Dilemmas of Allyship

Dilemmas of Allyship investigates the contemporary phenomenon of social justice allyship from a novel perspective. Departing from evaluative analyses, Sunderman argues that today’s movement is best understood as a set of socially mediated dilemmas, involving contradictions between mutually exclusive sets of motivations and interests.

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Dilemmas of Allyship investigates the political phenomenon of social justice allyship—in the form of white anti-racism—from a novel perspective. The book argues that 21st-century allyship is best understood as a set of socially mediated personal problems and challenges, and that these problems and challenges furnish the material with which many allies’ identities are formed. Through an analysis of in-depth interviews with white American anti-racist activists, Dilemmas of Allyship provides a picture of the ambivalent struggles with which allies grapple, tracing the “theoretically irreducible” contradictions they regularly encounter. These contradictions, or dilemmas, are central to the ongoing project of many white activists’ allyship, presenting them again and again with challenges that test their authenticity and commitment. The book also investigates how these same dilemmas can become “practically reducible” through a set of mitigating factors and strategies that intervene in and redefine allyship crises. Taken together, these analyses present a picture of allyship rarely seen: one of a lifestyle intrinsically marked by the kinds of challenges people typically avoid. Dilemmas of Allyship takes allies on their own terms, paying attention to the true ambivalence of their struggles, refusing to reduce these experiences to mere success or failure. As a result, it is able to contribute to discussions of identity politics and “white fragility” by presenting a clear picture of the existential stakes of allyship. With this picture in hand, we can better appreciate what challenges exist within the 21st-century movement for racial justice—and we can also learn something more fundamental about what it means to be a person in a contested, conflictual social world.