[PDF] Not My Place - Interpretation Privilege and Passivism in the White

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Department of Sociology

Masters thesis in sociology, 30 Credits

Autumn term 2021

Supervisor: Daniel Ritter

Alice Junman

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to better understand the experiences of allies in social movements, in this case the Black Lives Matter movement in Sweden. The sociological relevance lies in understanding how allies balance being active in a movement that departs from an identity category to which one is an outsider, and what this means in terms of responsibility, privilege, and problems. 11 qualitative interviews with self-identified White allies constitute the data, which has been analyzed and interpreted in relation to theories of modernity and situated knowledge. The results indicate that the ally role is perceived as meaningful and rewarding, but surrounded by different aspects to carefully balance. These balances relate to the term interpretation privilege, a political term related to the concept of situated knowledge, and it both motivates and paralyzes the allies in their navigation in ally work.

Keywords

Allies, Social movements, Black Lives Matter, Situated knowledge, Passivism

Table of Contents

Abstract .................................................................................. 2 Table of Contents .................................................................... 3

1. Introduction and background ............................................ 5

1.2 Aim and research question ..................................................................... 7

2. Previous research.............................................................. 7

2.1 Allies ................................................................................................... 9

2.1.1 Why are allies important? ............................................................... 10

2.1.2 What is problematic with allies? ....................................................... 11

2.2 Digital activism .................................................................................... 13

2.2.1 Critical perspectives on digital activism ............................................ 14

3. Theory ............................................................................. 15

3.1 Giddens .............................................................................................. 15

3.1.1 Life in modernity: reflexivity and ontological insecurity ....................... 16

3.2 Situated knowledge ............................................................................. 17

3.2.1 Situated knowledge as political strategy ........................................... 19

4. Methodology ..................................................................... 20

4.1 Data collection .................................................................................... 21

4.2 Sample ............................................................................................... 22

4.3 Coding and analysis ............................................................................. 24

4.4 Ethical considerations ........................................................................... 25

4.5 Methodological reflexivity ..................................................................... 26

4.6 Limitations .......................................................................................... 27

5. Results and analysis ........................................................ 28

5.1 Balancing ally work ........................................................................... 31

5.1.1 Interpretation privilege ............................................................... 32

.................................................................. 35 ..................................................................... 36 .................................. 39

5.1.5 Do good, but not for the wrong reasons: Introspection ....................... 42

6. Discussion and conclusion ................................................ 46

7. References ........................................................................ 49

5

1. Introduction and background

Thinking back on the year 2020, most of us will probably think about the Covid-19 pandemic and how it affected our lives. But 2020 was also a year of political protest: Polish feminists protested the restrictions on the right to abortion, raised fees for public transportation in Chile were met with large protests, and US antiracists protested police brutality towards Black1 people as a direct response to the murder of George Floyd (Global Protest Tracker, 2020). The killing of Floyd in Minneapolis was not the first time Black Lives Matter (or BLM), a global,

2020:370), was protesting police brutality and racist violence. BLM is contextualized within a

long history of antiracist mobilization with clear links to the Civil Rights Movement both in

how it is described and interpreted in public discourse, and in their ideas, methods, and

strategies (Clayton, 2018:457). The start of the movement came on February 26, 2012, when

17-year-old Treyvon Martin was shot to death by a volunteer neighborhood watchman while

walking -class neighborhood. When the killer was acquitted, there were massive reactions and protests (Clayton, 2018:453). Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometti took the initiative to gather the antiracist protests under one name, one hashtag: #BlackLivesMatter. This first BLM-wave has since then been followed by several other protests after cases of police violence against Black people (Clark, 2019:519). For example, in 2014 the BLM movement organized freedom rides to Ferguson (Missouri), inspired by the Civil Rights movement, after the murder of Michael Brown (Clayton, 2018:454). After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, demonstrations took place globally including in several Swedish cities. In Stockholm, up to a thousand people gathered to support the BLM movement and to acknowledge the situation for ethnic minorities in Sweden (Rydberg & Weden, 2020). Despite the Swedish self-image of exceptionalism in terms of equality (Schierup & Ålund, 2011: 45, 56), there are strong evidence that Afro-Swedes are marginalized in the upper and lower divisions of the labor market (Wolgast et al, 2018:10, 28-36), as well as in the

1 The B in Black (and the W in White) is capitalized based on guidelines on writing about racial and ethnic identity,

formulated by the American Psychological Association (2019). 6 The movement was quickly recognized by different social institutions: for example, BLM was nominated for the Nobel peace prize (Belam, 2021) and the Palme Prize (Palmefonden, 2021), and over the world, millions of people showed their support of the movement digitally by posting a Black square on Instagram, using the hashtag #blackouttuesday (Monckton, 2020). Not only Black and other POC2 joined the movement, but also White allies: activists working

Allies of different ethnicities have been

recognized as important actors in the antiracist struggle by many researchers (see for example Arora & Stout, 2019; Brown & Ostrove, 2013; Clark, 2019), as well as male allies in feminist movements (Drury & Kaiser, 2014:642). The role of White people as both perpetuators and challengers of racism has been highly debated in the public discourse and in academia. Books such as by Reni Eddo-Lodge and

White Fragility: W by Robin DiAngelo

have been introduced to the Swedish market after the birth of the BLM movement (Andersson,

2021; Hibomo, 2019). The role of White allies is thus surrounded by both appraisal and

suspicion, and they must navigate their own role in the movement, taking both positive and negative views into account while finding a pathway into activism that suits them. This navigation is challenging, and when Judith Butler talks on the subject in an interview in The Guardian (Gleeson, 2021), she summarizes the problems of allyship: Yes, it is important to acknowledge that, while a white person cannot claim to represent Black experience, that is no reason for white people to be paralyzed on matters on race, refusing to intervene at all. No one needs to represent all Black experience in order to track, expose and oppose systemic racism and to call upon others to do the same. If white people become exclusively preoccupied with our own privilege, we risk becoming self-absorbed. We definitely need more white people making everything about themselves: that just re-centralizes whiteness and refuses to do the work of anti-racism. This balancing between activism and passivism constitutes the focus of this thesis, and the sociological relevance lies in understanding what allies themselves experience, beyond the public perceptions of White allies. Their experiences and emotions matter insofar as they are likely to affect the way the allies choose to act, and this motivates the sociological relevance of studying ally experience. Although allyship is relatively well-studied, there is less research on the emotional experiences of allyship, especially in the Swedish context.

2 POC stands for people of color, and describes people of non-White race or ethnicity (American Psychological

Association, 2019).

7

1.2 Aim and research question

The purpose of this paper is to study W

antiracist causes and movements, using the Swedish BLM movement as an illustrative case due to its high topicality. The aim is to better understand the role of emotions, identity (defined as [Giddens,

1991:53]), and ideas about power and responsibility shaping ally work, departing from the

Swedish context, in order to evaluate what the circumstances of ally work are and how the experience of ally work and identity is lived and understood by White allies themselves. The sociological relevance of the study consists of linking the macro-level political discourse on responsibility and identity with lived experience, agency, and sense of self at the individual, micro-level reality of allies. Previous research focuses on the emotions and experiences in itself, whereas this paper aims to link these experiences and emotions to action and agency.The research questions are: A. What emotional experiences do participants have, and how can these be related to identity, power, and responsibility? B. To what extent do White allies feel entitled to act and speak in the name of the movement?

2. Previous research

The field of social movement studies is a well-established field with a long history, and there is a variety of sub-fields with different focuses, ranging from resource mobilization (McCarthy & Zald, 1977), to political processes that enable or hinder social movement activity (McAdam,

1983), to the collective interpretations of a movement that is created by framing processes

(Snow, 1986), and much more. There are many different definitions of the social movement concept. This paper will build upon the definition presented by Diani (1992:3), describing social and/or organizations, engaged in a political and/or cultural conflict, on the basis of a shared

2020:370).

8 Social movements as a phenomenon have changed through history, shifting from mostly class- based collective action to movements built on multiple identity categories (Buechler,

1995:548). This assumption is foundational in new social movement theory (NSMT),

represented by for example Alain Touraine (1987). NSMT concludes that non-material values replaced class interests as the main motivator for collective action: if the goal for social movements used to be to expropriate the power from the dominant class and, thus, empower the working class, it has now shifted to deconstructing and reframing power itself (Buechler,

1995:442; Touraine, 1987:218-

which means focusing on, for example, domains of culture and language. Research based on NSMT often focus on the roles of emotions, identities, and lifestyles as central themes in modern social movements, which are seen as manifestations of the implicit economic and political structures they appear within (Buechler, 1995:485). The centrality of identity is often referred to as identity politics (Bernstein, 2005:47). Kauffman (2001:24, 29-32) argued that identity politics implicates a shift from working for equality and redistribution, to apolitical introspection and lifestyle politics resonant with the market ideology. Others recognized how identity politics give previously unrecognized groups recognition and space to develop policy that favors their specific interests, instead of only serving those at top of the in- movements (Bernstein, 2005:64-6). Regardless of whether one associates identity politics with something good or something bad, it can be concluded that antiracist movements have some basis in identity categories rather than class, despite the historical link between antiracism and

socialist ideas (Bhattacharyya et al, 2020:3). Identity as a political concept is also central to the

experiences, thoughts, and interpretations of the White allies participating in this study, as their recognition of their White identity is what their allyship departs from. When it comes to antiracist thought and practice, similar tendencies as those described in NSMT can be seen. Bhattacharyya, Virdee and Winter (2020:3) lined out the development of antiracist academic thought, showing how it has developed from anti-capitalist and anti-slavery, to a micro perspective seeing racism as everyday microaggressions and dehumanization (ibid:11-12). Recently, antiracist thought has been more concerned with intersectionality, developing sub-theories of Black feminism and Black queer theory to emphasize how different identities have different lived experiences of oppression. The focus of antiracist thought and practice today, according to the authors, is to amplify certain voices and perspectives to ensure representation and diversity of different identities (ibid:12). 9 movement represents a structuralist turn in Swedish anti-racism, which has historically been focusing on extremities such as Apartheid or Nazism, and less on discrimination in the labor market, housing, and media (ibid:369, 375). Historically, the antiracist movement in Sweden been occupied by a large proportion of allies from the majority population, but during the 2020 BLM wave, this changed and more POC participated for their cause. Because ally activism is often more volatile, the increased share of people with lived experience of racism contributes to a more stable foundation for sustainable activism (ibid:371-2). Digital methods also dominated the Swedish case, which can be compared to the #MeToo movement rather than the US-based BLM movement, which focused much more on physical protest and resistance (ibid:369). Based on the different important conclusions in previous research (the turn towards non- material values, antiracist tendencies to emphasize lived experience, the overrepresentation of White allies in the Swedish anti-racist movement historically, and the dominance of digital methods), the remainder of the previous research presented will focus on allyship and white identity, and digital methods in contemporary movements.

2.1 Allies

In a movement where much emphasis is put on identities, it is of interest to examine the role of those who are part of the movement activity without belong to that specific identity group. In this case: White allies. The definition of an ally varies between different scholars: Brown and

Ostrove (2013:2211) described o end

prejudice in their personal and professional lives, and relinquish social privileges conferred by (2017:608-9) argued that an ally is someone who understands their privilege as well as their own role in oppression, through introspection and self-reflection, and who use their privilege in responsible ways to end oppression despite facing opposition from other dominant group members. For Drury and Kaiser (2014:637), an disadvantaged group by recognizing the need for further progress in the fight for equal rights, and Russo (2014:67) simply defined allies as activists who are politically engaged to benefit a group to which they are outsiders. These definitions include both introspective aspects of allyship and more action-oriented aspects, and they are all relatively open regarding what 10 exactly an ally can be expected to do in support for the movement. What almost all these definitions have in common is the baseline assumption that allies recognize their own privileges, and in antiracist movements, that they embrace their White identity: whiteness is not only a description of skin color or ethnicity, but also a culturally and politically influenced identity. A White ally cannot only be White, they must also recognize their whiteness as culturally significant: recognizing privilege and becoming aware of both oppression as such ury & Kaiser, 2014:638). Although hite has not always been treated as a social identity in the same way as other ethnic identities, there has been a recent resurge of White identification in the US (Cole, 2020:1627). Cole identified three main types of White identity: type 1 includes no recognition of whiteness; type 2 recognizes whiteness but sees it as a liability; and type 3 recognizes whiteness as a privilege. Among these types of White identification, type 3 is most likely to support the BLM means and goals, whereas type 2 is least likely to support the movement at all. White identity development is also closely linked to the idea of White guilt, which is seen as a

Individuals

who acknowledge, recognize, and understand racism have higher degrees of White guilt, and this can either motivate action or create passivity (Dull et al, 2021:1081-84). Dull and colleagues found that White guilt can motivate civic action under certain circumstances: there must also be individual beliefs of social responsibility and efficacy (ibid:1089). If the individual

neither believes in their social responsibility nor their own efficacy as political actors, they will

struggle to find motivation to act. Efficacy was measured by asking the participants whether they felt they had the knowledge, capacity, and opportunity to affect social change (ibid:1086). Feelings of shame and despair, among other, have demobilizing effects on political mobilization (Zhelnina, 2020:361) and it is therefore highly relevant to explore what emotions are experienced by the allies in this study, and to what degree they motivate or hinder action.

2.1.1 Why are allies important?

The role of allies in social movements is considered important in creating both social change and in improving the everyday conditions of marginalized groups. Brown and Ostrove (2013) argued that White allies have two main assignments in antiracist movements: supporting individual people from the nondominant group and engaging in informed political action. After the system of 11 oppression by, for example, willingly share power with the subordinated group (Clark

2019:523).

One of the most valuable aspects of ally work in social movements is the fact that the costs of confronting sexism, racism or any other discriminatory behavior is much lower for allies without personal interest in the issue, than it is for marginalized group members. Men confronting sexist behavior are seen as more rational and credible, and less hostile, than their of the movement (Drury & Kaiser, 2014:642). Male allies speaking up can also normalize rejecting sexist ideas for women, too, and thus create a more open climate for such confrontations (ibid:644). The cost of ally work is further lowered when utilizing digital methods. Clark (2019) found that when White allies use their digital platforms to amplify the voices of Black people, the personal costs are low while the effects are positive. The narratives of Black activists, often marginalized in their outreach in other ethnic or cultural groups, are spread and legitimized by White allies, and it may ultimately strengthen the movement at large (Clark, 2019:528-31). The idea that White allies should help the movement by amplifying the voices of Black people can be further validated by the results of a study conducted by Arora and Stout (2019) on co- ethnic mobilization and support for BLM. They conducted an experimental study on the support for the movement and the effect of messages from co-ethnic versus non-co-ethnic messengers. In general, people tend to accept and embrace a political message more easily if they find the messenger trustworthy and likeable, which is an increasingly rational mechanism in times of excessive access to information (Arora & Stout, 2019:390). In their study, they had people read letters in favor for supporting the BLM movement, written by authors of different ethnicities. Their results showed that White people did not change their opinion on BLM unless the author was also White (ibid:394-5). The implications of these results are w Black Lives Matter are to change, appeals are much more effective coming from co-racial ibid:396). This implies that the role of White allies in amplifying the message of Black activists and spreading the message especially within their own racial group is a very powerful and important way for White allies to support the movement.

2.1.2 What is problematic with allies?

Although the role of allies in social movements are important, there are also problems. Some research indicates that without lived experience of, for example, sexism or racism, it is harder 12 to detect when such discrimination occurs. For example, men are less likely to interpret subtle sexism as sexism, and they are less likely to sympathize with someone confronting sexism if that someone is female (Drury & Kaiser, 2014:639, 642). Thus, much time and effort may have to be put into educating out-group allies. Allies are also less likely to be emotionally receptive towards grasping the magnitude of oppression, which, again, comes from lack of lived experience (Russo, 2014:80). It is also important to recognize uniqueness in group experiences, instead of assuming that experience of one type of oppression automatically leads to insights about other oppressions (Spanierman & Smith, 2017:608-10).

Besides the problem of potential insensibility on behalf of the ally, another issue is low

some inactivity of allies could be attributed to general passivity of contemporary activists or lack of emotional engagement, it could also come out of fear of doing anything considered wrong. White allies, they argued, tend to be more cautious in their actions because of this and, instead of acting on their own, they leave space for Black people to take the lead. However, in the attempt to leave room for and amplify for example Black narratives, there is a significant risk that allies freeride on the political labor of Black people (Clark, 2019:530). This problem is also present in feminist movements, where male allies often engage in low risk, high reward activism and often take credit for work dependent on the efforts of female feminists (Linder & Johnson, 2015:5, 17-18). This is made possible, Linder and Johnson argued, by the master narrative saying male allies should be recognized, validated, and granted credibility regardless of their actual contributions to the movement even though there is an overwhelming risk with male feminist ally work being directly counterproductive, due to lack of sympathy for the female perspective and expertise (ibid:4-5). In adverse cases, male allies have been known to actually commit sexual assault in feminist organizations (ibid:9). There are many other risks associated with ally work. Mostly, it originates in the fact that many

have good intentions, but lack in self-reflection or knowledge about real political work.

Spanierman and Smith (2017) pointed to how such discrepancies between intention, capacity, and self-awareness can lead to paternalistic behavior towards marginalized people, and that this can strengthen the unconscious sense of superiority, and legitimize status quo instead of challenging it. Another mistake, especially important in digital activism, is the tendency to engage in optics instead of politics, and to treat members of the disenfranchised group as objects 13 to be used for personal virtue signaling. Such cosmetic activism rarely leads to any structural criticism or challenging (Spanierman & Smith, 2017:609-10).

2.2 Digital activism

As can be seen in the previous research on the positive opportunities with allies, digital methods are important for allies to engage, for example in amplifying voices of minorities (Clark,

2019:528-31). This is perhaps even more true in the 2020 BLM-wave, when many were limited

in their capacity to participate physically due to the pandemic. All participants in this study participated in digital activism (most of them exclusively so), and it is therefore important to account for some research on the role digitalism plays in contemporary movements. The introduction of new technologies into political activism has been studied for many years, even before the social medias we use today. Information and Communication such as mobile phones or the internet had many effects on political activism as they became available for more people: for example, it contributed with increased sense of community, strengthened political participation, facilitated movement organization, and increased independence from elite representations of movements (Garrett, 2006:205-14). Modern social medias have the same effects to some extent. The internet and social media are acknowledged to affect how social movements come into being and how they operate (Barassi & Zamponi 2020; Earl 2014). Social media platforms are used as tools for organizing, raising awareness, and spreading information (Ahmed et al, 2017:447), and was, for example, one of the success factors of the #MeToo movement (Li et al, 2020; Lin & Yang, 2019). Social media also played a major role in the BLM protests: without social media, the protests of 2020 would perhaps not have been as widespread so rapidly led to massive emotional involvement and increased motivation for participation, according to research on the efficiency of emotions in digital activism (Clark, 2019; Heldman,

2017:88). Facilitating the growth of collective emotion and identity is one of the main

contributions of social media, because emotions are crucial in motivating political action (Ahmed et al, 2017:46; Zhelnina, 2020:361). Studying the emotional expressions before, during and after a social protest on Twitter, Ahmed and colleagues concluded that emotions affect involvement online similarly to their effect offline they channel participation and create community and identification (Ahmed et al, 2017:459-61). Besides this, social media functions as a megaphone for individuals without having to be represented by any formal leader (Earl, 14

2015:37). Earl argued that some of the functions centralized and formal social movement

organizations used to fill can in many cases be substituted with online communities, lowering the costs of organizers and participants (ibid:39).

2.2.1 Critical perspectives on digital activism

Social media as site and tool for social activism is also criticized based on ideas about how it leads to passivity, and activism. Online activism is sometimes called slacktivism, referencing the lower degrees of effort and risk required to engage in online activism (Skoric, 2012:77). The slacktivist narrative is often used to explain the decline in youth political engagement (Amnå & Ekman, 2013:6)quotesdbs_dbs6.pdfusesText_12

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