Body + Power + Justice: Movement-Based Workshops for Critical Tutor Education

In this participatory article (with suggested activities, check-ins with the body, and freewriting), we use collaborative narrative inquiry to unpack considerations that underlie the planning, facilitation, and processing of a series of movement-based workshops. Critiquing liberal multiculturalist approaches in writing centers, we argue against the all-too-common flattening of differences and think through how embodiment helps us “work the hyphens” (Fine, 1998) or find “third ways” (Soja, 1996) that break open new possibilities for working and learning together toward equity and racial justice. In contrast to role-playing scenarios that characterize many tutor education practices, we suggest that centering the body through movement allows for an alternative and more generative way to interrogate and restructure racial power. In total, we argue for
attention to the body and embodied practice to engage tutors (and all writing center staff, directors included) in developing critical praxis for racial justice. For us, praxis comes in the form we call “critical tutor education,” which is essential for writing centers committed to more equitable relations and practices, as we continue to strive for the “ought to be” (Horton as cited in Branch, 2007).