Engaged Academics as Activist Professionals: Privilege and Humility in Addressing Knowledge Divides

The cross-pressures and tensions for engaged academics are like those of other activist professionals and advantaged allies. Academic knowledge is most useful when it is put into dialog with the knowledge and experiences of others and academics use their skills to bring new information into community discussions, to provoke discussions, and to carry knowledge between groups. Academics should listen as well as talk, recognize and respect the differences among community members, and actively attend to and seek to amplify the voices of those who are most oppressed and marginalized. This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Volume 43, Bringing Down Divides, Lisa Leitz and Eitan Alimi, eds. Fall 2019 (http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/books/series.htm?id=0163-786X)