliation. It is through breaking the hold of tendencies of silencing and shaming that perpetuate the dehumanization of these women. Furthermore, this critical reflection can advance calls for social justice on behalf those who are victims of human-trafficking— particularly sex-trafficking—in modern days and a restoration of their full human rights from the dehumanization process of sex slavery.

Vulnerability and activism in urban climate politics: An actor-centered approach to transformational adaptation in Malmö (Sweden)

Climate change adaptation is rising on the agenda of cities. However, critics have argued that urban adaptation efforts largely focus on preserving economic growth while overlooking the root causes of unequal vulnerability to climate impacts, giving rise to climate injustices. In response, literature on transformational adaptation has politicized these issues but it has remained largely conceptual, particularly in relation to the question of which actors can define and advance transformative approaches. Furthermore, existing empirical studies focus on positive cases while ignoring why these issues more commonly are not politicized. In this article, we add empirical rigour to these debates through an investigation into Malmö's climate politics. We analyse what enables or inhibits the role of three political outsiders – disadvantaged communities, climate movements and social justice activists – in politicizing urban climate adaptation. We find that, while the most vulnerable social groups struggle with climatic impacts and experience difficulties in politicizing these issues, climate movements remain focused on climate mitigation and largely ignore local adaptation. In turn, we highlight the untapped capacity of social justice activism to act as social infrastructure for adaptation. Our findings suggest that alliances between the victims of adaptation injustices and local activist groups could support the politicization of those grievances by responding to emerging needs and by building policy-oriented pressure for transformational adaptation. However, we identify several factors that limit this potential, thereby contributing to an understanding of why social movements sometimes do not live up to their transformational potential.

"Do You Really See Us?":Black College Athlete Perceptions of Inclusion at DI Historically White Institutions

While recent sport research has highlighted benefits of racial diversity on teams and in the workplace, few studies have examined how demographic composition is perceived by college athletes. Fewer have investigated how racially marginalized athletes experience the phenomena. Thus, the current study explores the intersection of race, gender, and athletic identity in Black college athletes at DI Historically White Institutions (HWIs), perceptions of inclusion, and its influence on sense of belonging. Employing critical race theory, two focus groups and six semi-structured interviews that incorporated vignettes were conducted with six current Black athletes at DI HWIs in the Southeastern U.S. Findings revealed five emergent themes: (a) overcompensation for racial marginalization, (b) gendered racism, (c) commitment to social justice activism and allyship, (d) athletes bubble on campus, and (e) invisibility of holistic identity. This research highlights the nuanced experiences of Black college athletes at HWIs and provides implications for coaches, administrators, and faculty to foster a true inclusive environment.

Teaching Activism: The Feminist Pedagogical Possibilities of Why We Fly

Young adult fiction possesses the pedagogical power to educate young readers about activism, and more recently, authors of the genre have answered the call from young aspiring activists to deliver narratives that are reflective of and relevant to their own lives and communities. Published in October of 2021, the novel Why We Fly illustrates the complexities of participating in social justice activism while also providing entertaining and inspiring characters. In honor of Colin Kaepernick, authors Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal craft the fictional hero Cody Knight who encourages the text’s young protagonists to look at the world around them to identify injustice. Using critical feminist theory in an analysis of the text, I highlight the ways in which the novel guides readers to understand movement building and community outreach while also requiring them to reflect on their complicity in systems of oppression. From a feminist perspective, the young adult novel Why We Fly is a narrative that would enable teachers to present students with the opportunity to analyze systems of oppression and power structures, develop a critical consciousness, and question ways we privilege knowledge and ways of knowing.

Theatres of memory; un-silencing the past – Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ anthology

ABSTRACT This article discusses Steve McQueen’s collaborations with the BBC to examine how his ‘Small Axe’ anthology of five films represents Black British experiences in Britain, charting discrimination, racially motivated violence, police persecution, and activism for social justice as well as ordinary life. The anthology chronicles events between 1968 to the early 1980s and centres anti-racist activism, resistance struggles, and key debates around Black British subjectivity. From a contemporary twenty-first-century lens, McQueen intervenes in important public debates, refracting them in the context of today, highlighting the ongoing importance and relevance of this history in Britain’s contemporary moment, especially in a time of increased racially motivated violence fuelled by ethno-nationalism. Arguably, through the platform of public service broadcasting, these interventions position McQueen in wider public debates and link him into Black British public intellectual traditions. The article argues that by focusing on key moments and events in Black British history, under-represented in mainstream narratives, and by collaborating with BBC One, McQueen opens up crucial questions about whose history is centred and how these events are opened up to wider public audiences. The article examines how McQueen intervenes in important public debates by centring the margins, and argues that the ‘Small Axe’ anthology challenges received understandings of Britain’s recent past and contributes to necessary conversations around social justice, equality and inclusion, especially important to ongoing debates around citizenship, belonging, and conceptions of Britain.

Place, Memory, and Justice: Critical Perspectives on Sites of Conscience

In disrupting the singularity of official histories and memorials, some scholars, activists, and members of marginalized populations have approached memory as a concept that accommodates a multiplicity of subjugated experiences, knowledges, and narratives of place and event, and thus gives rise to a set of memory practices that serve as useful tools for anti-oppression and social justice activism. For these reasons, this memory work has a clear spatial dimension and focuses on place. One such movement in this vein, referred to as “Sites of Conscience,” forms the focus of this special issue. This editorial introduction to this special issue of Space and Culture takes Sites of Conscience as a prism through which to consider relations between history, memory, politics, temporality, ethics, and justice within a spatial framework. Given the increasing pressures to simplify and “purify” national narratives and to pathologize multiple forms of difference, we urgently need activist scholarship on the salient relations between place, history, memory, memorialization, and social justice.

Examining pre-service teachers’ critical beliefs: Validation of the Critical Literacy Beliefs Survey (CLBS)

ABSTRACT This study details the development of the Critical Literacy Beliefs Survey (CLBS) with a sample of U.S. pre-service teachers (N = 405) and provides evidence of validity for developing measures of pre-service teachers’ critical literacy beliefs. The CLBS was created to gather data on pre-service teachers’ beliefs about critical literacy and answer the question: What is the internal factor structure of the Critical Literacy Beliefs Survey (CLBS), and what evidence of validity do scores from the CLBS provide? The validation of the CLBS and item development resulted in a three-phase process, including cognitive interviews, expert review of items, and survey data collection. Each phase involved a review of the data aligning with each claim. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to test the CLBS modeled on Lewison et al.’s (2002) four critical literacy dimensions (disrupting the commonplace, interrogating multiple perspectives, focusing on sociopolitical issues, and taking action for social justice). While the qualitative model comprised four factors, the CFA analysis of the CLBS resulted in a three-factor structure with a satisfactory model fit (CFI = .93, TLI = .91, RMSEA = .09, SRMR = .05). We deduced critical literacy tenets that teacher educators can actualize within teacher preparation to cultivate critically-oriented beginning teachers.

Strategies to Support Social Justice Activism in Medical School.

Strategies to Support Social Justice Activism in Medical School.

A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice

A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice

Analysis of Influencing Risk Models of Elderly Abuse

The elderly abuse recognizing to be a substantial and growing public health problem worldwide. The present study aims to analyse the risk factors of elderly abuse in family environment of Nijgadh Municipality. A descriptive cross-sectional study has been carried out among 204 elders taken from the community through simple random sampling method. The data were collected through face to face structured interview schedule in 2021. The binary logistic regression model was created as statistical analysis. The result of the study revealed that the elders who lived without spouse were 6.221 times more likely to be abused than those who lived with partners. Followed by functional disability of elders (elders with disability were 2.277 times higher than no disability), etc. This study created 5 models of risk factors among which model 2 had explained variation (24.6%) than others. This study found that living without a spouse, dependency, poor health, having fewer family members and the aging of seniors are the most common reasons for being abused in a family environment. This research has produced data on the odds ratio of elderly abuse based on many socio-demographic factors, which can be utilized to identify and protect elders who are at high risk of abuse through multi-sectoral social justice action.

The Word on "Wilding"

Like earlier reference works such as World Book and Collier’s, digital reference works are used by students and researchers seeking accurate and trustworthy information. Unfortunately, databases such as Gale EBooks reflect the bias and social justice activism of the academic journals, newspapers, and magazines they draw from.

The Oankali Approach to Remembering in Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood

The Oankali Approach to Remembering in Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood R. Nicole Smith (bio) In the tradition of speculative fiction, this essay asks, “what if?”: What if we reconstructed the path to Black liberation using a new framework for remembering? Instead of navigating rememory of the cultural and historical traumas of chattel slavery and colonization, we would prioritize remembering these important histories as collections of cautionary tales to be honored, retold, and reinformed. In this model, historical narratives about genocidal pasts would not transmit the emotional trauma of these stories to future generations. Instead, these past accounts would persist as contributions to a data stream that honors the holistic, traumatic experiences of ancestors’ experiences and retain these historical narratives as fluid and intentionally instructional information. Evoking the characteristics of Sankofa, members of the African diaspora would engage this information as protected data that shapes liberated, contented Black futures. There is precedent for employing an ethos of contentment as a framework for liberation. One example lies in activist adrienne maree brown’s concept of pleasure activism. The author describes her concept as, “. . . the work we do to reclaim ourselves as whole happy, and satisfiable selves from the impacts, delusions, and limitations of oppression and/or supremacy” (9). Another model exists in cultural strategist Anasa Troutman’s use of love as a philosophical framework for her social justice activism (Troutman, From Justice to Joy). The Oankali aliens in Octavia Butler’s first-contact trilogy Lilith’s Brood (2000), originally published as Xenogenesis (1987–1989), offer a similarly unique, albeit figurative model for Black liberation through the aliens’ approach to memory. For the Oankali, memories are material to be “examined, memorized, and either preserved alive or allowed to live their natural span and die” (693). Their primary view of memories as data does not invite an emphasis on the emotional pain associated with cultural, historical, and related, individual traumas. Instead, the outcome of the Oankali approach to memory engages remembrance as a Sankofa-inspired data stream, a resource that shapes the future. This extraterrestrial model for engaging memory offers a more expedient and sustainable path to healing than rememory. Toni Morrison introduces readers to the term rememory in her novel Beloved. Morrison describes this term as “recollecting and remembering as in reassembling the members of the body, the family, the population of the past” (Source, 323). Morrison continues, “Therefore not only is the major preoccupation of the central [End Page 163] characters that of reconstituting and recollecting a usable past . . . but also the narrative strategy the plot formation turns on the stress of remembering, its inevitability, the chances for liberation that lie within the process” (323, my emphasis). Sethe, the protagonist in Beloved illustrates this tension in her conversation with her daughter Denver and describes rememory as a remembrance that exists as a tangible image, almost like a photograph. You can even, she tells her daughter Denver, bump up against someone else’s rememory - especially if you stand in the place where the memory originated. She calls a person’s initial experience with this, a “thought picture” (Beloved, 35–36). For Sethe, rememory lives and breathes and endangers. As such, it can linger in a place, almost like a ghost, and cause psychic and emotional damage (McDonald 36). She warns her daughter Denver to never return to the Sweet Home plantation Sethe escaped from because, “if you go there (you who’ve never been there) and stand in the place where it was, it will happen again . . . it is waiting for you” (Beloved, 36). Here Sethe, like the Oankali, presents to her daughter an approach to memories that she thinks will enable Denver to survive. However, unlike the Oankali, Sethe’s approach prioritizes the persistence of the past in the present. In doing so, she paints trauma and its companion, rememory, as temporal fixatives that do not offer psychological or emotional room for sustained healing and future building. Sethe’s narrative becomes unstuck when she gains the ability to instead place emphasis on present experiences. Sethe processes her pain and engages her memories as information that constantly informs her present moments. Following the Oankali model, Sethe examines her memories and...

Necrotaboos and Political Afterlives in Social Justice Activism during Mexico's Day of the Dead

AbstractThis article shows how vulnerable communities use Mexico's Day of the Dead for social justice activism. Activists sustain what I call the ‘political afterlives’ of their victims through street altars and dark humour. I analyse this as a ‘necrosocial repertoire of contention’. The Day of the Dead can play an important role in human rights advocacy by insisting that the marginalised dead be honoured and cared for. However, disappeared people pose a challenge to Mexico's horizontal, or popular, ethics of commemoration and illustrate what I call ‘necrotaboos’, with new problems for the nation's inclusive spirit of commemorating the dead.

Beyond multiculturalism: revisioning a model of pandemic anti-racism education in post-Covid-19 Canada

Canada was the first country in the world to establish multiculturalism as its official policy for the governance of diversity. Canadian multiculturalism has gained much popularity in political and public discourses in the past 50 years, and it has also received no less criticism as to its effectiveness in addressing issues of racism. There have also been ambiguities over the meaning and intention of multiculturalism, leading to divergent understandings of multiculturalism as an ideal of inclusion and equity, on the one hand, and a mere political rhetoric, on the other. On the occasion of celebrating the 50th anniversary of Canada’s official multiculturalism policy, this article re-visits Canada’s multiculturalism by reviewing its history and ethos and critically examining its actual effects as manifested during the Covid-19 pandemic in Canada. The rise of anti-Asian racism, anti-Black racism, and anti-Indigenous racism incidents in the pandemic reveals that multiculturalism has in effect, sustained a racist and unequal society of Canada with racism entrenched in its history and ingrained in every aspect of its social structure. Multiculturalism tolerates cultural difference but does not challenge an unjust society premised on white supremacy. The anti-racism movement mobilized by racialized communities in Canada indicates that multiculturalism has failed to respond to racialized communities’ pressing demand for social change and action for social justice. The article concludes with a proposed alternative framework to multiculturalism, that is, pandemic anti-racism education model, to centre the issue of race and racism in an action-oriented, inclusive, and empowering approach toward a future of a just society.

Churchgoers and the Fair Trade Town: an analysis in terms of social and spiritual capital

In this article I analyse the Fair Trade Town project in terms of both social and spiritual capital. In bringing together diverse sections of communities, the work that churchgoers carry out in promotion of Fair Trade can serve as an example of the generation of social capital. However, the concept of social capital fails to capture the role of core Christian concepts, such as justice and the love of neighbour, in the practice of Fair Trade. Spiritual capital, the motivation for churchgoers to carry out the work that they do for Fair Trade and other action for social justice, has an important role to play. Spiritual capital can serve as a source of bringing communities together, but also as a form of division, as economic paradigms are challenged. I identify a key role for the spiritual capital that fuels Christian action for the Fair Trade Town and other work for social justice: it has the potential to contribute to addressing the degraded nature of contemporary public debate.

Interception! : Sports Fans’ Responses to Social Justice Activism by Minoritized Players in the National Football League (NFL)

Interception! : Sports Fans’ Responses to Social Justice Activism by Minoritized Players in the National Football League (NFL)

Black Squares for Black Lives? Performative Allyship as Credibility Maintenance for Social Media Influencers on Instagram

In June 2020, millions of Instagram users shared black squares along with hashtags including #BlackOutTuesday and #BlackLivesMatter before pausing their social media content for the day. At first in solidarity with the music industry, the black squares were co-opted by uninformed users hoping to show their support of Black Lives Matter in the wake of the murder of George Floyd while in police custody. Through 20 interviews with social media influencers about the #BlackLivesMatter discourse occurring on Instagram in the summer of 2020, I argue that for many influencers, the posting of black squares was performative allyship utilized strategically to build and maintain credibility with followers. Influencers were unable to genuinely merge their existing brand image with the Black Lives Matter movement long-term, resulting in the memeification of social justice activism and no substantial progress toward diversity, equity, and inclusion within the wellness creator industry on Instagram.