Format: Workshop
Facilitator: Usman Mushtaq
Affiliation: Queens University, Canada
Abstract: As professionals, educators, students, academics, and human beings dedicated to justice in our communities, we must be aware of our role in structures of privilege and domination. Only through this awareness can we meaningfully move forward in confronting oppression in our communities to create spaces where oppressive structures are exposed and deconstructed. The goal of this workshop will be to make participants aware of the importance of the three Ps (power, privilege, and positionality) in creating anti-oppressive spaces. This workshop will be a place for confronting issues of privilege, identity and accountability; developing and learning concrete strategies for ally work; and stepping towards the stronger communities we must maintain in order to create non-oppressive spaces around us. The goal of this workshop is not to impose the “guilt of privilege” but to show how we can only move towards justice in our communities by recognizing our own role in it.