Abstract
We infuse this conversation of “body neutrality” through social justice responsiveness (compassion, equity, and accountability of body/presence privilege) by specifically attending to intersections of race, gender, and body mindset built into our identities. In reimagining the term “body-neutrality” through identity engagement, we introduce the term “body acknowledgment” as an active interpretative state. As a co-authored pedagogical “co-conspiring” for racial justice (Houdek and Ore, 2021, p. 92), we (instructor, teaching assistants, and previous students) offered a course redesign centering social justice strategies to address the following question: How can dialogue about intersectional communication work toward redesigning learning with difference and develop pedagogical strategies that foster social justice-based inquiry for students and teaching assistants in a Communication Ethics course? Centering narrative reflection during four units — Intent, Implementation, Interpretation, and Impact — of our course, faculty and students critically contemplated how their “identities that preceded them” influenced communication ethics. Before explaining the course redesign through these four key units, we offer the theoretical underpinnings for each term to invite possibilities to address equitable identity engagement in other courses.
Recommended Citation
Anderson, Wendy KZ; Webster, Ollivia; Yang, Nicole; Bryant, Cass; and Herr, Taylor
(2025)
"Reenvisioning Identities that Precede Us: “Body Acknowledgement” as Social Justice Practice within a Communication Ethics Course Redesign,"
Feminist Pedagogy: Vol. 5:
Iss.
4, Article 2.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/feministpedagogy/vol5/iss4/2
Included in
African American Studies Commons, Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Other American Studies Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Rhetoric Commons, Social Justice Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons
