An Ethic of Accountability | Educational Resources for Meaningful Solidarity
We are deeply appreciative of everyone who presented their work, offered invitations to build community, took fervent notes at peers’ sessions, exhibited at the conference, and for all of our featured speakers who offered incisive insight and recommendations for how we do this work in and outside of academia. We are also especially grateful for the calls for accountability and meaningful solidarity as we bear witness to ongoing - decades long - systemic violence in Palestine, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Myanmar, sites of struggle here in the United States of America and its colonies, as well as across the globe. This call for accountability is a direct product of the Association's lack of meaningful response and offering of resources following the escalation of colonial violence since October 7th, 2023. This misstep was deeply painful given the 21st President and acting Interim Executive Director's (roles held simultaneously) violation of the Association's BDS policy (adopted in 2015) and continued inadequate responses to critique since. As we move forward, we know that these issues are interconnected across cartographies of power. As we reckon with the genocide of Palestinians, it is vital to name and make visible the threads of colonial logics that shape/maintain these issues of dispossession. "We refuse to look away from what feels unbearable to know" - Palestinian Feminist Collective.
As an interdisciplinary organization, NWSA recognizes and asserts our commitments to not only teaching about these issues but engaging in tangible modes of solidarity. We are amplifying fact checked and credible educational resources, calls to action, and tools that we hope prove to be helpful in y/our collective work. It is easy to imbibe materials that contextualize these communities through and in response to colonial imaginaries. Therefore, we encourage you to also explore the rich art, prose, poetry, music, film, and stories that not only humanize the oppressed but center the joy, innovation, resilience, and creativities that exist within each respective culture.
We recognize that these offerings are not exhaustive and do not capture the breadth and depth of ongoing struggles towards liberation across the globe; we invite you to contact the National Office should you have recommendations or additional resources that can enrich our current materials.
Kristian Contreras, PhD
Interim Executive Director
November 10, 2023