Naming My Privilege, Reclaiming My Voice: Enhancing professional judgement with personal privilege awareness through the narrative art of autoethnography
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Date
2020-08-21
Authors
Abdul Majid, Yasmin
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Publisher
Mount Saint Vincent University
Abstract
This thesis explores a personal narrative of my journey, as a privileged member of my community, to become aware of the impact of privilege on myself and others around me. It documents conditions needed to support the environment that helped me overcome internal rage and grief that were part of the price of becoming privilege. The process of privilege awareness changed the way I experience the world as I reclaimed my voice and I believe it also changed the way the world experienced me.
The reflective processes that were used for writing this thesis, through autoethnography, made visible the connected oppressions (within myself, in others and within social structures) that were part of the structures of my personal privilege. Repeated reflections and actions in my life, that were discovered in the research, were the praxis (Freire, 2000) that helped me name my privilege, own it and transform it. The new awareness guided me to discover ways to more fully relate with others in many varied ways of being. This ultimately brought new understanding that enhanced my professional judgement as an early childhood educator. Although issues of marginalisation may not be particularly new knowledge but knowledge on how the privileged become aware of their privilege and its connection to marginalisation of others is still new and this is where this thesis offers new understanding.
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Keywords
Privilege, privilege awareness, marginalisation