Axis Special Issue: Imagining the Decolonizing Writing Center

Writing Center Decolonization is a Queer Endeavor

Dani Putney and A. Poythress
Oklahoma State University

We align with Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s assertion that decolonization is not a metaphor—it exists as “a distinct project from other civil and human rights-based social justice projects” (2). To decolonize in a settler colonial context such as the United States calls for land repatriation for Indigenous communities. As such, the ultimate goal of decolonization across our institutions, including within writing centers, is to unsettle, quite literally, the spaces we occupy as academics and tutors, a mission that cannot be reduced to symbolic gestures. In other words, in an academic context, the endgame is a complete destabilization of how our scholarly communities relate to and use stolen land to conduct research and work.

However, given the necessarily long pursuit of decoloniality, various measures, including the fight for queer liberation, must be taken along the way within our colonial systems to help us reach this difficult goal of destabilization. As queer, non-binary scholars ourselves (and one of us a person of color born as the direct result of colonial relations), we view LGBTQ+ liberation within the academy as a concomitant of decolonization. While ostensibly a separate social justice endeavor, cultivating safe spaces for queer individuals, we contend, must accompany our efforts to decolonize. Would a decolonial environment be truly destabilized—or truly just—if it failed to account for and uplift those individuals intersectionally marginalized in terms of their queerness, gender identity, race, and ethnicity? A decolonial future does not lie within a vacuum, as those who will participate in such a future exist—and will continue to exist—at the intersection of multiple identities. As one of the most vulnerable populations within the academy, queer people of color, especially Black and Indigenous individuals, should not be ignored or subsumed under a more general category of either race or sexual and gender identity. More specifically, if we return to Tuck and Yang’s call for land repatriation, part of the larger project of decolonization must include justice for queer Indigenous individuals whose intersectional identities are not reducible.

With these considerations in mind, we turn to a few of the projects we have recently pursued to promote LGBTQ+ inclusivity, with people of color central to our efforts, at the Oklahoma State University Writing Center. Liberation cannot be attained without first welcoming queer people into hegemonic settings. Only then can institutions be destabilized from within to create a fundamentally different, and better, set of decolonial spaces. In short, inclusion paves the way for liberation, which, in turn, helps make possible a decolonial future for queer people of color. To decolonize the writing center is to embrace and nurture queer possibility.

The largest task we, along with our queer colleagues Jenn Conner, Tony Jolliff, Ishani Ray, and Roseanna Recchia, have sought to accomplish this academic year is the cultivation of a distinctly queer community within and around the Oklahoma State University WC. Envisioning a space by LGBTQ+ people, for LGBTQ+ people, we are planning a series of events and activities specifically geared toward our community of queer consultants and clients. After receiving feedback from queer WC staff members and participating in several meetings through our WC’s LGBTQ+ Inquiry Group, we have decided to host a creative writing workshop and a mixer during the Spring 2022 semester to bring our community members together while also engaging a specifically identified interest (creative writing). Further, we plan to encourage participation very intentionally from our queer consultants and clients of color, as we want to amplify these voices and ensure that our community-building efforts serve all LGBTQ+ individuals.

Moreover, at a conference our Inquiry Group attended this winter, we directly worked with other consultants and writing center directors to workshop ways of updating and modifying our WCs to centralize queer Black and Indigenous voices in our practices. This collaborative workshop was in response to the meetings we had attended and feedback we had received, as mentioned previously, as well as the conferences we had presented at as an Inquiry Group. One major takeaway from our presentation was identifying the need for more intentional mentorship of new and incoming WC consultants, especially those from intersectionally marginalized backgrounds. However, though conferences are a chance to speak and connect with members of our writing center studies community, there are still many places that eschew working directly with other institutions to better serve underrepresented groups, specifically queer people of color. From our experiences presenting at multiple conferences, we know that our work toward queer liberation—and concomitantly, decolonization—must extend beyond the boundaries of the conference workshop or roundtable discussion. Only by moving away from the boundaries we impose on ourselves as scholars can we learn more from one another and apply changes that may be difficult to recognize as necessary from the outside looking in.

As queer consultants who are neurodivergent, gender-diverse, disabled, brown (Dani), and fat (AP), we understand that the first steps toward progress are almost always taken by those who have the least. The changes that need to be implemented across institutions, from decolonization and land repatriation to anti-racist pedagogical practices, will be made through our shared struggles. By coming together and radically pushing past artificial boundaries, we may pressure those in power such that they can no longer afford to ignore us or our message of civil and social justice.

Works cited

Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. “Decolonization is not a metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–40.