| Daniel Tillapaugh, PhD | ORCiD | Professor, Department of Counselor Education, California Lutheran University |
| D. Chase J. Catalano, PhD | ORCiD | Associate Professor, School of Education, Virginia Tech |
| Rachel Wagner, PhD | ORCiD | Associate Professor, Department of Educational and Organizational Leadership Development, Clemson University |
We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
This scholarly work offers a conceptual framework of liberatory allyship. Extant descriptions of allyship exposed vagueness about action and accountability and typically frame allyship as either an identity or a process. Using Jackson and Mazzei’s (2012, 2023) thinking with theory, we intersect Love’s (2018) liberatory consciousness framework with Komives et al.’s (2006, 2009) leadership identity development (LID) model to conceptualize what it means to imagine a praxis-based liberatory allyship framework. In this framework, we offer four stages of liberatory allyship: (1) Ally Awareness, (2) Ally Identified, (3) Allyship Differentiated, and (4) Allyship as Accomplice. We offer implications on how individuals working in higher education might use the liberatory allyship framework to affect positive social change within their communities.
Keywords:Critical consciousness, consciousness raising, social responsibility, change agents, social change
Since the fall of 2024, the political landscape in the United States has been awash in socio-political attacks that sought to (and have successfully managed to) roll back modest successes in affirmative action, voting access, and civil rights currently. This has only increased since the start of the second Trump administration. In education, scholars of color, particularly Black scholars, who focus on equity in higher education have endured hyper-scrutiny of their scholarship and accusations of plagiarism by conservative media that aim to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) infrastructure (Quinn, 2024). Legislative assaults generated 484 bills in 2024 attacking LGBTQ rights spanning topics from forced outing to ending gender affirming healthcare and curricular censorship (ACLU, 2024). Anti-immigrant sentiments have led to the federal government ordering deportations of undocumented immigrants, leading to subsequent civil and human rights concerns (Barry, 2026; McVan & Chen, 2026; Santana & Balsamo, 2026). These evolving attacks target multiple minoritized groups with the intention to undermine any institutional structures that promote or protect equity efforts. Therefore, it is necessary to form coalitions of individuals in higher education who have a commitment to expanding freedoms and access for those historically overlooked and underserved. Allyship is one way to broadly characterize coalition building when individuals with various identities collectively seek to resist the current political antagonism and to foster equity-based transformations of higher education.
Scholarship about allyship and liberation conveys the importance of action and accountability (Love, 2018). Yet, a scan of extant scholarship exposes a lack of clarity on what accountability and action mean, which contributes to a limited understanding of allyship. In higher education, an applied field, opacity of what it means to engage in allyship translates into uncertainty of what it means to do allyship; it is unclear how to carry out allyship as both an outcome of work and rationale for engagement (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Doing allyship might be akin to facilitating allyship, as Catalano and Wagner (2024) made connections between tempered radicals (Meyerson & Scully, 1995), grassroots leadership (Kezar & Lester, 2012), and trans and nonbinary facilitators of LGBTQ+ social justice educational intervention (SJEI). Their scholarship prompts an important conversation about what it means to engage in work that is personally meaningful while contributing to collective social change (Catalano & Wagner, 2024). As a result, we considered how leadership theory could inspire innovative thinking about allyship. In this scholarly conceptual article we chronicle current articulations of allyship and then explore allyship through the lens of the leadership identity development (LID, Komives et. al., 2006, 2009) model towards a conceptualization of a liberatory allyship.
Within this manuscript we first attend to what it means to think with theory (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012, 2023) to develop a conceptual approach to allyship. Then we offer a synthesis of how scholarship describes allyship. Next, we offer how we came to the idea of a liberatory allyship conceptualization. We follow this by nodding toward the various frameworks that contributed to our understanding of liberatory allyship (e.g., brown, 2017; Grain, 2022; Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018), and our decision to focus on Love’s (2018) liberatory consciousness as a place to begin this conceptual scholarly endeavor. Finally, we layer a leadership theory framework to further explicate our definition of liberatory allyship, specifically, Komives et al.’s (2006, 2009) leadership identity development (LID) model. We conclude with how to leverage ideas already circulating within higher education praxis to bring about a more expansive and provocative approach to cultivating allyship.
Given the exploratory nature of this conceptual manuscript, we, as a collective group, desired to engage together in a way that allowed for emergent ideas, reflections, and pauses to inform our work. As a result, we were drawn to Jackson and Mazzei’s (2012, 2023) concept of
thinking with theory, which forwards post-qualitative inquiry and abandons the restrictions and limitations of traditional qualitative methods and inquiry. Jackson and Mazzei (2023) argued that traditional qualitative methods, often using coding schemas and thematic analysis, tend to focus on researchers being focused on finding the ‘truth’ or ‘voice,’ which may, in fact, just replicate results of other scholars’ work or be reductive in nature; their critique is that traditional qualitative methods typically aim for using data for interpretation rather than understanding data in the context of larger theoretical systems and structures. In Jackson and Mazzei’s (2023) work, they offered the idea of “plugging in” through the thinking and writing process of post-qualitative inquiry, by pondering and connecting various texts into an assemblage of new theories; “plugging in creates a different relationship among texts: they constitute one another and in doing so create something new” (p. 264). In this way, thinking with theory allows for an assemblage of theoretical ideas that generate new ideas and questions (Jackson & Mazzei, 2023). We, as co-authors, worked together to think through the interconnectivity between extant scholarship and attempted to plug in and think with the theories and concepts in those pieces to understand allyship. When applied specifically to this manuscript, the body of literature on the aforementioned liberatory allyship, liberatory consciousness, and leadership identity development theory are not normally interconnected to one another. But as co-authors, we started to see opportunities where there were certain connections or potential relationships that could inform new understandings and meanings by “plugging in” concepts and ideas from these disparate theories and concepts to create something new, which forms the main findings of this manuscript to be explored in more depth below.
Allyship surfaces in scholarly literature that addresses various diversity and inclusion trainings. For instance, there are trainings to engender education about and support for undocumented students (Chen & Rhoads, 2016). Other relatively common campus-based trainings include Green Zone trainings that address how to support veteran students (Beeson et al., 2018), Green Dot programs that educate about bystander intervention to interrupt cultures of gender and sexual violence (Coker et al., 2011), and Safe Zone trainings that aim to develop allies for LGBTQ+ populations (Draughn et al., 2002; Evans, 2002; Poynter & Tubbs, 2008). As the oldest of these trainings, Safe Zones, gained traction as a mainstay on campus in the 1990s, although there is scant empirical information about Safe Zones (Draughn et al., 2002; Poynter & Tubbs, 2008; Woodford et al., 2014).
What we do know is that Safe Zones—referred to as LGBTQ+ SJEIs (Catalano, 2024)—ostensibly seek to prepare attendees through content acquisition, perspective taking activities, and other types of learning to act as an ally (Woodford et al., 2014). Catalano et al. (2024) posed a reimagining of a commonplace perspective taking activity used in many LGBTQ+ SJEIs to interrupt oppressive dynamics and offer liberatory possibilities for all attendees. In effect, for LGBTQ+ SJEIs to cultivate attendee development, they must allow for attendees to have an expansive understanding of reality that eclipses binary thinking and provide opportunities to go beyond intra- and interpersonal development, including grappling with the historical roots of oppression (Bishop, 2015). As Pascoe (2023) noted, “Taking a systemic perspective on inequalities rather than an individual one suggests that we cannot bias-train our way out of inequality” (p. 23). In this way, SJEIs can function as an impetus for individual and/or institutional change, but only if understood as one tactic in a larger strategy for campus transformation (Catalano & Simms, 2025). We contend that Safe Zones, as currently implemented, reflect a larger issue in the proliferation of diversity regimes (Catalano & Simms, 2025; Thomas, 2018) and warrant a more expansive conceptualization of allyship.
Ahmed (2012) offered that those responsible for doing diversity work on campus (e.g., DEI staff members) experience frustration due to the paradox that diversity language is ubiquitous on campus yet resistance to that work is often invisible to those not doing the work. Similarly, allyship and ally are terms often bandied about as axiomatic terms but remain as ill-defined. Bishop (2015) asserted that ally “is not an identity, but an endlessly unfolding struggle for equity” (p. 103). Within higher education, the foundation for most definitions of allyship originate from the works of Hardiman and Jackson (1982) and Washington and Evans (1991). Leaning on their work, Broido (2000) defined allies as members of groups with privilege who work “to end the systems of oppression that gives them greater privilege and power based on their social-group membership” (p. 3). This conceptualization proffers an insider/outsider binary that oversimplifies ally identity without consideration of the realities of multiple social identities (Catalano & Christiaens, 2022; Catalano et al., 2024). Other related definitions describe allyship as actions coupled with continuous reflections about an individual’s relationship to power (Reason et al., 2005), and intrinsically motivated work unconcerned with self-aggrandizement and perceptions of others (Edwards, 2006).
In reviewing scholarship on allyship, one of the critiques that we, as co-authors, note is that there continues to be a fair amount of discourse amongst scholars about is allyship claimed or earned (Anderson & Accomando, 2016; Anzaldua, 2000; Reason & Davis, 2006), that allyship is complex and multifaceted (Edwards, 2006; Putnam, 2001), and allyship is often framed on the individual versus the collective (Patton & Bondi, 2015). As a result, we recognize and hold these gaps in the literature, but wanted to also think through additional complexities of understanding allyship. Therefore, we gravitated to Love’s (2018) work on liberatory consciousness, which will be discussed in the next section.
Love’s (2018) framework of a liberatory consciousness offers a more expansive way to imagine allyship. Love (2018) argued that it is possible to live with integrity in a world characterized by oppression, but individuals must commit to certain ways of operating in that world. First, Love (2018) contended to cultivate a liberatory consciousness that individuals must be aware. That is, an individual who seeks to develop a liberatory consciousness should not turn away from the horrific evidence of oppressive narratives and systems that circumscribe daily life (Roy, 2002). Instead, liberation workers as Love (2018) called those invested in social justice education, must notice what is going on around them, and couple noticing with an
analysis of why oppression happens. Third, as a result of recognizing and reasoning through the harm liberation workers recognize, they must determine what actions they could and should take. Finally, Love (2018) argued for accountability; that is, she contended that to sustain our changework and usher in the liberatory present and future everyone deserves, liberation workers must work (across identities) alongside others who have a commitment to change.
Drawing on Love’s model (2018) of liberatory consciousness, we derived the following definition for liberatory allyship: behaviors that seek to interrupt and dismantle oppression and replace it with ways of organizing social relations that foreground both every individual’s flourishing and our collective well-being, paying particular attention to those who have historically been most harmed by existing societal structures and patterns of social interactions. Conceptualizing allyship as a liberatory practice requires the cultivation of self and social awareness, critical and liberatory funds of knowledge, capacity to imagine and enact non-oppressive ways of being and doing, and cooperative skills and abilities. Liberatory allyship demands more than reducing stigma by exposure or dispensing information as such steps have little influence on social behavior. We sought to imagine liberatory allyship might function through leadership opportunities from positional and grassroots locations (Catalano & Wagner, 2024).
The scholarship on leadership development offers some potentially helpful insights around allyship development that are provocative and useful. In their work on the leadership identity development (LID) model, Komives and her colleagues (2006) posited a comprehensive model which included six stages of leadership development and five additional categories which informed and shaped one’s leadership development. These categories are mediated by developmental components that influence a person’s growth, including adult and peer influences, meaningful involvement experiences, and engagement in reflective learning (Komives et al., 2006).
In the LID model, Komives et al. (2006) argued that individuals demonstrate characteristics of being in one six of stages: Awareness (Stage One), Exploration/Engagement (Stage Two), Leader Identified (Stage Three), Leadership Differentiated (Stage Four), Generativity (Stage Five), and Integration/Synthesis (Stage Six). A significant argument that Komives et al. (2006) made was that there was a developmental break in their participants between Stage Three and Stage Four. This key transition occurred when participants moved away from their reliance on external influences (e.g., parents, teachers, and older peers) to live interdependently with others. In the transition to Stage Four (Leadership Differentiated) individuals recognize groups as being interdependent. This orientation towards interdependence is critical to enable the last three stages because individuals “shared their attitudes of leadership as non-positional and as a process eventually affirming their leadership identity as someone who can work interdependently with others in any context to accomplish shared goals” (Komives et al., 2009, p. 21).
Another key finding from Komives et al.’s (2009) work was that as participants moved past Stage Three, their view of leadership was more systems-focused and non-hierarchical. Komives et al.’s (2009) work on the more advanced stages of the LID model expanded on the work of several leadership development scholars. In particular, Komives et al. (2009) drew on Van Velsor and Drath’s (2004) constructive-developmental framework, which maintained that one’s leadership development aligned with lifespan human development theory. Additionally, LID was shaped by Kegan’s (1994) contributions about self-awareness, rooted in his work on self-authorship. In particular, Komives et al. (2006) were particularly interested in how Kegan framed the developmental task of self-authorship as “realizing one’s autonomy and recognizing one’s interdependence with others” (p. 402). In this way, Komives and colleagues (2006) asserted that leadership requires an expansive understanding of the individual, the relationship of the individual to others, and categories of identities as collective experiences. For our purposes, the developmental emphasis on self-reading, self-authoring, and self-revising offer a potential way to understand the development of allyship over the lifespan.
More recent scholarship on the LID model has continued to expand its use and understanding, particularly advancing identity-centered and liberatory perspectives. Owen (2023) argued for an imperative need to deepen leadership identity development to understand the connections of equity, identity, and power to the LID model. Specifically, Owen (2023) named liberatory leadership learning as a tool for engagement in this deepening work; “Liberatory leadership learning centers pedagogies such as dialectical thinking, critical self-reflection, social perspective taking, advancing metacognition, and cultivating critical hope” (Owen, 2023, p. 18). Owen’s discussions of liberatory leadership learning connects to Love’s (2018) conceptualization of liberatory consciousness in how it offers us possibilities of world-making through allyship and accountability. In many ways, Love’s (2018) components of awareness, analysis, action, and accountability aligns closely with many of the LID model’s stages as an accessible approach to the lifetime of work required of an ally, especially as it pertains to identity and social location. As a result, while we were engaged in the process of thinking with theory, we, as co-authors, began to see potential linkages between the LID model as a potential way of beginning to conceptualize liberatory allyship, given its developmental shifts and transitions and connection to understanding self in the context of the collective.
Building on Owen’s (2023) work, Pagliarulo McCarron et al. (2023) highlighted the connection between structural inequality and social identities within the development of one’s leadership identity. Using Bertrand Jones et al.’s (2016) work on the five dimensions of organizational identity (compositional diversity dimension, historical legacy of inclusion and exclusion dimension, organizational/structure dimension, behavioral dimension, and psychological dimension), Pagliarulo McCarron et al. (2023) offered key insights about how those from historically marginalized communities are often negatively affected by systemic and organizational structures through the interlocking systems of power, privilege, and oppression, thus often leading to tensions between cultural norms, micro/macroaggressions, and experiences of marginalization and exclusion. This work raises key questions when considering its connection to allyship development.
Allyship often focuses on individual deeds because of the requirement of self-awareness and analysis, but the tradeoff is a lack of attention to institutional and systemic dynamics; individual awareness and analysis must include both self- and system-awareness to recognize the larger impact of oppression. At the same time, institutions and systems function as the result of individual choices and actions. The hope is for liberatory consciousness at the individual level to also function at the collective level through accountability to create community engaged allyship networks (Love, 2018). Pagliarulo McCarron et al.’s (2023) work nods to the significance of social locations and identities for both leadership identity development but also for allyship development.
The importance of internal confidence and thinking beyond the interpersonal dynamics of relationships inspired us to begin to conceptualize how to view allyship and ally development from the lens of LID. By using Jackson and Mazzei’s (2023) lens of thinking with theory, we started to identify emergent questions to identify ways that LID might inform some potential new ways of understanding allyship and ally development. For instance, we wondered how to disentangle ally as an identity (how a person defines one’s self) from ally as an approach to community (what one does). Drawing on a thorough review of the body of scholarship on allyship, liberatory consciousness, and leadership identity development, we, as co-authors, spent a great deal of time dialoging together to build this conceptual model of liberatory allyship. Four main stages of a broadening view of allyship emerged: (1) Ally Awareness, (2) Ally Identified, (3) Allyship Differentiated, and (4) Allyship as Accomplice (see Table 1).
| Stages | Ally Awareness | Ally Identified | Allyship Differentiated | Allyship as Accomplice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broadening View of Allyship |
– Recognizing that allies exist (often external to the individual) – Exposure to allyship & allies–connection to social movements – Recognize that the world as is does not work for everyone |
– Self-identification as an ally; informed by contact with others who may have subordinated identities – Involvement in social organizing or causes – Orientation of needing to speak up for others or addressing injustice because they want to be perceived as “good” – Recognize that the world as is can be better & begin to articulate what that looks like |
– Increased awareness that ally & allyship are different things – Intentional community building & relationship-building with others to address positive social change & injustice – Action as ally is informed by stepping back & listening to the needs of those being supported – Understanding that allyship is a process, not a position or role – Capacity for critical hope |
– Allyship is understood as an intersectional, complex system of change – Integration of liberatory consciousness & emancipatory dreaming – Actions are in alignment with community & community values (not the individual’s personal &/or socialized values) – Striving for congruence in words & actions as an ally – Calling in others & working to take on more opportunities to engage with others in dialogue/facilitation/teaching |
| Developing Self | – Becomes aware of others acting as allies |
– Emergent involvement in learning about allyship – Preparing for ally engagement – Build self-confidence |
– Meaningful engagement in allyship work – Listens to the needs of others & appropriately steps up or back as an ally – Active engagement in community & coalition-building – Reflective action around one’s values, morals, & commitments |
– Sponsor & develop others – Facilitates/teaches/mentors others around DEI – Sees allyship as a lifelong process & requires ongoing education |
| Developmental Influences | External influences of acknowledging allies exist; lack of personal engagement | External validation by others about ally identity; observation of others; emergent personal action with developing sense of self-authorship | Awareness of interconnectivity of allyship; stronger sense of self-authorship & self-awareness as ally; move away from dependency on external validation as ally | Deep commitment to interconnections & coalitions; authentic alignment between personal values & community values; interdependent perspectives valued & followed |
| Changing View of Self with Others | Dependent | Dependent/Independent | Independent/Interdependent | Interdependent |
In the discussion below, we share insights about each of these conceptual stages, highlighting the ways that individuals engage in liberatory allyship development through broadening view of allyship, developing self, developmental influences, and changing view of self with others. Broadening view of allyship emphasizes the characteristics and experiences individuals have in their thoughts and/or action around allyship development. Developing self are those aspects representing one’s internal beliefs and commitments toward allyship. Developmental influences represent those factors—either external or internal—that play a role in one’s allyship development. Lastly, changing view of self represents the shifts that occur in an individual’s understanding of allyship.
Within our discussion of the four conceptual stages below, we reference the recent the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests that happened in the winter of 2026 in Minnesota. For readers unfamiliar with these events, the Trump administration ordered Operation Metro Surge, which was a targeted ICE sweep primarily focused on Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota to identify and arrest undocumented immigrants with the intent to deport them (Santana & Balsamo, 2026). This enforcement operation was particularly characterized by severe and controversial tactics by ICE officers, including harassment and threats to those observing and recording detention stops and arrests (Barry, 2026; Santana & Balsamo, 2026). In particular, two protestors, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, were murdered by federal ICE agents (Barry, 2026). Operation Metro Surge resulted in the arrest of over 3,700 people (McVan & Chen, 2026). Community outrage over these events resulted in thousands of Minnesotans publicly protesting and increased community-aid organizing occurring to support those affected by enforcement measures (Sullivan, 2026). In our discussion of the four stages below, we will draw from this recent experience to provide relevant examples of allyship.
For individuals in Stage One: Ally Awareness, there may be a burgeoning awareness that other people serve as allies and are engaged in allyship to a variety of communities and groups. But that work is being done by others, not yet themselves. They may see others taking action as a bystander, advocating for others’ rights and abilities, or engaging in ongoing learning about communities and groups, but they themselves are not taking direct action in any of these areas. For example, given the recent protests in Minnesota against ICE, an individual in this particular stage may feel strongly that the tactics ICE officers took, particularly wrongful detentions and the killings of innocent protestors, are wrong, but might not be willing to engage in protests or take direct action. In some cases, individuals in this stage may be more individualistic in nature without a clear understanding of the systems of power, privilege, and oppression that exist. An example might be students or staff who look to individuals in positional leadership roles to take action in response to an inequity or injustice within an organization.
In terms of developmental influences in Ally Awareness, individuals in this stage may be able to acknowledge that allies exist, but that this is external to them. There may also be a lack of personal engagement. As a result, the changing views of self with others in this stage highlights a Dependent reliance on others to understand themselves and their viewpoints. In this case, individuals’ understanding of allyship might be over-reliant on others’ perceptions and experiences.
In Stage Two: Ally Identified, individuals may begin to align themselves to ally work. An individual may begin to engage in community actions as an active follower or member, but their exploration or engagement is likely varied and still reinforced and validated by others. Within ally identified is the recognition that the current construction of the world (systems, institutions, and dynamics) does not work for everyone. For instance, external validations by peers and adults might be essential for their continued engagement and involvement, or others recognition of an individual as an ally might be necessary to inspire additional exploration of the expectations of the role as someone “trying to do the right thing” or being “one of the good ones.” As an example, an individual may post a message or story on social media to state their support of the community protests in Minneapolis or Saint Paul against Operation Metro Surge, but may have less direct engagement or action. Additionally, at this stage, they may be in the process of actively building their self-confidence and practicing personal skills around allyship such as attending an LGBTQ+ SJEI, attending teach-ins, webinars, and taking coursework on justice-oriented topics. Yet, as an another example, individuals concerned about Operation Metro Surge may be taking direct action in their learning, finding opportunities to learn more about community aid efforts. For individuals at this developmental stage, validation by others can serve as an important source of motivation.
Over time, there might be very active engagement happening on the part of the ally, deepening their level of responsibility and actions taken to transform oppression and proliferate freedoms. Individuals may also experience an increased sense of individual accomplishment and identity validation related to their ally engagement. In some cases, an active leadership role within an organization that is justice—and/or culturally—based may inform their ally identity. Yet, further along in this stage, many individuals in Stage Two may find that they experience tensions and challenges that they must resolve. This might include a realization that they do not agree with the model of allyship they were following, and instead deciding to constitute their own style of allyship that aligns with their personal beliefs and values. These behaviors may include, but are not limited to, the following: struggling with delegating justice work to others and recognizing that they cannot do it all by themselves or being overly task- or relationship-focused to the exclusion of the other.
In terms of developing self in this stage, there may be an emergent involvement in actively learning about allyship and understanding how to engage in movements in ways that are developmentally appropriate. Individuals in Ally Identified typically are in a preparation mode, building knowledge and awareness for more active engagement and building self-confidence. Developmental influences in this stage may be focused on external validation from others perceiving individuals to be an ally. However, many individuals in this stage may be engaged in observation of others and their participation and engagement in allyship work. Lastly, those in Ally Identified often may exhibit an emergent personal action with developing sense of self-authorship. As discussed through the examples of this stage connected to changing views of self with others, individuals may move from Dependent to Independent in terms of their changing view of self with others. Individuals in this stage might be engaged in shifting their understanding of allyship from relying on others’ perceptions of what it means to be an ally (Dependent) to starting to claim that they are being an ally (Independent).
In Stage Three: Allyship Differentiated, there may be a potential shift of import from recognition as an ally by others to engagement in the process of allyship. For individuals moving into this stage, there could be an increased awareness of the differences between the concepts of ally (being a positional role) and allyship (being a process of authentic action and commitment). People in this stage might begin to move away from external influences and validation reinforcing their identity as allies, and instead, a more internal validation and influence may motivate individuals’ actions and words to engage in allyship. This shift reflects a strong move away from others’ perceptions being the motivating factor of allyship to an internal self-authorship of relying on one’s beliefs, values, and morals in a more interdependent way to support others in community.
In this stage, the main commitment of individuals might be to join with others to act regardless of role from a non-hierarchical position. There may be a desire to serve others, be in alignment with one’s values, be open to other people’s perspectives and hear other people’s feedback for one’s self-growth and development. For example, returning to the earlier example of ICE protests in Minnesota, individuals in this stage may seek out a variety of ways to take action: engagement in protests, coordinating bail-related funds, or fundraising for community mutual aid efforts. They recognize that they may not be able to do all of these actions, but will choose opportunities that serve the broader community’s needs not necessarily their individual desires or motivations. Additionally, individuals in this stage may engage in intentional community building and relationship-building with others to address positive social change and injustice. Rooted in critical hope (Grain, 2022), individuals may be able to hold the complexity of fighting against injustice while also believing that being in community and engaging in activism as an ally can lead to positive social change.
In terms of developing self, those in Allyship Differentiated may continue to exhibit meaningful engagement in allyship work. In their active engagement in community- and coalition-building, allies in this stage might regularly listen to the needs of others and appropriately either step up or step back as an ally, depending upon the needs of the larger group. There is reflective action around one’s values, morals, and commitments, with greater alignment in words and actions. Connected to changing views of self with others in Allyship Differentiated, individuals may move away from dependency on external validation as ally. Through the actions taken by individuals in this stage, their behaviors and actions could exemplify a movement from Independent to Interdependent in their changing view of self with others. In this stage, there may be a shift in individual’s view of allyship to understand that calling themselves an ally (Independent) is not enough given that true liberatory allyship requires collaboration and interdependent with others in the movement (Interdependent).
In Stage Four: Allyship as Accomplice, allyship is understood as an intersectional, complex system of change. Individuals in this stage may reflect a significant personal commitment and a greater sense of responsibility for sustaining the development of allyship among others, mentoring and coaching others, calling people in, and helping sponsor others’ allyship development. For example, individuals may be engaging in dialogue, facilitation, and/or teaching around justice, equity, and inclusion, which requires individuals to be thoughtful about generativity within the allyship movement and being attentive to the developmental needs of others in their allyship journey.
Congruence of one’s words and actions could be a key developmental signal of this stage. Individuals may be actively engaging in learning and unlearning as a path of becoming more responsive as an ally, and aligning one’s words and actions serves as a critical outcome here. Individuals in this stage may understand that to be engaged in allyship requires life-long learning and unlearning; therefore, taking responsibility for mistakes or holding one’s self accountable when receiving feedback from others is an essential step in one’s accomplice work. One’s actions in this stage might be in alignment with community and community values (not the individual’s personal and/or socialized values). Again, returning to the example of the Minnesota ICE protests, individuals in Ally as Accomplice may be actively engaged in community-based efforts to alert immigrants in their neighborhoods about the presence of ICE agents or take on increased leadership roles in coordinating protests and community responses. They continue to move forward and backward in organizations/community organizing as an ally to use their strengths and talents most effectively in service to the specific needs wanted/needed, seeing allyship as a life-long process of learning and acting alongside others to build a better world rather than an identity to be claimed. These actions are all grounded in liberatory consciousness and emancipatory dreaming, defined as envisioning a future world without injustice and oppression (Tuck & Yang, 2018).
Pertaining to the developing self in this stage, individuals may be active in helping teach and mentor others in the movement, given the importance of long-term commitments to community organizing and engagement. There might be an active role in facilitating, teaching, and/or mentoring others around DEI issues and concerns. Individuals in this stage may likely see allyship as a lifelong process that requires constant education to keep up-to-date with current knowledge. Developmental influences in this stage are a deep commitment to interconnections and coalitions. Those in Allyship as Accomplice may demonstrate authentic alignment between personal values and community values. In terms of changing views of self with others, individuals in Allyship as Accomplice may firmly arrive into Interdependent actions and beliefs based upon their changing view of self with others; these perspectives are valued and followed with greater congruence. Individuals in this stage may largely understand liberatory allyship as a life-long process of learning and growth as well as a continued inter-reliance with others in community to be engaged in liberation, critical hope, and emancipatory dreaming (Interdependent).
Given the rash of anti-DEI legislation sweeping across the United States and increased pressure by those on the right for businesses, including colleges and universities, to abandon their DEI initiatives, we believe that it becomes even more important than ever to examine allyship and forward new ways of thinking about allyship as a process and an identity. Our work on liberatory allyship offers college student educators new insights in thinking about allyship development from a critical perspective that works towards liberatory consciousness (Love, 2018) and emancipatory dreaming (Tuck & Yang, 2018). By emphasizing critical hope (Grain, 2022) and promoting a developmental lifespan approach to understanding allyship, we argue that college student educators can help provide programs, workshops, and other initiatives that help students gain knowledge and practice skills that help advance their bystander intervention training and advocacy as allies. For example, when students engage in developmental workshops (e.g., leadership, bystander, Safe Zone), the curricula needs to include explorations of intrapersonal understandings as much as interpersonal dynamics. Are student leaders focused outwardly on how others perceive their ally behaviors? Do participants concede their inability to engage in allyship because they do not occupy a particular position of influence within their organization? Facilitators can support students in exploring their motivations, building confidence and competence, and identifying allyship attitudes and behaviors that are relevant across spheres of influence.
Likewise, colleagues working in DEI programs, whether those are with students or faculty and staff, may be able to operationalize aspects of the liberatory allyship model in their work to advance the cultural proficiency and capacities around allyship through key interventions. We assume those who engage in any form of cross-campus DEI education attend to both dominant and marginalized identities in the conceptualization of the learning outcomes. This requires addressing how asymmetrical power dynamics shape how individuals and groups engage awareness, analysis, action, and forms of accountability in what it means to cultivate liberatory allyship as leadership in practice. A challenge for many educational endeavors on campus, regardless of the audience, is how to interrupt the transactional dynamic of allyship-based education (e.g., certification for attendance) and move towards beginning conversations about transformational efforts that will ensure a campus where everyone has the opportunity to thrive (Catalano & Christiaens, 2022).
A model of liberatory allyship provides several opportunities for future research and practice. Future research can be dedicated to testing the conceptual model through qualitative and quantitative investigations with individuals seeking to do justice and allyship work. Longitudinal research that documents persistent liberatory allyship efforts across time can also strengthen our understanding of liberatory allyship. In terms of practice, educators can take up allyship as a practice that necessitates continued learning, reflection, relating, and doing. Allyship is not an achieved status but a way of approaching community engagement and world building. Practitioners can locate themselves in the model and engage in self-reflection about how their efforts align with markers of the stage and identify steps to meet aspirational aspects of their practice. Educational interventions intended to promote allyship may benefit from structuring activities and learning experiences rooted in the conceptual model. Educators can offer rehearsal spaces for allyship, supporting individuals who are cultivating a practice with feedback and opportunities to grow their circle of accountability (while not focused on educational interventions per se, we point readers to findings from Hinger et al.’s (2023) framework on racial allyship, particularly on the significance of trust building and accountability).
College student educators must not quiet themselves in response to the movements to abolish DEI work in higher education, as the increasing socio-political tumult we are currently experiencing leaves no justice work untouched. Rather, educators must avail themselves of the robust theoretical tools necessary to not just think about allyship but enact it. Further, our enactments must both dismantle the oppressive systems we have inherited and work alongside others to realize the emancipatory futures that foster our individual and collective well-being. Liberatory allyship, as we conceive it, leverages the lessons of leadership development towards building and inhabiting the world our descendants deserve.
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
ISSN: 2998-8470