Statement
WILAA is committed to eliminating marginalization, cultural insensitivity, and oppression. Since our research is on work-integrated learning(WIL), we focus on anti-oppression in this area. Education, and WIL, is powerful. These opportunities can open or close fields of work to many different groups. Those with disabilities are our main focus group. We believe it is essential to cultivate knowledge and skills in both practitioners and students to confront oppressive systems. WILAA is committed to unpacking how specific ideas and processes create intersecting forms of oppression at the systematic and individual levels.
Policy Principals
We base our anti-oppression principles on the core ideas of anti-oppression, which are
- Acknowledgement of differences: People have different life experiences because of various factors. Being aware of how these differences can have positive, natural or harmful impacts can help us better understand a person or group’s experiences.
- Link the personal and the political: Political, economic and social factors influence individual choices. Thus, we can connect personal choice, the limitations of choice, and unique experiences to our political world.
- Dismantle unequal power: Power dynamics are relational and change in each situation. For example, a person might have power at work because they are a manager, but they have less power when waiting to be approved for a loan. Being aware of how the presence of power could affect situations you are in makes it possible for this power to be acknowledged and addressed.
- Learn and address historical context and location: Learning the historical and local context of oppression allows you to understand better why the form of oppression exists and how to handle it.
- Engage in an ongoing reflection process: Creating space where you can take time to think about the other four principles helps identify and address oppression.
Strategies
Board Members
WILAA strives to have diverse representation among our board members. We actively recruit general members who speak openly about their identities or anti-oppression.
All board members will engage with their fellow board members, general members, and external connections in a way that promotes anti-oppression and inclusion. WILAA provides anti-oppression training, resources, and mentorship to support board members in this work.
General Membership
WILAA strives to create spaces, both in-person and online, that celebrate the lived experience of the general membership. However, we acknowledge that creating such spaces takes ongoing work, a willingness to hear concerns from people, and taking action to shift cultural norms.
We have an anonymous form on our contact page that you can use to share your concerns or ideas on what we can do better to create welcoming and brave spaces.
Guest Speakers
When inviting quest speakers, we strive to make sure that speakers have diverse lived experiences, which they can reflect on as part of their talk.
WILAA will hear and consider all concerns the general membership may have about speakers. If there is a concern about a speaker brought up, the board will review the concerns and speak to the presenter about the topics brought up. Then, upon reflection of the problems and information gathered, we will inform the general membership of whether we keep the guest speaker on the schedule.
Events
1. Brave Space
Brave space is an idea that we are using to create in-person and online spaces where we welcome conversations about uncomfortable topics if all members remain respectful. While we encourage members to have difficult discussions within WILAA spaces, hosts of events will monitor and manage conversations for topics that reinforce oppressive ideas. Some ways hosts might address concerning conversations are to
- ask the participants to hold the conversation outside of WILAA spaces,
- stop the conversation and address how some topics reinforce oppression,
- direct the conversation back to the main topic, or
- Use other anti-oppressive tools.
We ask general members to take time to reflect on what a person says in a conversation, mainly if someone indicates that an idea is harmful. These actions might mean pausing, letting your emotions calm down or taking space away from the conversation. We encourage members to reach out to board members, hosts, or active listeners to help you intervene in a conversation or to support you.
2. Active Listeners
WILAA aims to have general member volunteers to be active listeners during events. These are people who event attendees can connect to talk about something bothering them or a concern they would like to address. For example, active listeners might take matters to the hosts of board members to address problems at the event or at a future time.
Collaboration
WILAA strives to build relationships with other organizations and institutions that engage in WIL and consider accessibility and accommodation. However, while building relationships with most organizations or institutions, we will only collaborate with people with similar anti-oppressive ideas and work to unlearn colonialism. We take this stance to ensure that any knowledge created through collaboration happens within a space where anti-oppression and unlearning colonialism frame knowledge creation.
Jargon Explained
General Membership: A group of people who have signed up to attend some or all WILAA events.
Identities: Different ways that we can group people. These groupings are sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, class, or religion.
Marginalization: A process by which a group of people from a similar identity experience some of the same harmful experiences.
Political: people’s experience as they move through the world, trying to access resources (like work and housing) that are influenced by government policy, laws and more.
Power: Often indicates the weight of the opinion of certain people over other people in a particular situation.
Reflection: Thinking about specific actions and behaviours taken within a particular setting.
WILAA Community of Practice 