DOCSLIB.ORG

Copyright © and Moral Rights for This Thesis Are Retained by the Author And/Or Other Copyright Owners

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Copyright © and Moral Rights for This Thesis Are Retained by the Author And/Or Other Copyright Owners Jacobs, Naomi Lawson (2019) The Upside‐down Kingdom of God : A Disability Studies Perspective on Disabled People’s Experiences in Churches and Theologies of Disability. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/32204 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. The Upside-down Kingdom of God: A Disability Studies Perspective on Disabled People’s Experiences in Churches and Theologies of Disability NAOMI LAWSON JACOBS Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2019 Department of Religions and Philosophies SOAS, University of London 1 Abstract This thesis argues that, in many churches, disabled people are conceptualised as objects of care. However, disabled Christians are capable of being active agents in churches, with service, ministry and theologies of their own to offer. In Part A, I explore the discourses that have historically functioned in churches to marginalise disabled Christians. Using a Foucauldian approach, I argue that the Christian pastoral model has a fundamental orientation towards individualism, addressing disability through frameworks of care and charity, rather than through a model of justice. I compare this approach with the liberatory theologies of critical disability theologians, whose socially located perspectives are often marginalised in mainstream theology in favour of universalist theological approaches. In Part B, using data from interviews with 30 Christians, I argue that their subjugated perspectives highlight a precarious normalcy in churches, where environments do not sustain the bodyminds of many disabled worshippers. Using theories of misfitting from disability studies, I argue the study’s participants were often prevented from fitting in churches: in buildings, in worship contexts, in social interactions, and in their attempts to offer their own service and ministry to others. I theorise the concept of discipl(in)ing, where bodyminds are shaped towards norms as they participate in church life. Drawing on the Gospel parable of the banquet, I argue that, through the theological and ecclesial focus on hospitality, disabled people are offered a conditional welcome into churches, resulting in a power imbalance between non-disabled hosts and disabled permanent guests. In Part C I discuss the theological perspectives of participants, whose own theologies call for the churches to be the “Upside-down Kingdom of God.” They explore an alternative: transformation of churches so that all may have access to worship and church culture. I argue that the fields of academic and ecclesial theology have a responsibility to enable disabled people’s own socially contingent theologies and sharing of experience, if access to “all” for churches is to include disabled people as part of the “all.” 3 List of Abbreviations and Acronyms BSL British Sign Language CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CDS Critical disability studies PAR Participatory action research RAG Research Advisory Group WAVE (Church) We’re All Valued Equally 4 Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................ 3 List of Abbreviations and Acronyms .......................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 8 Part A: Theorising and Contextualising Disability and Christianity ...................... 10 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 11 1. Structure of Thesis ....................................................................................................... 12 1.1 Research aims, objectives and questions .............................................................................. 14 2. The Research Paradigm: Key Concepts and Frameworks ...................................... 15 2.1 Disability studies and emancipatory and critical disability research .................................... 16 2.2 Defining “Christian” and “disabled Christian community”: Identity and liminality ............ 21 2.3 The pastoral model ................................................................................................................ 24 3. The Research Context ................................................................................................. 26 3.1 Academic perspectives: Christianity and disability .............................................................. 26 3.2 The role of disability studies and religious studies for representations of disability in churches and theology ................................................................................................................. 31 3.3 Church contexts for disabled people ..................................................................................... 32 Chapter 1. Methods and Methodology ..................................................................... 36 1.1.1 Locating myself in the research: Whose side am I on? ...................................................... 39 1.1.2 Reciprocity: My responsibilities to disabled Christian community/ies ............................. 44 1.1.3 The research advisory group .............................................................................................. 44 1.2 Designing Accessible Research: The Story of a Research Project ........................ 47 1.2.1 Research methods I did not use: Gatekeeping and clashing models of disability ............. 47 1.2.2 Research stage one: Fieldwork observational contexts ...................................................... 51 1.2.3 Research stage two: Interviews .......................................................................................... 53 1.2.4 Accessible and flexible research methods and data analysis ............................................. 60 1.2.5 Dissemination: Sharing useful and accessible research results .......................................... 65 1.3 Practical Ethical Research Methods ........................................................................ 67 1.3.1 Consent and access to information ..................................................................................... 67 1.3.2 Anonymity, confidentiality and ownership of data ............................................................ 68 1.3.3 Use of digital and online research methods ....................................................................... 69 Chapter 2. Theological and Ecclesial Perspectives on Disability ............................ 72 2.1 Theologies of Disability: Definitions and Contexts ................................................. 72 2.1.1 The Bible and disability: Resistant biblical readings ......................................................... 79 2.2 Pastoral Care Discourses and Disability in Churches ............................................ 85 2.2.1 Pastoral rejection of disabled people’s theological models ............................................... 91 2.2.2 Theologies of friendship and welcome .............................................................................. 94 Part B: Misfits in the Pews ..................................................................................... 101 Chapter 3. Misfitting: Experiences of Church Normalcy ..................................... 102 3.1 Disabled Christians as “Misfits” ............................................................................ 103 3.2 “Where can I put you?” Buildings and Spatial Segregation ............................... 105 5 3.3 Worship Norms in Churches .................................................................................. 111 3.3.1 Communion ...................................................................................................................... 112 3.3.2 Standing and sitting .......................................................................................................... 115 3.3.3 Audiocentric and visiocentric church cultures ................................................................. 118 3.3.4 Size and style of churches ................................................................................................ 122 3.4 Friendship and the Normative Social Church ...................................................... 124 3.4.1 Home groups .................................................................................................................... 125 3.4.2 Post-church coffee ............................................................................................................ 130 3.4.3 Attendance ........................................................................................................................ 133 3.4.4 Church norms of friendship and belonging .....................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Comparative Analysis of Hate Crime Legislation
    A Comparative Analysis of Hate Crime Legislation A Report to the Hate Crime Legislation Review James Chalmers and Fiona Leverick University of Glasgow, July 2017 i A Comparative Analysis of Hate Crime Legislation: A Report to the Hate Crime Legislation Review July 2017 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________ 1 1. WHAT IS HATE CRIME? ________________________________________ 4 2. HATE CRIME LEGISLATION IN SCOTLAND __________________________ 7 3. JUSTIFICATIONS FOR PUNISHING HATE CRIME MORE SEVERELY ______ 23 4. MODELS OF HATE CRIME LEGISLATION __________________________ 40 5. CHOICE OF PROTECTED CHARACTERISTICS _______________________ 52 6. HATE SPEECH AND STIRRING UP OFFENCES _______________________ 68 7. HATE CRIME LEGISLATION IN SELECTED JURISDICTIONS _____________ 89 8. APPROACHES TAKEN IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS RELEVANT TO THE OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOUR AT FOOTBALL AND THREATENING COMMUNICATIONS (SCOTLAND) ACT 2012 ____________________________________________________ 134 ii INTRODUCTION In January 2017, the Scottish Government announced a review of hate crime legislation, chaired by Lord Bracadale.1 Lord Bracadale requested that, to assist the Review it its task, we produce a comparative report detailing principles underpinning hate crime legislation and approaches taken to hate crime in a range of jurisdictions. Work on this report commenced in late March 2017 and the final report was submitted to the Review in July 2017. Chapter 1 (What is Hate Crime?) explores what is meant by the term “hate crime”, noting that different definitions may properly be used for different purposes. It notes that the legislative response to hate crime can be characterised by the definition offered by Chakraborti and Garland: the creation of offences, or sentencing provisions, “which adhere to the principle that crimes motivated by hatred or prejudice towards particular features of the victim’s identity should be treated differently from ‘ordinary’ crimes”.
    [Show full text]
  • Still Getting Away with Murder: Disability Hate Crime in England
    Still Getting Away with Murder A report about Disability Hate Crime in England Disability hate crime: this means when somebody commits a crime against a Disabled person because of their impairment. Impairment: in the document, this is used to talk about a Disabled person’s medical condition, diagnosis or difference. This could be physical or mental. Not all Disabled people are comfortable with the word ‘impairment’. However, we are not using this word to talk about who the person is. That is a personal choice. Part A – A Summary of the report One out of five Disabled people say that they have faced unkind or threatening behaviour or even been attacked (Inclusion London, 2020). Disabled people: in this document, this means people with impairments who choose to be part of the Disabled people's movement in the UK. These people stand up for rights for Disabled people across the country. This document looks at the fight against disability hate crime in England over the last 10 years. In 2008, we wrote a report called Getting Away With Murder . Getting Away with Murder Report: this was a report that was written in 2008 by Katharine Quarmby, together with Disability Now, the UK Disabled People’s Council and Scope. It looked at Disabled people’s experiences of hate crime in 2008. Since then, there have been lots of changes in the ways that disability hate crime is dealt with. This document looks at how things have changed since the last report was written. It is hard to say how much change there has been over the last 12 years.
    [Show full text]
  • Women's Studies Quarterly
    !" #$%%!& #' ()( **+++, - ,**)+ . ! "# /0 (1 )231 4 ( ! " !"# $%& '()*++'',- 4 1 ( ! "# $ % ! & % ' !( ) * )+ #%, %% -.#/+ 0%!!% !%0 % )))% 0 ! # %! & %10 #% 2& %+ 3) WOMEN'S STUDIES BOOK REVIEW Sami Schalk. Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction. Duke UP, 2018. Bodyminds Reimagined is a compelling critical study of the points of contact and convergence between disability studies and Black feminist studies in contemporary Black women ’s spec- ulative fiction. In the first monograph focusing exclusively on the representation of disability by Black authors, Schalk meticulously sketches the contours of the various fields with which Bodyminds Reimagined converses. Schalk begins with the stance that “(dis)ability is rarely accounted for in black feminist theory ” and that disability studies “has often avoided issues of race ” (3 –4). Speculative fiction, Schalk argues, is a rich site to interrogate the contact between Black feminist theory and disability studies because the nonrealist genre elements allow authors to “reimagine the possibilities of bodyminds ” (17) and posit alternative constructions of identity in nonreal worlds that in turn “force readers to question the ideologies undergirding these categories ” (18). Bodyminds Reimagined considers Black women ’s speculative fiction published after 1970 using a three-pronged methodology: rejecting the good/bad binary that characterizes much scholarship on representations of disability; attending to more than just character analysis in close reading individual texts; and approaching speculative worlds on their own terms and reading them through their nonrealist rules. Bodyminds Reimagined is not only a vital examination of disability within Black fiction, but also a methodological manual of sorts for scholars inspired to continue this intellectual project. But what is a “bodymind ”? Schalk borrows this vocabulary from the materialist feminist disability scholarship by Margaret Price.
    [Show full text]
  • Violence Against Children with Disabilities
    EQUALITY FRA Violence against children with disabilities: legislation, policies and programmes in the EU with disabilities: policies and programmes legislation, children against Violence Violence against children with disabilities: legislation, policies and programmes in the EU This report addresses matters relating to the right to integrity of the person (Article 3), the rights of the child (Article 24), and the integration of persons with disabilities (Article 26), falling under the Titles I ‘Dignity’ and III ‘Equality’ of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Europe Direct is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union. Freephone number (*): 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (*) The information given is free, as are most calls (though some operators, phone boxes or hotels may charge you). Photo (cover & inside): © Shutterstock More information on the European Union is available on the Internet (http://europa.eu). FRA – European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights Schwarzenbergplatz 11 – 1040 Vienna – Austria Tel. +43 158030-0 – Fax +43 158030-699 fra.europa.eu – [email protected] Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2015 Paper: 978-92-9239-942-9 10.2811/932051 TK-04-15-511-EN-C PDF: 978-92-9239-941-2 10.2811/985117 TK-04-15-511-EN-N © European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2015 Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged. Printed in Italy Printed on process chlorine-free recycled paper (PCF) Violence against children with disabilities: legislation, policies and programmes in the EU Foreword International, European and national law all recognise the right to protection from all forms of violence, which applies to all children, including those with disabilities.
    [Show full text]
  • A Buddhist Inspiration for a Contemporary Psychotherapy
    1 A BUDDHIST INSPIRATION FOR A CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOTHERAPY Gay Watson Thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London. 1996 ProQuest Number: 10731695 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731695 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ABSTRACT It is almost exactly one hundred years since the popular and not merely academic dissemination of Buddhism in the West began. During this time a dialogue has grown up between Buddhism and the Western discipline of psychotherapy. It is the contention of this work that Buddhist philosophy and praxis have much to offer a contemporary psychotherapy. Firstly, in general, for its long history of the experiential exploration of mind and for the practices of cultivation based thereon, and secondly, more specifically, for the relevance and resonance of specific Buddhist doctrines to contemporary problematics. Thus, this work attempts, on the basis of a three-way conversation between Buddhism, psychotherapy and various themes from contemporary discourse, to suggest a psychotherapy that may be helpful and relevant to the current horizons of thought and contemporary psychopathologies which are substantially different from those prevalent at the time of psychotherapy's early years.
    [Show full text]
  • Anti-Ableist Glossary of Disability Terms By: Sara M. Acevedo, Phd
    Acevedo 1 Anti-Ableist Glossary of Disability Terms By: Sara M. Acevedo, PhD. Project Synopsis This project originated in the United States as a joint effort between the Vera Institute of Justice, the National Resource Center (NRC) and other allied organizations and their partner community of translators1. In response to the needs and priorities identified by the communities themselves, the partner organizations adopted a comprehensive action strategy focused on the joint development of initiatives seeking equality and justice for families and whole communities impacted by violence. These initiatives involve elements of research, recommendations on policy and direct action in order to help strengthen the affected groups which, owing to their social, economic, political, ethnic and cultural circumstances, find themselves in a situation of extreme vulnerability. In summary, the primary and overall aim of this project is to guarantee equality, sustainability and quality in these alliances by strengthening the communicative ties between service provider organizations and the disabled persons they support. Acevedo 2 Table of Contents Project Synopsis ................................................................ 1 Outline of the Glossary ...................................................... 5 Political and Cultural Framework ....................................... 5 Scope and Approach .......................................................... 6 1. Aceptación (English: acceptance): ............................... 8 2. Autodeterminación (English:
    [Show full text]
  • Disabling Trauma: Toward a Crip Critique of Post-Traumatic Stress
    Disabling Trauma: Toward A Crip Critique of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Angela M. Carter IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dr. Jigna Desai and Dr. Jennifer Pierce, Co-Advisors August 2019 Angela M. Carter Copyright, 2019 Acknowledgments As both a disabled person and a Buddhist practitioner, I believe deeply in the truth of our interdependence. We do nothing on our own. Nothing about who we are, or who we become, is a singularity. Our multitudes not only support one another in ways we cannot always know, they intertwine in ways we cannot begin to imagine. I am here today because of a multitude, a multitude of others. It began with the Ronald E. McNair Program so many years ago - so I must begin with acknowledging the folks there who first told me this was possible. Dr. Harker and Sarah Hass - I quite literally would not be here without you. Christine, thank you in particular, for being the first person to truly teach me how to think, write, and analyze. You opened doors I didn’t know existed and for that this dissertation is your success as much as it is mine. Joan and Dr. Minner, how can I ever thank you? There just aren’t words for the people who adopt you when you most need to be adopted. Thank you. Thinking (and becoming) happens in community and I could not have thought these thoughts without the disability communities I have found.
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal Volume 10, Issues 3 & 4 Copyright 2014 Table of Contents Editorial: Progress Megan A. Conway, PhD, RDS Managing Editor p. 3 Forum: Art History and Disability Guest Editors: p. 4 Ann Millett-Gallant, University of North Carolina, USA Elizabeth Howie, Coastal Carolina University, USA Forum Editors Introduction p. 4 Forum Articles Composing Dwarfism: Reframing Short Stature in Contemporary Photography Amanda Cachia, University of California, San Diego, USA p. 6 A 16th Century Portrait of Disability? Quentin Matsys' A Grotesque Old Woman p. 20 Sara Newman, Kent State University, USA Shifting Perception: Photographing Disabled People During the Civil Rights Era Timothy Hiles, University of Tennessee, USA p. 30 Becoming Aware of One’s Own Biased Attitude: The Observer’s Encounter with Disability in Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library no. 18 p. 40 Nina Heindl, Ruhr-University, Germany Research Articles Facing Dyslexia: The Education of Chuck Close p. 52 Ken Gobbo, Landmark College, USA Summer of 2012: Paralympic Legacy and the Welfare Benefit Scandal p. 62 Liz Crow, Bristol University, United Kingdom RDSv10 i3&4 1 A Capabilities View of Accessibility in Policy and Practice in Jordan and Peru Joyojeet Pal, PhD, University of Michigan, USA p. 77 Book and Media Reviews Both Sides of the Table: Autoethnographies of Educators Learning and Teaching With/In [Dis]Ability. Disability Studies in Education, Vol 12. Eds. Susan L. Gabel and Scot Danforth p. 94 Reviewed by Steven E. Brown, PhD, University of Hawaii, USA Quality of Life and Intellectual Disability; Knowledge Application to Other Social and Educational Challenges, Edited by Roy I.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Intellectual/Developmental Disability, Rhetoric, and Self-Advocacy
    Intellectual/Developmental Disability, Rhetoric, and Self-Advocacy: A Case Study Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Sean Kamperman, M.A. Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2019 Dissertation Committee Christa Teston, Advisor Margaret Price Amy Shuman 1 Copyrighted by Sean Kamperman 2019 2 Abstract Using grounded methods and deploying a critical disability studies framework, this dissertation assesses how people who identify or are identified as having intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD) use their rhetorical skills—specifically, their self-advocacy skills—to access academic life. Through interviews and observations of rhetors affiliated with an innovative inclusive education program pseudonymously titled “STEP” (“Successful Transitions and Educational Progress”), I offer a practice account of I/DD’s relation to rhetoricity, or rhetorical capacity, in academic spaces. Contra to officialized discourses that portray self-advocacy as the responsibility of individual rhetors, I attend to self-advocacy’s social and rhetorical dimensions across three “sites”: student self-advocacy practices, assessment technologies used to measure student self-determination, and the self-advocacy practices of professional self-advocates. After a methodological commentary on the need for qualitative researchers in rhetoric and writing studies to attend to accessibility as a practical and theoretical concern, I conclude by reflecting on the implications of my findings for rhetorical education writ large: specifically, for how teachers conceive of the relationship between collaboration and credibility in their classrooms. ii Dedication For Milton iii Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the generous support of so many.
    [Show full text]
  • Online Abuse and the Experience of Disabled People
    House of Commons Petitions Committee Online abuse and the experience of disabled people First Report of Session 2017–19 Report, together with formal minutes relating to the report Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 8 January 2019 HC 759 Published on 22 January 2019 by authority of the House of Commons Petitions Committee The Petitions Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to consider e-petitions submitted on petition.parliament.uk and public (paper) petitions presented to the House of Commons. Current membership Helen Jones MP (Labour, Warrington North) (Chair) Martyn Day MP (Scottish National Party, Linlithgow and East Falkirk) Michelle Donelan MP (Conservative, Chippenham) Steve Double MP (Conservative, St Austell and Newquay) Luke Hall MP (Conservative, Thornbury and Yate) Mike Hill MP (Labour, Hartlepool) Catherine McKinnell MP (Labour, Newcastle upon Tyne North) Damien Moore MP (Conservative, Southport) Paul Scully MP (Conservative, Sutton and Cheam) Liz Twist MP (Labour, Blaydon) Daniel Zeichner MP (Labour, Cambridge) Powers The powers of the Committee are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No. 145A. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications Committee reports are published on the Committee’s website and in print by Order of the House. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are David Slater (Clerk), Lauren Boyer (Second Clerk), Kate Anderson (Petitions and Communications Manager), James Clarke (Petitions and Engagement Manager), Zoe Hays (Senior
    [Show full text]
  • The Emergence of Somatic Psychology and Bodymind Therapy by Barnaby B
    Johanson on Barratt's Emergence book review article by Greg Johanson, Ph. D. The Emergence of Somatic Psychology and Bodymind Therapy by Barnaby B. Barratt London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010 ISBN: 978-0-230-22216-8 (hardback) Barnaby Barratt, Ph.D., DHS has written an overview of Section I Introducing a New Discipline somatic psychotherapy that is extraordinary in its mature scholarly depth and breadth of presentation. It is thoroughly In Barratt's Section I introduction to a new discipline he post-modern in that what he terms somatic psychology and explains that he wants to deal with what it means to be bodymind therapy can only be considered in a highly human, in particular the human experience of embodiment, contextualized way in relation to history, philosophy, and how it can be a "harbinger of a radically different cultural values, social structures, science, spirituality, and future" (p. 2) that includes altering our present more. Thus, the reader is confronted with not simple the understanding of the nature of knowing and of science. emerging field of somatic psychotherapy, but the entire field of psychology in relation to Western globalized life. It is He sets the following challenge: "This book invites you to radical or prophetic in its implications for somatic ways of entertain the question: Just how radical are the cultivating awareness. It encounters the reader with the implications of the emerging discipline of somatic need to work through weighty issues, whether one agrees psychology and the accompanying healing practices of completely with Barratt's conclusions and directions or not. bodymind therapy?" (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Disabled Futures
    Excerpt • Temple University Press Introduction On the Future of Disabled Identities consider myself both an academic theorist immersed in disability studies, gender and sexuality studies, and critical race studies and a practitioner of Iinstitutional equity and inclusion work. I have frequently experienced this balance of theory and practice as a paradox in which I am employed to per- form labor aimed at raising awareness of and decreasing systemic and inter- personal oppression by an academic institution and within a set of national and professional structures that are built on and complicit with neoliberal capitalist domination. Thus, I often find myself engaging social justice work within higher education that utilizes many of the concepts and related prac- tices that I critique in my academic writing. There is a friction here that affects not only me. From the perspective of professional practitioners concerned with equity and inclusion, critical social and other academic theory can be perceived as too abstract, inaccessible, or impractical. From the perspective of critical social theorists, the practice of diversity work may be understood to be assimilating radical ideas into neoliberal and depoliticizing institu- tional structures. Such frictions remind me that one of the barriers to build- ing more equitable and inclusive spaces is the fiction that theory and practice are separable and opposing things. This fiction circulates not only at the theoretical level in academic writing, where we are often most comfortable pointing out the limitations and flaws in concepts like identity, diversity, and inclusion, but also in the ways we divide work within our institutions— “student affairs” versus “academic affairs,” for example.
    [Show full text]