Allyship or coalition?
Creating lived experience roles in academia, and why we are not quite there yet
Keywords:
allyship, coalition, curriculum, lived experience, mental health, narrative, racism, tokenism
Abstract
Allyship is regarded as an important role in the academic setting to support the inclusion of people with Lived Experience (LE) of mental health and addiction challenges. Understanding the context within which the allies in academia work requires further scrutiny to ensure power sharing. Mental health academics have created a body of published literature on LE in academia, presenting both the successes and barriers to authentic allyship. This narrative provides a dialogue between a person in an LE role in a university setting and a nursing academic regarding their experiences of allyship. These reflections present the potential challenges the LE role and their academic ally can face in establishing and sustaining these roles. The structures within the university setting that impact on the success or not of the role of ally are also considered. This narrative further contributes to the contested role of allies and offers a closer analysis of allyship and the power dynamics in play. We conclude by offering the notion of coalition as an alternative to allyship and an alternative approach to the success of the LE roles in academic institutions.
References
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Byrne, L., Happell, B. & Reid-Searl, K. (2015). Lived experience practitioners and the medical model: World's colliding? Journal of Mental Health, 25(3), 217-23. https://doi.org/10.3109/09638237.2015.1101428
Byrne, L., Happell, B. & Reid-Searl, K. (2016). Lived experience practitioners and the medical model: World's colliding? Journal of Mental Health, 25(3), 217-23. https://doi. 10.3109/09638237.2015.1101428
Byrne, L., Stratford, A. & Davidson, L. (2018). The global need for lived experience leadership. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 41(1), 76 –79. https://doi.org/10.1037/prj0000289.
Came, H., O’Sullivan, D. & McCreanor, T. (2020). Introducing critical Tiriti policy analysis through
a retrospective review of the New Zealand Primary Health Care Strategy. Ethnicities, 20(3), 434-456. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796819896466
Dabiri, E. (2021). What white people can do next: From allyship to coalition. UK: Penguin. https://www.harvard.com/book/what_white_people_can_do_next/
Daya, I. (2022). Russian dolls and epistemic crypts: A lived experience reflection on epistemic injustice and psychiatric confinement. Incarceration 3(2), 1-5. https//:doi.10.1177/26326663221103445
Hamer, H. P., Finlayson, M. & Warren, H. (2014). Insiders or outsiders? Mental health service users' journeys towards full citizenship. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 23(3), 203-211. https//doi.10.1111/inm.12046
Happell, B., Scholz, B., Gordon, S., et al. (2018). “I don't think we've quite got there yet”: The experience of allyship for mental health consumer researchers. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 25(8), 453-462. https//doi.org/10.1111/jpm.12476
Happell, B., Gordon, S., Sharrock, J., Donovan, A. O., Kenny, N. & Warner, T. (2023). There is something about oppression: Allies' perspectives on challenges in relationships with experts by experience. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. https//doi10.1080/09638237.2022.2091759
Happell, B., Scholz, B., Gordon, S., et al. (2018). “I don't think we've quite got there yet”: The experience of allyship for mental health consumer researchers. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 25 (8), 453-462. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpm.12476
Happell, B., Sharrock, J., Warner, T., O’Donovan, A., Hurley, E. & Gordon, S. (2022). Changing ‘the world for the better’: motivations of mental health academics for supporting expert by experience roles in mental health education. Journal of Mental Health, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638237.2022.2091759
Harney, S. & Moten, F. (2013). The undercommons: Fugitive planning and Black study.
England: Minor Compositions. https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5025
Johnson, A. J. (2020). Examining associations between racism, internalized shame, and self-esteem among African Americans. Cogent Psychology, 7 (1), 1757857. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2020.1757857
Kidd, J., Came, H., Herbert, S. & McCreanor, T. (2020). Māori and Tauiwi Health Professionals ’ perspectives of anti-racism praxis: Findings from a qualitative pilot study. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 16 (4), 387-394. https://doi.10.1177/1177180120974673
Max, K. (2005). Anti-colonial research: Working as an ally with Aboriginal Peoples. In: P. Lang (Ed.) Counterpoints. (pp. 79-94). New York. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42978745
Mckendry, S. & Mckenna, M. (2020). Is the hidden curriculum binary? The Hidden Curriculum of Higher Education,104-114.
https://www.gcu.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/30873/advhe_hidden20curriculum.pdf#page=105
Mckenzie, M. (2014). Black girl dangerous: On race, queerness, class and gender, Oakland, CA: BGD Press. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1130000793717111552
Moten, F. (2017). Black and blur: Consent not to be a single being, Durham: Duke University
Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822372226
Papps, E. & Ramsden, I. (1996). Cultural Safety in Nursing: the New Zealand Experience.
International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 8 (5), 491-497. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/8.5.491
Peernetbc. (2018). Who are you an ally for? [Cited 25 July 2022]. Available from: https://www.iwlfoundation.org/post/who-are-you-an-ally-for
Phillips, H. (2020). Performative allyship is deadly - (Here’s what to do instead). Forge. https://forge.medium.com/performative-allyship-is-deadly-c900645d9f1f
Saad, L. F. (2020). Me and white supremacy: How to recognise your privilege, combat racism and change the world London, England Quercus. https://read.sourcebooks.com/for-children/me-and-white-supremacy-young-readers-edition.html
Shaw, S., Atkins, D., Hoskyn, K., Stretton, T. & Hamer, H. (2024). Enabling action: Re-envisaging education of health professionals in Aotearoa New Zealand. Policy Futures in Education, 22 (4), 544-558. https://doi.10.1177/14782103231176363
Shaw, S. & Heap, N. (2022). Health workforce planning: An urgent need to link islands of expertise. Policy Quarterly 18 (4), 74-83. https://doi.org/10.26686/pq.v18i4.8020
Saad, L. F. (2020). Me and white supremacy: How to recognise your privilege, combat racism and change the world. London: Quercus. https://read.sourcebooks.com/for-children/me-and-white-supremacy-young-readers-edition.html
Schneebeli, C., O'Brien, A., Lampshire, D., & Hamer, H. P. (2010). Service user involvement in undergraduate mental health nursing in New Zealand. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 19, (1), 30-35. https://doi.10.1111/j.1447-0349.2009.00642
Thomas, L. (2017). Own Your Glow: A soulful guide to luminous living and crowning the Queen within. Hay House. ISBN:9781401949518. https://www.hayhouse.com.
United Nations. (2006). Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and optional
protocol. [Cited 7 May 2023]. Available from:
https://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-e.pdf
Published
2024-11-14
How to Cite
Lampshire, D., & Hamer, H. (2024). Allyship or coalition? : Creating lived experience roles in academia, and why we are not quite there yet. Ethnographic Edge, 7(2), 57-67. https://doi.org/10.24135/ee.v7i2.278
Section
Articles
Copyright (c) 2024 Helen Hamer, Debra Lampshire
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
