Interrogating White Male Allyship: A Critical Ethnographic Study

Halvorsen, Jeffery

Interrogating White Male Allyship: A Critical Ethnographic Study

dc.contributor.advisor	Lorenzetti, Liza
dc.contributor.author	Halvorsen, Jeffery
dc.contributor.committeemember	Jamal, Aamir
dc.contributor.committeemember	Ferrer, Ilyan
dc.contributor.committeemember	Chowdhury, Turin
dc.contributor.committeemember	Chau, Shirley
dc.date	2023-06
dc.date.accessioned	2022-09-27T22:39:16Z
dc.date.available	2022-09-27T22:39:16Z
dc.date.issued	2022-09
dc.description.abstract	Numerous scholars and activists have contested white men’s attempts at allyship, noting this group’s propensity to dominate discussions, assume positions of leadership, create emotional burdens for the groups they seek to support, and disengage when faced with adversity. The literature on white men’s allyship focuses largely on men’s experiences of engaging in allyship, but there are few studies that demonstrate how white men’s allyship is experienced in anti-racist, anti-colonial, and gender justice movements. Also lacking is knowledge on how white men come to engage in critical reflection and personal transformation as they aspire to trustworthy allyship. In this dissertation, I investigated the tensions and burdens imposed by white male allies on progressive social movements, and the commitments and actions necessary for white men to contribute to social change. My inquiry was guided by a theoretical framework drawing on critical race feminism, masculinities, and whiteness. I adapted a critical ethnographic methodology (Carspecken, 1996; Madison, 2019) to develop a five stage research approach in which I began by interrogating my positionality, and my own aspirations to allyship. Throughout the study, I continued to reflect on my decisions in research and allyship journals. I engaged in relationship building with two social justice organizations. I presented the study plans and recruited an Advisory Group of seven community leaders who identified as Indigenous, Black, and racialized, with whom I participated in a process of inter-relational reflexivity (Gilbert & Sliep, 2009). These members nominated six white men they identified as their allies and I conducted life history interviews and go-along interviews with these men. All participants came together to confirm the findings and plan dissemination of results after the study. The Advisory Group guided me to centre social justice, histories of resistance, and to decenter white men’s allyship. They defined whiteness and masculinities, and outlined their expectations of would-be allies. The white men shared the starting points of their allyship, the change process they engaged in to prepare for allyship, and contoured allyship practice in five relationships they engage in. I concluded the study with a suggested praxis model for allyship.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Halvorsen, J. (2022). Interrogating white male allyship: a critical ethnographic study (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/115307
dc.identifier.uri	https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/40313
dc.language.iso	eng	en_US
dc.publisher.faculty	Social Work	en_US
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.	en_US
dc.subject	Allyship	en_US
dc.subject	whiteness	en_US
dc.subject	masculinities	en_US
dc.subject	critical ethnography	en_US
dc.subject	settler colonialism	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Social Work	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Ethnic and Racial Studies	en_US
dc.title	Interrogating White Male Allyship: A Critical Ethnographic Study	en_US
dc.type	doctoral thesis	en_US
thesis.degree.discipline	Social Work	en_US
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary	en_US
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)	en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true	en_US