Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article wrestles with the question, How can solidarity work be about the settler and not about the settler at the same time (D'Arcangelis, 2015, p. 268)? The author is a non-Indigenous psychotherapist by training who works with diasporic Maya peoples living in the United States. While confronting state persecution and terror with displaced Maya communities, I grappled with the ways in which my position as a Western-trained social worker contributes to the oppression at the heart of Maya peoples' struggles. Within efforts toward coalition building and world-traveling (Lugones, 2003), a paradox develops in which one's positionality must be interrogated but not centered so that colonial dynamics can be dismantled and Indigenous voices made principal. In this paper, I attempt to make visible the ways in which relational accountability provoked both rupture and growth toward more responsible solidarity work. I do so through the lens of two personal experiences in which interpersonal nuances reflected the larger structural dynamics of colonial dehumanization. I offer what I learned about messy heart-centered work in scholar-activism. By doing so, I add to discourse on how feeling and affect impact political efficacy. The Maya communities with whom I worked offered lessons for aspiring non-Indigenous allies who seek to build a better world which supports the flourishing of Indigenous peoples.
Authors: Chancer, Robin, Ramírez, Gerónimo
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7128765795