'Activism' as a prof

There is no inherent political direction to activism except that of changing the status quo. Activists self-style themselves as being ‘actively’ engaged in changing the world to make it a better place. That’s were agreement falls apart. Not everyone interested in change agrees with what makes the world a better place.

My own activism had it’s roots as a ‘child of ‘68.’ Many of our school teachers in Prince Rupert were dodging the US draft, seeking a closer connection to nature, or were just fed up with mainstream society. Our remembrance day assemblies at school tended more anti-war than veneration. One teacher had us doing posters for the International Year of Women - why not! Labour strikes were common in the working class town I grew up in.

PRrince Rupert Archives, Wrathall Collection.

My father belonged to a fishermen’s cooperative; a producers coop. I worked on his boat starting in the 70s and also belonged to the co-op. I was a member of the union representing the crews on board the boats like my fathers. These experiences were a kind of school in social democratic practice and ethics (I’ve written about the internal labour struggles at the co-op elsewhere).

The context out of which we come leaves traces and sensibilities. It doesn’t prefigure how we will act, but it does set a baseline from which to build action. For me, my experience growing up in the labour environment that was Prince Rupert contributed to me being interested in social and economic justice. I focused my studies and my actions in that direction.¹ By the time I started work at UBC in 1996 I had already amassed a long experience of social and economic justice activism as a worker and as a student.

Activism in the academy

My experience in the working world and as a student didn’t initially help me navigate the academy. I recall being disappointed to realize I hadn’t left the small business world of my father behind, but had instead landed in the middle of another version of it.

I had imagined faculty life to be a ‘tweedy’ kind of place where colleagues and students eagerly engaged in intellectual debate at the drop of a hat. Instead I was introduced to an empty office lined with bare bookshelves and a desk and a phone. I may as well been a car salesman; UBC’s motto tuum est - it’s up to you - rang loudly in my ears. Animated intellectual discussions were more often overshadowed by the minutia of administrative duties. Faculty seminars felt more like passive aggressive jousting rings than engaged fireside chats. Many student discussions floated around grades (not all). Just the same it was an opportunity I appreciated and would do all over again.

During my pre-tenure period I often received well intentioned advice to dial back on my activism. In the build up to the No APEC protests during my first year at UBC I tried to introduce a motion at a department meeting opposing the on campus APEC gathering. It was politely deemed out of order. Following the meeting two senior colleagues separately came to visit me. While of differing political inclinations, both offered it might be wiser for me to pull back a little. One or both of them suggested my strong speech against the APEC meeting might cause embarrassment to another colleague who had some involvement in the meetings themselves.

I didn’t initially pick up on the fact my senior colleagues were in a sense warning me there might be consequences to my actions. When I realized what they were telling me I paused to reflect. I could not see a way to pretend to be other than I was. It was a sobering moment to come to terms with the idea that idealism in action might not be appreciated.

In that moment I remembered a conversation I’d had with a communist union organizer. I’d met him working on the fish boats. He had been encouraging me to continue with my studies -knowledge is something they (the bosses) can’t take away from you, he said. But remember you don’t want to be fired for being a lousy worker, make them fire you for being an organizer. His advice was to be the best worker you can so the bosses have to confront the politics, not hide their actions in the technical realm of competency. I took his lesson to heart.

Strike Support and the Dean’s Call

One of my primary areas of activism at UBC has been in strike support - on campus and in the wider public education sector. This involved organizing support for striking CUPE locals on campus. It also involved supporting illegal strikes of the K-12 teachers’ union. During this time I also served several terms as a member-at-large on the UBC Faculty Association.

I was asked by the TA Union to speak at a ‘Breakfast at Martha’s’ event during one of their strikes. They had gathered at the front door to the president’s house. When I spoke I mentioned that faculty supported them and would be there on the picket line with them. By the time I got into my office in the AnSo Building the message indicator on my office phone was flashing. The president of the faculty association wanted to talk with me ASAP. UBC faculty relations had called the faculty association to ask what’s up with a member of the union executive saying there would be a faculty walk out. It’s not what I had said, but it was clearly how it was heard.

Under BC’s labour code the definition of a strike is essentially any withdrawal of labour from a physical walkout to a refusal to do a small task. This is complicated by UBC’s Faculty Association having a no strike clause in the collective agreement. From this I learned to appreciate that words in context matter, and few things go unobserved by management.

From CUPE 2278 webpage.

Another time two colleagues and I organized a midday rally supporting public school teachers who where then out on an illegal strike. We invited some speakers, made plans for hosting it on the steps of the Faculty of Education building, and started sending notices around. UBC HR responding by notifying all employees that while they were free to do what they wished on their lunch break, any time over their allotted break would be considered an illegal withdrawal of services - in other words a strike. Several hundred people turned up nonetheless undaunted by the employer threats.

In the aftermath of another public school teachers’ strike colleagues and I organized a roundtable on education. The ‘UBC Roundtable on Public Education’ included the president of the BCTF, parent reps, school trustees, and others. It might seem like a harmless academic exercise, but in the context of the political moment there were a lot of sensitivities amongst UBC’s administration. My organizing of the event precipitated a late evening email from the then dean of arts who advised me to call them ASAP. When I did call I was told the event was not an authorized UBC event. There was some suggestion that I might not be able to hold it on campus. So the name became ‘The Roundtable at UBC.’

The dean also asked me if organizing such events could be clearly documented in my c.v.. Was this event consistent with my career path I was hired into. The very explicit advice was if this was outside my area of research competence I had no right to do it on campus or expect to be protected from discipline.² I held my ground and the event went forward with about 75 community members attending.

Though out all of this I have kept the old communist union organizer’s advice in mind - ‘make them fire you for your activism, not for being a lousy worker.’

Trying change from within

As a young activist in the 1980s one group I associated with had the provocative slogan: “the union leadership is the left wing of the ruling class.” We were all about change from below. So coming into more established governance bodies took some effort. But my partner has always said to me, when I might complain about the powers that be, ‘how do you know, where is your evidence.’ So I picked up the challenge to find the evidence.

Since 2012 have been elected to bodies like the University’s Neighbourhoods Association’s Board of Directors (2012-2016), UBC Board of Governors (2017-2020, 2023-2026), and the UBC Senate (2020-2026).

In all of these bodies I have prioritized the ideas of open process and participatory democratic practice, railing against cultures of privacy and the lack of transparency in process. Becoming, as it were, a member of the permanent opposition inside power is an intersting place to be. It both reveals possibilities for transformative intervention while also making clear the intransigence of the status quo.

1. Three papers that describe some of engagements and background in more detail: On Strike: Student Activism, CUNY, and Engaged Anthropology; Sea Legs: Learning to Labour on the Water, and; Reflections on Work and Activism in the University of ‘Excellence.’

2. On the matter of ‘career path,’ faculty do need to pay attention to the conditions of their initial appointment. My letter was expressly vague on this count. Given the way my letter was written, one simple paragraph, I was able to support my actions as part of my scholarly practice. Subsequently letters have become more precise and the collective agreement better suited to support faculty who face administrative over reach like I did.