‘Putting on band-aids’: the contradictory roles and ‘small wins’ of tempered campus radicals

article

2012

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education

33

2

223􏰀

234

Nancy Fraser’s propositions regarding the nature of ‘boundary’ work carried out by experts within organizations suggests that individuals who work within bureaucratic structures are so constrained by the institutional context that they become detached, depoliticizing arbitrators of politicized claims. The purpose of the research reported in this article is to examine the assertion that workers in boundary roles necessarily engage only in work that depoliticizes the claims of oppositional social groups. By exploring the work of anti-harassment practi- tioners at Canadian universities, we uncover moments of both constraint and liberation in the practitioners’ work roles. Attending to the complexities of boundary role work illustrates that struggles over the definition of needs and claims made by marginalized social groups are not closed, nor are boundary workers completely co-opted by bureaucratic institutional prerogatives. Although variously constrained, interviews with practitioners reveal that their work can support counter-hegemonic challenges to the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=a...

10.1080/01596306.2012.666077

0159-6306

final article published

harassment
Canada
Nancy Fraser
human rights
universities
anti-harassment workers

English

Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

Peer reviewed

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
©2012. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. Routledge.