Resisting the “Savior” Complex

This essay critically interrogates the underlying white supremacist capitalist patriarchal imperialist discourses and images that pervade the “Half the Sky” book of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Drawing upon transnational feminist theories, the essay offers a different and oppositional re-reading of a few of the stories in the book through a lens of accountability. Putting the book in the context of an increasing focus on the “empowerment” of women and girls in western development projects and in US militarism and foreign policy, this essay deconstructs the myths of western superiority embedded in these discourses and builds toward a critical lens of accountability, rather than pity and altruism.

Disentangling US Feminism from US Imperialism

Recognizing how enmeshed mainstream feminist discourses are in US empire building, this essay offers ways of disentangling US ideas about solidarity from efforts of imperial conquest through a lens of accountability. The essay takes as a case in point the ways that feminist efforts have fed into the “war on terrorism” as it has played out in the US occupation and war in Afghanistan post-9/11 as well as in the context of Islamophobic and anti-Arab social policy and violence in the US. An accountability lens shifts to a solidarity grounded in mutuality and interconnectedness.

Everyday Responses to Everyday Violence

This chapter opens up the possibilities for collectively responding to everyday harassment, abuse, and violence. Rather than perceiving that the only option is calling the authorities (e.g., police), this chapter explores ways for witnesses of violence to have more critical consciousness and skills for everyday individual and collective interventions that can offer support for the person harmed, that can disrupt the conflict or violence, and that can de-escalate situations of impending violence.

Collective and Communal Support

This chapter explores communal and collective practices of support and healing. Rather than seeing support as something offered to an individual as they cope with the experiences of interpersonal or state violence, a community-based approach to support recognizes the power of healing in community, and the recognition that when violence occurs within or against a community, all suffer, and thus all can benefit from participating in collective healing and justice.

From Punishment to Accountability

This chapter explores alternative methods of creating individual accountability for the harm of violence that do not rely on punishment, shaming, and oppressive systems of violence such as the criminal legal system. Recognizing not only the failures of the criminal legal system in fully supporting and affirming survivors of interpersonal and intimate violence, but also the ways in which the system itself only perpetuates oppression and violence through its implementation, this essay asks: what are the alternatives?

Shifting Paradigms to End Violence

This chapter explores feminist-of-color led efforts to shift the feminist-informed and institutionalized approach to sexual and intimate violence that is now practiced in social service and legal advocacy agencies, with an exclusive reliance on the criminal legal system as a method of accountability for the perpetuation of violence. Since the early 2000s, the critical engagement of this institutionalization gained momentum with the innovative approaches of community accountability and transformative justice that (re)politicize feminist work to end violence. In this chapter, I illustrate how community accountability and transformative justice approaches shift the focus and direction of antiviolence efforts from social services and legal advocacy to community-based movement building, from viewing violence as a problem of individual conflict to one rooted in systems of oppression, from agency expertise to community-based knowledge and leadership, and from punishment to accountability. In the chapter, I draw from the work of many scholars, community organizers, and activists as well as projects and organizations.

Disrupting Whiteness

This chapter reflects on the gravitational pulls of white supremacist patriarchal imperialist capitalism that compel people, particularly those most privileged within the systems, toward a callous disregard of the pain and suffering of others in order to accept and assimilate into the hegemonic normative systems of power. Drawing on the author’s experiences of teaching in a historically and predominantly white academic institution, this chapter reflects on pedagogical practices of disrupting the whiteness of callous disregard. This requires the building of classroom communities that can hold a compassionate awareness of students’ differential relationships to and experiences of interlocking systems of oppression and violence. In this essay, I share some of my experiences in and outside of the classroom with seeking to disrupt and undermine the distanced and disembodied approach to racism, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression. I offer some of the methods and strategies I am learning, and try to practice, that encourage myself and others to name, understand, explore, and begin to heal from trauma and violence caused by historically-based interlocking systems of oppression.

Navigating Speech and Silence

This chapter reflects on how the feminist call to speech as the method for personal and social transformation often reproduces rather than challenges inequitable power lines. It examines both the compulsion to speak as well as to be silent in feminist spaces, and offers strategies to resist structural and relational inequities in our efforts to build connections and solidarity across these formidable power lines.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the concept of cultivating accountability as a praxis that brings conscious awareness to how much our work as antiviolence scholars, advocates, organizers, and activists has been impacted by and implicated within hierarchical and intersectional relations of power footed in historical and interlocking systems of power. Drawing on the work of feminists of color, transnational feminists, and antiracist feminists, the chapter builds on the idea of intersectionality as a bridge to accountability and solidarity grounded in mutuality and interconnectedness.

Building Communities

This chapter explores how a praxis of accountability can build communities able to hold, address, and transform conflict and manifestations of oppression and violence. It focuses on the importance of building values of accountability into our relationships and communities within the context of movement building for social and structural change. In it, I explore practices that help cultivate our willingness to take accountability for the ways we participate in and/or are implicated within systems of oppression and privilege. They call us to recognize, challenge, and transform the impact of systemic racism and white supremacy on our identities and relationships as well as our ideas and visions for social change. Rather than avoiding how our ideas, words, and actions contribute to harm or are complicit in systemic oppression, this chapter offers practices for taking of accountability for the impact of our words and actions as a way of building caring just communities. These practices can build a community’s capacity to address the harms of interpersonal and intimate violence.