Caelin Ross’ reflection on navigating White fragility and confronting/navigating accountability while facilitating in decolonized contexts reveals vulnerability and resonance – and is soundly situated within the realm of Critical Hope principles and praxis.
The Case
Ross details the deep work she and Indigenous co-facilitator Vina Begay did to prepare for and offer a workshop on moving from extraction to relational foundations in Indigenous Knowledge in Drama education. She shares their thoughtful workshop design, noting that the content included clear roles for their pedagogical/facilitator responsibilities within Indigenous contexts – and then she drops the explosive: they inadvertently recreated the extractive elements they were working to minimize. She reveals:
We asked participants to share personal tensions around colonialism and appropriation without adequate time for processing or relationship-building. We reproduced the very extractive dynamics we were critiquing—taking people’s emotional labor and vulnerability without providing sufficient care and follow-through.
The workshop format itself unintentionally demanded that participants engage with difficult personal and political questions within the constraints of an academic conference schedule, only to end abruptly when time ran out.
Ross also reveals a workshop participant’s experience with Difficult Knowledge when they are told of boundaries connected to Indigenous Ways of Knowing – bringing up long-standing concerns surrounding White privilege and White supremacy – namely, resistance to no and/or resistance to recognition of Indigenous sovereignty; weaponization of inclusiveness to gain access to sacred spaces – and how those systems can lead to White fragility when it presents in the form of allyship.
The entry continues with a penetrating observation on ways the workshop revealed gaps. Ross also offers insight on how LIS professional development opportunities are structured to interrupt relationship-building, limit deep learning, and detract session leaders and attendees from improved care practices, which are needed to make sustainable gains in the deep emotional labor connected to equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice knowledge work – with a note that all of these limitations cause harm, even if knowledge leaders are trying to Do Good. Ross also shares her continuing commitment to improvement based on her reflections.
The Praxis
Ross is practicing Critical Hope – her work with her co-facilitator signals awareness of long-standing problems in her sphere of Indigenous Knowledge and Justice, and she is actively involved in working on improving these issues via her workshop. As she co-creates workshop content, she is keenly aware of the importance of community building and care ethics, and she is acknowledging, including, and centering experts, expertise, and experiences from the Indigenous community- also beacons of Critical Hope praxis.
While facilitating, she shares a Hard Truth that becomes Difficult Knowledge for a workshop attendee — and a fracture catalyst for Ross. Grain defines the fracture catalyst for Critical Hope as a “personal and localized event that can cause suffering and fragmentation” which can further result in “disassociation and disconnection,” and can transform to “creativity…reimagination…healing, [and] reconstruction.” (2022, p. 100). Within Ross’ thoughtful practice, this catalyst leads her to reflection – asking questions of the systems that have inadvertently taken her further away from her Good Work, and considering the harm of these entrenched systems that, on the surface, present as supportive and justice-focused. She explores her own positionality as a person who is not Indigenous, and she queries how the attendee’s fragility might have been a touch point for productive discourse – surfacing two of the core tenets of contemporary Critical Hope: it’s messy, uncomfortable, and full of contradictions; Anger and Grief have a seat at the table (Grain, 2022, p. 51; p. 84).
Although Ross’ original facilitation goals are framed in relationship and care, she also recognizes how systems and industry norms of continuing education formats, communication expectations, and other practices interrupted her goals to close the care gap during and after the workshop. I am very appreciative of Ross’ acknowledgement of causing harm, even when we are Doing Good Work and/or Helping People. It echoes my consideration of applying Beneficence in library practice – not only intentionally seeking to do no harm, but being aware of potential harm, and minimizing harm whenever we can during the course of our daily and long-term work with others. Beneficence can expand hope by increasing psychological safety and preserving/restoring dignity – especially as we practice knowledge-sharing and engage with communities who have caused or experienced harm – and particularly when both groups are collaborating to reconcile complex intertwined histories of dominance and oppression.
Ross ends her reflection not in despair of mistake, but in curious anticipation of what’s next – and through the lens of relentless incrementalism: “small, iterative actions that build toward collective long-term movements” (Grain and Louie, n.d.). She shares her ongoing attempts to assess and offer care, and she is actively seeking ways to not avoid difficulty and create ways to honor not only the time it takes for difficult knowledge to be integrated, but to build community and honor the somatics that come along with these complex and activating teachings and discussions. In particular, I appreciate that she aptly names her strategies Designing for Difficulty. Succinctly, in Critical Hope fashion, it tells us all: difficulty is necessary, do-able, and can be navigated productively – in time – and with community.
Your Turn
Here are some questions/prompts for consideration as you read Ross’ work and/or consider how Critical Hope shows up in your LIS practice:
- What positionalities/identities can be acknowledged? What are areas for recognition and limitations of those positions? What privileges exist for these positions, even within historically ignored identities?
- What structures and norms have you identified in the LIS professional development/continuing education space that reinforce/uphold inequity, even while they present as expanding access or supporting commonly held values? How would you interrupt or dismantle these structures and norms?
- How can we identify potential harms? What mechanisms/structures can we apply in the moment to minimize unanticipated harm?
- What policies and practices (formal or informal) enable time for reflection and iterative/incremental gains in your daily or long-term work?
