NCTEAR 2023 Conference: Call for Proposals
Literacies of Solidarity
March 3-5, 2023
University of California, Davis
What happens when we dream and fight for solidarity in complex times? Who do we seek to be in solidarity with? How do we work toward solidarity with and across communities historically and violently oppressed? How do we practice solidarity with communities different from our own? How do literacy researchers and practitioners engage in acts of solidarity in our research and practice? We ask the questions above not as rhetorical ones but as questions we hope will encourage powerful conversations and actions by literacy researchers who are seeking to be in solidarity with various communities.
We have lived through an onslaught of racialized violence against Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian communities. We mourn the treatment of LGBTQIA+ communities whose rights and personhoods are continually in jeopardy. We see the ongoing erasure of differently abled communities. These varied experiences have been compounded by the ongoing effects of the
COVID19 global pandemic. The 2023 NCTEAR conference theme, Literacies of Solidarity, asks us all to consider how our scholarship can mediate powerful experiences of solidarity for people in K-20 classrooms, out of school learning contexts in communities, homes, digital communities, and beyond.
It is easy to urge solidarity across racially and ethnically diverse groups, and other communities who are stigmatized, however, we know the process of true solidarity is dynamic, messy, yet transformative. In addition, while we call for solidarity, we also must acknowledge that a legacy of powerful solidarity practices already exists led by intersectional movements by Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian, Pacific Islander communities along with white allies calling for equity and social justice (see Combahee River Collective, 1979/1997; Eagle Shield et al., 2020; Johnson, 2013; Liu & Shange, 2018; Kun & Pulido, 2013). Master narratives prefer the display of solidarities between whites and respective BIPOC communities, where dominant communities maintain positions of saviorhood over oppressed communities, coalition movements where solidarity is at the core are overlooked (Kun & Pulido, 2013).
Liu and Shange (2018) argue that we must move away from what they call thin solidarity, “solidarity based on notions of shared suffering [that] often creates a false equivalence between different experiences of racialized violence” (p. 190) and does not account for power dynamics between groups. Rather, they argue for thick solidarity, “a kind of solidarity that mobilizes empathy in ways that do not gloss over differences, but rather pushes into the specificity, irreducibility, and incommensurability of racialized experiences'' (Liu & Shange, 2018, p. 190). We appreciate this treatment of solidarity as we attempt to make sense of what solidarity can look like, sound like, and feel like in literacy learning contexts framed within our current social and political climate.
NCTEAR’s 2023 Conference invites those engaged in literacy research to submit proposals for interactive presentations and works-in-progress that feature cutting-edge multimodal methodologies, discourse analysis, participatory methodologies, visual and multimodal data, critical traditions (e.g., Critical Race, Queer and Trans, Indigenous, Dis/Ability, and Feminist Theories), and equity-oriented frameworks that reflect a commitment to disseminating humanizing research that generates civic engagement to improve literacy curriculum development, policy, teaching and learning.
As such, we invite papers addressing the following questions:
· What is the role of solidarity/solidarities in literacy research?
· How can we deploy multimodal tools and methodologies to document and share civic participation as a pathway for solidarity in literacy education?
· What do we know about the nature and consequences of digital civic engagement by young people as a conduit of solidarity/solidarities?
· What methodologies do we use to document the affordances and barriers of engaging students, families, and communities in worldmaking to cultivate civic literacies for social change?
· How can literacy teacher education explicitly take up notions and responsibilities of solidarity to address the intersection of historical, economic, social, political, and cultural influences on K-12 education?
· What does literacy research teach us about the role of advocacy and civic
participation for solidarity?
We have lived through an onslaught of racialized violence against Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian communities. We mourn the treatment of LGBTQIA+ communities whose rights and personhoods are continually in jeopardy. We see the ongoing erasure of differently abled communities. These varied experiences have been compounded by the ongoing effects of the
COVID19 global pandemic. The 2023 NCTEAR conference theme, Literacies of Solidarity, asks us all to consider how our scholarship can mediate powerful experiences of solidarity for people in K-20 classrooms, out of school learning contexts in communities, homes, digital communities, and beyond.
It is easy to urge solidarity across racially and ethnically diverse groups, and other communities who are stigmatized, however, we know the process of true solidarity is dynamic, messy, yet transformative. In addition, while we call for solidarity, we also must acknowledge that a legacy of powerful solidarity practices already exists led by intersectional movements by Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian, Pacific Islander communities along with white allies calling for equity and social justice (see Combahee River Collective, 1979/1997; Eagle Shield et al., 2020; Johnson, 2013; Liu & Shange, 2018; Kun & Pulido, 2013). Master narratives prefer the display of solidarities between whites and respective BIPOC communities, where dominant communities maintain positions of saviorhood over oppressed communities, coalition movements where solidarity is at the core are overlooked (Kun & Pulido, 2013).
Liu and Shange (2018) argue that we must move away from what they call thin solidarity, “solidarity based on notions of shared suffering [that] often creates a false equivalence between different experiences of racialized violence” (p. 190) and does not account for power dynamics between groups. Rather, they argue for thick solidarity, “a kind of solidarity that mobilizes empathy in ways that do not gloss over differences, but rather pushes into the specificity, irreducibility, and incommensurability of racialized experiences'' (Liu & Shange, 2018, p. 190). We appreciate this treatment of solidarity as we attempt to make sense of what solidarity can look like, sound like, and feel like in literacy learning contexts framed within our current social and political climate.
NCTEAR’s 2023 Conference invites those engaged in literacy research to submit proposals for interactive presentations and works-in-progress that feature cutting-edge multimodal methodologies, discourse analysis, participatory methodologies, visual and multimodal data, critical traditions (e.g., Critical Race, Queer and Trans, Indigenous, Dis/Ability, and Feminist Theories), and equity-oriented frameworks that reflect a commitment to disseminating humanizing research that generates civic engagement to improve literacy curriculum development, policy, teaching and learning.
As such, we invite papers addressing the following questions:
· What is the role of solidarity/solidarities in literacy research?
· How can we deploy multimodal tools and methodologies to document and share civic participation as a pathway for solidarity in literacy education?
· What do we know about the nature and consequences of digital civic engagement by young people as a conduit of solidarity/solidarities?
· What methodologies do we use to document the affordances and barriers of engaging students, families, and communities in worldmaking to cultivate civic literacies for social change?
· How can literacy teacher education explicitly take up notions and responsibilities of solidarity to address the intersection of historical, economic, social, political, and cultural influences on K-12 education?
· What does literacy research teach us about the role of advocacy and civic
participation for solidarity?