Deconstructing the racial structure of public service through critical participatory practices

Abstract

The renewal of efforts to disrupt or dismantle White supremacy in public service organizations and society has been met by strong cross-currents from the current political and policy climate in the United States. We see efforts by public administration faculty to incorporate more critical perspectives around pedagogy and public service as very hopeful. At the same time, we argue that the tools that administrators may need to disrupt institutionalized racist practices and structures go well beyond self-awareness and individual-level anti-racist actions. We situate public administration as a racialized practice – an evolving system of institutions and services that perpetuate exclusion, marginalization, and ineffectiveness through public action. In order to disrupt this system, we argue for a more critical approach within public affairs education through participatory models of engagement, where individual-level awareness and skillbuilding are explicitly coupled with organizational change approaches.