From Activism to Organizing,From Caring to Care Work

Abstract

U.S. higher ed exploits precarity (the intersection of racism, misogyny, ableism, heteronormativity, classism, and job status) to position campus equity work as both essential and dangerous, inclusive and individual. Often left to the faculty who are already most threatened and “activists” who join out of “passion,” successes happen, laudably given the hegemonic regimes that call for the work and then threaten people who do it. Recasting equity efforts as care-work, that is, fundamental aspects of our labor as faculty, and recasting activism as organizing clarifies the labor of solidarity-building. Winning this argument helps constitute equity work as both a professional practice (i.e., mutually supported) and a mutual professional responsibility.