The Unsettling Feminism(s) Unconference

Abstract

In this article, the author shares her experiences as a doctoral student at the Unsettling Feminism(s) conference in Chicago. She argues that this unconference forced her to question how the academy conceives of “academic conferences” as venues of student–professional development. From the perspective of a racialized woman, an immigrant, a scholar, and a person with a disability, such professional gatherings that honor social workers’ and researchers’ multiple identities and offer valued spaces for marginalized stories to be told and heard can be personally and professionally transformative. The author uses the metaphor of an elephant in the room to argue that even though it may be unsettling, the academy must be willing to risk uncomfortable dialogues to advance social work education, practice, and research and to enhance students’ intellectual creativity.

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life

(Jane Addams, quoted in Lewis, 2011)

These words from the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the most famous social worker in the United States—a settlement worker, philosopher, sociologist, author, and crusader for world peace—echo the principles of social justice, a key tenet of social work. The principles of social justice and ethical practice are instilled in future social workers, scholars, and researchers through competent social work education. The burgeoning literature on doctoral pedagogies argues that it is through participating in multiple and diverse academic activities that students develop their sense of identity and agency (McAlpine & Amundsen, 2007). Furthermore, students shape and are shaped by their academic experiences. They learn the culture of the academy through classroom and professional discourses and are influenced by the modeling of their professors and supervisors (McAlpine & Amundsen, 2007).

I am a doctoral student. I entered social work out of a commitment to social justice and to bring about social change. In the rapidly changing demographic and global political–economic climate of Canada, I strive to follow in the footsteps of Jane Addams. Often I experience dissonance between the epistemological and ontological principles of social work education and my experiences in the academy. As a scholar from the minority community, I find myself nervously negotiating tensions around culture and identity.

Concerned with the survival of social work values in the climate of global turmoil, as well as an unjust neoliberal agenda and market-driven approaches, Wehbi (2009) urged social workers to be self-reflective about their roles as educators. Neoliberal ideologies, she argued, equate productivity with success even if “being productive” means sacrificing social work values and the quality of scholarship. Wehbi was referring to the increased pressure on new academics to publish and, more specifically, to the institutional criteria for evaluations for promotion and tenure positions on the quantity, rather than the quality, of publications and on research dollars, rather than teaching and mentoring. In a similar vein, Denzin, Lincoln, and Giardina (2006, p. 769) observed that the current climate of global uncertainty raises “fundamental, philosophical epistemological, political and pedagogical issues for scholarship and freedom of speech in the academy.” In these unsettling times, the Unsettling Feminism(s) unconference was timely. This unconference renewed the fierce passion and drive with which I entered my PhD education. It gave me hope that despite these difficult times, social justice-oriented critical, creative, and progressive perspectives (Denzin et al., 2006) can uphold social work’s commitment to social justice for all. The organizers embraced the concept of an unconference and the themes Disrupting the Center, Dismantling Oppressions, and Transforming Social Work to create a paradigm shift in action and thinking about feminist issues.

In this article, I present my reflections as a student presenter and participant at the unconference. I acknowledge that my account is based solely on my impure interpretations of the events. There may be multiple other interpretations of the same events. My main goal is to show how this conference empowered me as a social work student and deepened my understanding of social justice. In the process, I challenge the dichotomy between expert and client that is prevalent in the academy. The article begins with Moving Toward a Paradigm Shift, in which I provide a brief background of the Unsettling Feminism(s) unconference. The next three sections use the key conference themes. In the second section, Disrupting the Center, I discuss the power and the risk of storytelling in the academy. In the third section, Dismantling Oppressions, I write about my multiple identities, and in the fourth section, Transforming Social Work, I use the metaphor of the elephant in the room to draw attention to social workers’ resistance to engage in uncomfortable academic discourses. In Creating Spaces for Authentic Dialogues, I describe how this conference provided me with various spaces to practice my voice and agency. I conclude with Moving Forward, with the hope that future academic conferences can provide similar spaces that foster an embodied understanding of academic work to students.

Moving Toward a Paradigm Shift

The background literature of the Unsettling Feminism(s) unconference indicated that it was 30 years ago that feminist social workers in the United States first gathered to address “Sexism in Social Work” (Unsettling Feminisms, 2011). Drawing on the collaborative discussions at academic and community meetings and active engagement at think tanks among social work administrators, educators, practitioners, and students, the Board of Directors of Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work decided that it was once again time for a paradigm shift to occur in thought and action about feminist issues. To achieve this paradigm shift, the board conceived of the Unsettling Feminism(s) unconference. The goal of the unconference was to move beyond the narrow focus of 1980s U.S. feminism to address women’s issues and promote diversity and social justice and antioppressive social work practice.

At the opening ceremony, the organizers issued a bold challenge to the participants: “speak your mind,” “open your heart,” “say whatever it is you wish to say,” and “allow ourselves to feel.” The symposium was about communing in a different language. It was not just about quoting the literature, analyzing paradigms, displaying evidence-based research, discussing the results of projects, and so on. For sure, there was room for sharing our theories, paradigms, and other academic knowledge. But the agenda called for much more. From the onset, the organizers disrupted the rigid structures that are generally found in the opening ceremonies of scholarly conferences (such as distribution of the program, opening statements, and the reception) through a strategic decision to include music (Artemis Singers: Chicago Lesbian Feminist Choir), and Alchemy workshops. The Alchemy group provided strategic illustrations throughout the unconference on posters. The purpose of these illustrations was to support the participants in thinking critically about the themes of the unconference. In the Alchemy strategic illustration process, a powerful hands-on, visual tool, the participants (alchemists) were given colored markers (philosopher’s stone) to transform base metal (complex ideas, challenges, research, and scholarly work) into gold (effective and empowering action) through art, poetry, or another creative outlet. These posters decorated the walls of the conference center. I marveled at how well the artist captured the intricate details of our conversations. The organizers invited presenters and nonpresenters, artists and nonartists, and seasoned academics and students, to leave their imprints on these posters. We were given permission to draw, paint, write poetry, or find other creative modes to express our point of view and narrate our experiences of oppression and/or liberation alone or in collaboration with other participants. At the end of the ceremony, the interactive alchemy process included small-group discussions on ideas, thoughts, and challenges facing the social work profession and how we, the alchemists were going to transform them into powerful and innovative action. This reflexive process and the Alchemy workshops created an atmosphere of comradeship that I had not experienced in other academic conferences. It allowed me to breathe and relax at an academic event.

Every now and then, I would witness a miraculous moment when a certain novice student or a seasoned scholar accepted the organizer’s invitation to be free, even if just for a few moments, from the bondage of hegemonic forces that had imprisoned her creativity and humanness. Uninvited tears would fill my eyes as I watched, in awe, this woman playing with childlike wonder with the vibrant colors of the markers. It seemed that—like me—she was embracing these reflexive activities with her whole being (physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually). After witnessing several of these moments, I wondered if our greatest fear as social workers and “experts” is that we may make a mistake in our work or judgment by letting ourselves be receptive and responsive to our emotions at unexpected moments in our interactions with colleagues or clients. We may screw up. It seems to me that we social workers walk around with our heads disconnected from our hearts and the rest of our bodies. Nelson and Merighi’s (2003) study is pertinent in this regard. It found that medical social workers who were employed in the changing health care system (organizational restructuring, the lack of funds, decline in staff, lack of support, and increasing cultural diversity) experienced emotional dissonance in practice situations. Nelson and Merighi suggested that emotional dissonance occurs when workers’ true feelings are discordant with an organization’s emotional rules. They concluded that when workers were forced either to display emotions (such as by smiling) that they did not feel or suppress emotions (such as by crying), it resulted in emotional exhaustion, negativity toward the profession, and burnout.

Disrupting the Center

I was terrified of presenting two unconventional and unsettling papers—The Foucauldian Madwoman: Four Weeks in a Psychiatric Facility and From a Maid to a Researcher—at the conference even though I was assured by one of the organizers that, as I had requested, the equipment would be set up so that I could play my recorded narrative during the presentation. I was pleasantly surprised by a call from her. In this era dominated by technology, it is almost impossible to connect to a human being especially while submitting abstracts, registering online, or clarifying questions about proposals. I appreciated this personal connection. I was not as worried about the equipment failing as I was about the content of my papers. After all, these papers exposed my private selves to the public. They spoke about my past experiences of oppressions (classism, racism, institutionalization, and so forth). In airing my experiences to the academic world, I was rendering myself vulnerable. Deep within, I was afraid of the kind of response I might receive. Through poetry and narratives, I was challenging the traditional writing format. In speaking from a unique position of a social worker and a South Asian client, I was making an effort to connect the private with the public and professional. My goal was to bridge the rigid binary between client and expert, service provider and service user, patient and doctor, or researcher and one being researched.

Even though “we now can embrace sophisticated theoretical stances on critical and qualitative race and ethnic perspectives, border voices, queer, feminist, indigenous and other non-Western lenses and epistemologies” (Denzin et al., 2006, p. 778), it is not widely accepted in the academy for scholars and social work practitioners to share their own stories, especially when scholars dare to disclose their “tabooed identity.” Vickers (2002, p. 609) articulated this reality profoundly: “Ironically, the risk of this stigma being applied to me because of being a ‘sick person’ intermeshed securely with other inappropriate judgments canvassed here: about researchers and how they ‘should’ do research and about targets of bullying and what they should not say.” Similarly, through her vivid account of being sexually abused as a child, Ronai (1995) bravely contested the delineation among our subject/object selves, our self/other selves, and our public/private selves. Wellin (2008, pp. 687–688) challenged the academy’s discomfort in dialoguing about difficult topics: “the normative taboo—especially strong in academic circles—against airing experiences in which one is revealed to have been insensitive or blind to racial dynamics.” I contend that at the heart of the resistance of the academy toward publishing or creating spaces for scholars to present such rare firsthand accounts is the desire to maintain the status quo and sustain the rigid boundaries that I referred to earlier (expert and client, doctor and patient, etc.). Personal accounts are invaluable for bringing abstract research accounts to life, for connecting theory with practice, and for revealing multiple realities of people’s lives (Wellin, 2008).

The unconference provided me with opportunities to problematize these binaries and raise issues of my marginalization, as well as to bring to the forefront some of the similar issues that other immigrant women I have met as a researcher are facing. I was able to dialogue with other academics through a human-to-human interaction, rather than a strictly scholar-to-scholar communication in which intellects compete for claims to universal truth. As I moved between sharing personal stories and theoretical discussions, I witnessed the pain of others in the room—their tears and their untold stories of personal and/or structural violence, such as incest, childhood trauma, battering, gender violence, classism, sexism, and racism—I knew instinctually that, like me, this was their first unconference. Oh! How long they had waited for such a venue in which they could own or reclaim their wounded selves. Today, they could cry. Today, they could take a large red, yellow, or green marker and write their stories as well as their clients’ or research participants’ stories on the poster. In being able to problematize my intense personal experiences, I was able to honor my multiple identities and the ways in which the rigid boundary between the expert and client excludes certain voices. Paraphrasing Wellin (2008), I used my personal experiences as direct and vivid routes to bring to light the issues that I want to explore as a researcher. I was liberated from the dominating influence of hegemony and colonization that had silenced my story for a long time. I felt empowered as a South Asian woman and a social worker. Soon after my presentation, I attended the aboriginal workshop, where I was rejuvenated by the healing smudging ceremony and storytelling. The stories at this workshop firmly and gently confronted various epistemologies and research methodologies that fail “to recognize legitimate differences in ‘ways of knowing’ possessed by diverse groups and peoples and impose a Western sensibility and rationality on experience even when Western sensibilities and rationality are highly inappropriate and indeed meaningless” (Denzin et al., 2006, p. 774).

I affirm Mitra’s (2011) contention that the voices of marginalized individuals and communities are often excluded in academic knowledge. For example, in my preparation for teaching my first social work course in fall 2011, I found it paradoxical that although I could locate literature on clinical and community practice with immigrants and refugees, it appears that social work education has largely failed to incorporate this subject into its curriculum. This conference legitimated my and others’ marginalized stories; created spaces for theoretical, political, and personal resistance; and provoked reflection. Personally and professionally, I came to understand that “to bring in subjugated knowledge from the margin to the center unfolds new possibilities for rebalancing power in society” (Mayuzumi, 2006, p. 10). As the issue of racial and cultural diversity continues to occupy an increasingly important role in social work practice, the lived experiences of practitioners from marginalized communities are vital to bridge the gap between the private and public, dominant and subordinate discourses, Western and other epistemologies, and outsiders’ and insiders’ accounts (Lee, McGrath, Moffatt, & George, 2002). These accounts are vital in enhancing our understanding of how the insider position shapes the identity of practitioners who hold a minority status, keeping in mind that identity is not static but fluid (Lee et al., 2002; Mayuzumi, 2006). Lee, McGrath, Moffatt, and George (2002) warned social workers not to limit the insider status to a singular identity, such as race, ethnicity, class, sex, or gender. Such a reductionist framework may obscure an individual’s “ongoing experiences of marginalization or colonization” (Lee et al., 2002, p. 7).

Dismantling Oppressions

As a Japanese woman and scholar, Mayuzumi (2006) feels trapped between Western orientalism and nationalist discourses. The following is her definition of decolonization in the context of her work with the Japanese community: “Decolonization here means a political act whereby I attempt to center the concerns and worldviews of my community in order to understand theory from our own perspective and our own purposes” (p. 10). Mayuzumi suggested that depending upon how certain discourses are represented politically, these discourses affect identity formation. One must question, she argued, “‘Who speaks?’ ‘For Whom’ and ‘For What reason’” (p. 15). Mitra’s (2011) interviews with female social workers in India illustrate the points that Mayuzumi made in relation to diverse worldviews on the same theory and how that understanding and a person’s particular location politically, socially, culturally, and geographically shapes her or his identity. Inspired by feminist standpoint theory’s attention to marginalized social locations, Mitra used this perspective to explore middle- and upper-class Indian women’s perspectives on feminism. She noted that most of the participants were never formally exposed to feminist theory and praxis in the university curriculum or training and interpreted feminism as a Western phenomenon. A handful of participants who had interrogated feminist theory in their university seemed confused about its diverse epistemological positions. Aside from their confusions, the participants for the most part held negative stereotypes and misconceptions about “feminism,” as the following quotation demonstrates: “The term feminism generally evokes Western stereotypes of ‘bra-burning, cigarette-smoking, and antimale’ matriarchs among the common people” (p. 196). Mitra was surprised that common people and female celebrities alike did not want to be identified as feminists.

The issue of feminist identity was passionately debated at the Unsettling Feminism(s) unconference. Specifically, the participants deliberated over the personal, professional, and political implications of disclosing their identity as “feminists” to their students. During these conversations, I confronted my strong resistance to labeling myself a feminist. The core reason of this resistance dates back to my life in Mumbai, India. Growing up, I listened to horror stories of the British rule in India and the resulting domination of white men and women on Indian citizens in their own homes. In postcolonial India, feminism “takes on a different flavor”; it is linked to the nationalist struggle against the British colonizers (Mitra, 2011, p. 196). On the basis of Mitra’s findings and my own observations in India, the political activist image of feminists is incongruent with women’s gendered roles of caretakers. When I moved to Canada as a young adult, similar to the viewpoints of the women in Mitra’s study, the South Asian women with whom I socialized were of the mind-set that feminism was a Western tradition that privileged personal independence over family welfare and that feminists were men haters and thus a threat to Indian womanhood. I am embarrassed to confess that as a result of these stories of colonization, I equated feminism with “white women colonizing racialized women.” Because of the negative connotation connected with the feminist identity in my circle of South Asian friends, I rejected that label. Ironically, despite my resistance to feminism, I applied to attend the Unsettling Feminism(s) unconference. It is critical that scholarship aimed at understanding the lived experiences of Indian women must take into consideration how the intersections of various factors, such as colonial history, globalization, class, caste, religion, education, gender, and sex, intersect and influence their lives (Mitra, 2011).

Transforming Social Work

When I returned to Canada after the unconference, I revisited Razack’s (1998) preoccupation with “critical gaze,” a highly relevant concept for moving social work forward in the 21st century. Informed by Razack’s understanding of interlocking systems of oppression (that is, how gender, sex, class, and other markers of difference intersect to oppress or privilege individuals) and the feminist mode of analysis, Razack argued that each of us is capable of occupying the social locations of the oppressed and the oppressor, although in unequal and different ways. Her other point is that we are also simultaneously members of multiple subordinate and dominant groups. Thus, we must maintain a critical gaze so that we can be vigilant of our “privilege,” as well as our “penalty” (oppression). For instance, as a racialized woman, I have lower status than that of a white man or woman. However, as a scholar, I hold more privilege than some South Asian women who have little or no education. Borrowing from Mary Louise Fellows, Razack (1998) cautioned that failing to be watchful of our privilege, our subordination, and the connections between them, we may intentionally or unintentionally perform “race of innocence” (p. 196). That is, as a South Asian who has faced gender violence, I cannot assume that I am incapable of oppressing other women. I am as capable of subordinating others as they are of subordinating me. I want to push the idea of critical gaze a bit further. Maintaining a critical gaze allowed me to identify my misconception that feminism is a source of “dangerous” knowledge This insight was useful, since it helped me reconstruct the meaning of feminism and become vigilant of my “othering” practices, such as marginalization and exclusion, even though unintentional, in my everyday interactions with feminists. For me, the issue of feminism was like the elephant in the room that I did not confront until the unconference. As difficult as it was to trace the roots of my prejudice or resistance to feminism, the ability to have uncomfortable dialogues with other academics helped me to unsettle my feminist ideology. It is important that in our efforts to dismantle oppression, we, as academics, educators, researchers, and social workers, interrogate how certain sources of knowledge, literature, or particular studies sustain and reproduce the oppressions that we are trying to eliminate in the first place (Wellin, 2008). Such an endeavor is critical in our goal of furthering scholarship that strives to create pedagogical practices “that turn oppression into freedom, despair into hope, hatred into love, and doubt into trust” (Denzin et al., 2006, p. 777).

It is not my intention to describe the unconference as a fairy tale, in which there were no issues, problems, or grievances, or as a place in which anything could occur. In fact, the milieu was furthest away from a fairy tale. Like other conferences, there were technical difficulties and other issues. I can only speculate that not every participant found this conference as enlightening as I did. In some of the presentations that I attended, it was evident that some people were uncomfortable with scholars bringing the personal into the public. They resisted uncomfortable dialogues. But how can we transform social work if we cannot risk uncomfortable dialogues? In my experiences at various conferences, I noticed that social workers were always trying to be politically correct and were eager to please everyone. Even seasoned and tenured academics were afraid to touch the elephant in the room. As a doctoral student, how do I assert my voice in these settings when what is being modeled to me is compliance and a pretense that there is no elephant in the room. Since voice is intimately connected to the development of an academic identity, senior academics must be cognizant of how they model their voices among new academics and provide opportunities (formal and informal) for students to negotiate their voices (McAlpine & Amundsen, 2007).

This unconference intentionally carved out spaces where other students and I could practice our voices. Here, I experienced the kind of modeling that McAlpine and Amundsen (2007) asked senior academics to represent. The participants in the unconference made a conscious decision to challenge each other and to notice the elephant in the room, even though it must have been painstakingly difficult for some seasoned academics to do so. In my view, touching the elephant necessitates listening to and dialoguing with each other about different kinds of stories: stories of domination and stories of subordination, Western stories and Other stories, white feminist stories and feminists of color stories (Indigenous, Asian, and other cultural stories). Without risking conflict and unsettling conversations, we cannot disrupt the center, dismantle oppression, or transform social work. Without disrupting the center, we cannot hope to recenter and balance the heart of the academy for the sake of transforming social work pedagogy and practice. As Rossiter (2001) stated “The fervour, belief, and incredible investment in our urge to help others constitute the first clue that signals the need for questions that train a critical eye on selves as sites of profound, repeated, and often violent historical and discursive conflicts.”

Creating Spaces for Authentic Dialogues

As a doctoral student, I am expected to develop “a more academically mature type of thinking that analyses, synthesizes, judges, and creates fresh connections and ideas” (Hadjioannou, Shelton, Fu, & Dhanarattigannon, 2007, p. 161). In the trajectory of the doctoral journey, I view my participation in such conferences as one of the “academic practices,” among others, that provide venues for practicing my voice and agency and thus developing my identity as an academic (McAlpine & Amundsen, 2007). Among a plethora of literature on doctoral pedagogies, McAlpine and Amundsen’s article demonstrates that a student’s ability to practice voice and agency influences his or her success. These authors also highlighted the importance of paying attention to doctoral students’ emotional experiences (positive and negative affective components). Even so, in their article, I would have welcomed a stronger discussion of the student’s inner voice or inner sense of self. In my perspective, the student that McAlpine and Admundsen wrote about appeared to be a typical white individual in a Eurocentric academy, born and bred in North America. Gundara (1997) stated that nurturing the intellect of minority students from diverse backgrounds deepens the level of intellectual discourse in the academy and helps the students make valuable contributions.

Even though I have experienced many moments of exhilaration in my doctoral journey so far, I have also, on several occasions, had to comply with academic rules even when it meant placing my cultural values at the margin and acting from an epistemological lens entrenched in Western imperialism. A position at the margin is not necessarily oppressive in every context (Carducci, Kuntz, Gildersleeve, & Pasque, 2011). However, in my situation, as a South Asian woman trained in a Western academic institute, I often feel disembodied at the margin of academic policies. The social settings of the Western academy force me to negotiate my behavior and decisions between the learned Eurocentric epistemologies and my ontological and cultural being. Mayuzumi (2006) was familiar with my sense of powerlessness. It is through listening to her heart and integrating her mind, body, and soul that she hopes to decolonize aspects of herself that were colonized and claim her cultural identity, so that she can heal and produce embodied knowledge that integrates these three facets of herself. I argue with Mitra (2011), that women in non-Western countries must be given space to “develop feminist theory on their own terms befitting their immediate realities without feeling the pressure of Western theoretical hegemony” (p. 197).

Participating in the unconference reaffirmed for me that it is through immersing my whole self (physical, mental, and spiritual) that I can create spaces for creative and critical dialogues that push the boundaries of the social work profession and lead to transformative action. Borrowing from Carducci et al.’s (2011, p. 7) meaning of space, the unconference offered me “energy,” “alternative,” ”critique,” and “possibility.” Renewed with life-giving energy, I am able to continue my doctoral journey knowing that my quest for authentic action and change in the academy and the social work profession is attainable. I will keep on honoring alternate spaces and initiating spaces in the academy where new ways of doing things, new tools of exploration, new methodologies, new epistemologies, and innovative dialogues can take place. McAlpine and Amundsen (2007) also wrote about creating the “third space” in the academy where people from different contexts are drawn together because they share a common vision. Spaces for critique, in my view, are imperative for maintaining social work ethics and social justice principles. They allow new practitioners’ voices to practice their emerging agency and voice; negotiate tensions; speak for or against a certain topic; problematize, resist, and challenge ideologies; tell their stories; or just be silent. Because of my multiple identities—racialized, woman, migrant, and scholar—I reside in the center and at the margin. Spaces in the center and on the periphery offer me and others the possibility for healing and empowerment.

Moving Forward

In spite of the many challenges confronting social work practice, I believe that it is also a time of great hope for social workers who are committed to furthering social justice. Social workers can make a significant difference in eradicating inequalities at both the individual and systemic levels through multiple paths: policy development, advocacy, research, academia, frontline grassroots activism, administration, and government. For sure, emotional dissonance in practice would be costly to the profession (Nelson & Merighi, 2003). The unconference affirmed for me that a way to avoid social workers burning out, the profession must create safe spaces where social workers can express their real feelings without being penalized for not following an organization’s emotional rules. I do not believe that it is possible to “interrupt” our thinking without “disrupting” our hearts. I do not believe that it is possible to create spaces for transformative dialogues with just our minds or intellects. I experienced the unconference as being about “unlearning.” I did not feel any pressure to be smart or competitive, to recite theories, stubbornly to stick to my point of view, and so on. I did not feel attacked. Surrounded by multiracial and multigendered groups of people of all ages, my brown body mingled easily with others’ during presentations and social events. Feeling safe among scholars and practitioners who gathered together with a shared goal to “Disrupt the Center,” “Dismantle Oppression,” and “Transform Social Work,” I dived into my academic theories, philosophies, paradigms, and concepts with my whole being. I think it made the presentations of my two papers lively, engaging, and productive.

At the end of the conference, I walked around the lobby marveling at the posters. Images of men and women, service providers and service users, social workers, feminists, clients, advocates, experts, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, lovers, fathers, and so forth came alive on these posters. I saw those who were depicted speaking, standing in silence, crying, dancing, laughing, protesting, watching, praying, and singing. All the participants left their unique imprints on the poster, on the unconference, and on the hearts and minds of their sisters and brothers whom they had just met a couple of days before. How could such energy not transform social work practice and theory?

As I move forward in my doctoral studies, I will continue to honor the sacredness of my academic journey. My core principle is that to construct knowledge for practice and praxis that respects and celebrates life, one must look at every phenomenon with fresh eyes and treat every encounter as sacred and never stop trying. As Jane Addams wrote, “Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world” (quoted in Lewis, 2011). A final reflection on the unconference: First, the unconference dismantled my ideologies. Then it allowed me to speak, centering my nervous brown body. Then it constructed and built my sense of agency and self-esteem. I walked away with a stronger voice and conviction than I came with. How could I have grown so much intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually in a span of few days? Of course, this transformation would not have been possible if the organizers had not paid heed to their call for an unconference.