Lesley University DigitalCommons@Lesley Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences Expressive Therapies Dissertations (GSASS) 2-14-2018 The Somatic Experience of White Privilege: A Dance/Movement Therapy Approach to Racialized Interactions Wendy Allen wallen@naropa.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/expressive_dissertations Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Allen, Wendy, "The Somatic Experience of White Privilege: A Dance/Movement Therapy Approach to Racialized Interactions" (2018). Expressive Therapies Dissertations.edu/expressive_dissertations/59 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences (GSASS) at DigitalCommons@Lesley. It has been accepted for inclusion in Expressive Therapies Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Lesley. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@lesley.
THE SOMATIC EXPERIENCE OF WHITE PRIVILEGE: A DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY APPROACH TO RACIALIZED INTERACTIONS A DISSERTATION (submitted by) WENDY ALLEN In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy LESLEY UNIVERSITY February, 2019 2 3 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Mark: Thank you for all of your love and support and for cheering me on when I was running out of steam. To Greg and Audrey: Thank you for understanding when I couldn’t be there and for listening to me talk about my work. I love you both…you inspire me to make the world you are growing into a better place. To Mom and Dad: Words cannot describe my gratitude for all you have done and given over the years.
I am so grateful for your ongoing love and support and for your willingness to consider the ideas in this paper right along with me. To the Somatic Leadership Team: Thank you for the conversations and the opportunities to learn from each of you. Carla Sherrell: Knowing you has made me a better person. Thank you for your patience and compassion and for teaching me so many things.
Your influence runs through each of these pages. To Christine and Zoe: Thank you for your mentorship and confidence in me. To Robyn: Thank you for your guidance and patience with me through this process! To my committee: Thank you for your wisdom, insight, and mentorship. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .10 Personal Reflection: Unaware ……………………………………………………………………11 Purpose ……………………………………………………………………………………………………12 Significance ………………………………………………………………………………………………14 Definition of Key Terms and Concepts ……………………………………………………….18 White Privilege …………………………………………………………………………………18 Oppression ……………………………………………………………………………………….19 Domination ………………………………………………………………………………………21 Racialized Interactions …………………………………………………………………….21 Cultural Competence and Cultural Safety ………………………………………….22 Interoception ……………………………………………………………………………………23 Somatic Markers ……………………………………………………………………………….24 Nonracist White Identity ………………………………………………………………….28 Critical Race Theory .28 Basic Tenets of Critical Race Theory and the “Rules of Whiteness”.39 White Privilege …………………………………………………………………………………………45 Critiques of White Privilege ……………………………………………….46 The Activity of White Ignorance ……………………………………………….49 The Nonverbal Enactment of White Privilege …………………………….57 White Reactions to Discussions on Race …………………………………….59 Body-mind Dualism and a Somatophobic Culture ………………….66 Including the Body …………………………………………………………………………………….76 White Racial Identity Development and the Body ……………………………….79 Reintegration Status …………………………………………………………………79 Pseudoindependence Status …………………………………………………….81 Information Processing Strategies …………………………………………….81 Dance/Movement Therapy ……………………………………………………………….82 Foundational Theories in DMT ………………………………………………….83 DMT and White Privilege ………………………………………………………….99 Phenomenology and Embodied Inquiry ………………………………………….107 Participant Profiles …………………………………………………………………110 Interview Preparation and Researcher Reflexivity ……………………….117 Theme One: Disorientation .117 Theme Two: Self-Structuring …….121 Theme Three: Polarization ………………………………………………………….123 Feeling/Not Feeling .130 Theme Four: Description Through Contrast .135 Theme Five: Embarrassment and Self-Consciousness ….138 Theme Six: Seeking Affirmation ……………………………………………….142 Theme Seven: Maintaining Awareness …….145 Theme Eight: Seeking Wholeness …………………………………………………………….155 Research Questions and Results ……….155 Research Question One: The Experience of Skin Privilege …………………156 Research Question Two: Impact of Racial Norms on Self-Image, Body Language, and Interoception ………………………………………………….157 Self-Image ………………………………………………………………………………157 Body Language ……………………………………………………………………….160 Research Question Three: The Somatic Markers of Privilege …………….161 The Emergence of White Sturdiness ……………………………………………….165 Credibility ………………………………………………………………………………………165 Peer Debriefing …………………………………………………….167 Prior Understanding ………………………………………………………………………167 Implications ………………….168 Further Research ……………………………………………………………………………………170 Summary ……………………………………………………………………………………………….173 8 ABSTRACT This qualitative study examined the somatic experience of White privilege in participants who were committed to developing a nonracist White identity.
It postulated that there are somatic cues and expressive signatures of White privilege that, once identified, could be addressed through basic dance/movement therapy interventions used at the intrapersonal level. Awareness of these cues may help White people navigate their privilege in racialized interactions thereby reducing further enactments of racism. Using Critical Race Theory and Whiteness Studies as conceptual frameworks and building on research exploring the impact of oppression on the body, this study sought to answer the following questions: (1) How do White people experience skin privilege? (2) What is the impact of sociocultural and institutional norms around race on the self-image, body language, and interoception of those who hold racial privilege? (3) What are the somatic markers of privilege? Interviews included verbal and non-verbal prompts designed to elicit information about how participants recognize and experience White privilege through sensation and movement. The non-verbal portions of the interviews were based on theoretical approaches from the field of dance/movement therapy.
Data was analyzed using a constant comparative method with Helms’ White Racial Identity Development model as a frame of reference for sorting and coding. The eight themes that emerged were consistent with the literature on privilege while also providing additional information about its somatic components. They were: disorientation, marked by confusion and tension resulting from a 9 disrupted worldview; self-structuring, demonstrated through the creation of internal lists that appeared to re-establish equilibrium; polarization in self and in relationship to others; describing privilege through contrast; self-consciousness, marked by embarrassment and self-deprecating humor; seeking affirmation from others; maintaining awareness through regular engagement with one’s privilege; and seeking wholeness or reintegration. Findings suggest the field of dance/movement therapy has existing approaches that could support White people in developing more racial stamina by supporting: increased racial self-awareness and the ability to witness oneself; tolerance for sensate experience including strong or uncomfortable feelings; access to a range of thoughts, movements, and responses; and empathy in racialized interactions.
Potential applications include both clinical and educational settings. 10 CHAPTER 1 Introduction This dissertation explored the somatic experience of White privilege by inviting White people to reflect on their felt sense experiences in racialized interactions. Scholars from many fields including, counseling, Critical Race Theory, Whiteness studies, somatics, education, and women’s studies, have made important contributions to the literature on privilege, racism, and oppression. This study endeavored to expand on this work by broadening its focus from oppressive actions and their impact, to include the internal experience of the oppressor.
A concern in examining this topic was that attending to the experience of the person in the racially privileged location would reinforce social norms by centering Whiteness. However, because White people are frequently unaware of their privilege, the topic needs to be more centralized for them. To this end, the literature on White privilege and Whiteness often refers to the invisibility of privilege and the need to make it seen. In this dissertation it is suggested that it needs to be felt.
The descriptions provided by the participants in this study offer an initial understanding of the felt experience as well as some preliminary ideas for how to work with privilege from a somatic, dance/movement therapy informed, perspective. Such an approach has the potential to be a contribution to the existing literature on privilege, as well as to the literature on applications of dance/movement therapy. Based on an approach used in Critical Race Theory called narratives and counternarratives (Bell, 1992; Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2013), I also include some personal experiences and reflections in an 11 effort to own my positionality and continue to make my “Whiteness” more conscious. As a White person, this means engaging in continuous self-reflection as part of my investigative process.
Personal Reflection: Unaware I hurried down the hall to get to the meeting on time. It was important that I be there…as Chair of one of the programs in the building I needed to demonstrate my support. A White student used a racial slur in class when talking to their professor, a person of Color. I needed to be at this meeting.
We needed to figure out what to do. As I sat in the meeting, I noticed that the majority of the faces were white. And I noticed that the white faces were doing a lot of the talking and planning about how to handle things. I noticed that the white voices were dominating the discussion.
I wondered what the instructor of the class thought about the plans being formed. I said, “Is this OK?” The response I got was entirely unexpected and became a starting point for my own learning about privilege and oppression. She turned toward me and, speaking emphatically, she told me questions like mine were part of the problem. She went on, speaking about White Supremacy and how ignorance like mine was functioning to keep things locked in place.
I can’t remember her exact words. I do remember being horribly embarrassed and totally confused. As the heat rose in my cheeks, I tried to speak and became more flustered and uncertain. I felt my breath catch as my chest tightened and my throat closed.
Through my abdomen there was a rushing sensation that felt chaotic and unstoppable, like flood waters crashing through a small riverbed. The sound of my own blood thundered in my ears. My thoughts became blurry and I struggled to find some familiar internal landmark I could use to orient and ground myself. I wanted to run out of the room.
Hot tears were starting to rise in my eyes. My white colleagues quickly jumped in to try to explain my intentions. I don’t really remember what happened after that. I just sort of checked out.
I have spent years trying to fully understand this incident. I have engaged in deep self-reflection and consulted with White allies and people of Color in carefully selected contexts such as affinity groups and ally groups. I believe that what I was missing that day was the understanding that, as a White professor, my experience in the classroom was not the same as my colleague’s experience. By asking if it was ok 12 to come into her classroom, I was suggesting that our experiences as professors were the same, despite the difference in our races.
I assumed her classroom was hers to run. This assumption was based on my experience as a White person with skin privilege. I did not consider the influence of institutionalized racism or even recognize its pervasive presence. I did not have daily experiences of racism where students challenged my knowledge and expertise by taking more space, asking more questions, publicly contradicting me, and requiring me to provide more evidence to legitimize my points.
I did not have to deal with more subtle expressions of bias in the form of unchecked white privilege (like mine) that fueled assumptions of shared experience and defined the baseline of normalcy with little awareness of other worldviews and the lasting impact of history. If students preached “oneness” and a “common humanity” that supposedly allowed us all to transcend difference and settle into a loving coexistence, I could belong without having to leave my racial identity behind. My obliviousness to the differences between my experience and my colleague’s experience rendered her daily reality in our institution invisible and left her and others shouldering the burden of racism when the responsibility really lay with me and my White colleagues. This experience became a catalyst for my exploration of White identity and the motivation for this study.
Purpose Making Whiteness visible to those with racial privilege, in order to counteract the centering of Whiteness and the corresponding assumption that Whiteness is “normal,” is at the core of much of the literature on racism and 13 nonracist identity development (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013; Wildman & Davis, 1997). Recognizing Whiteness exposes the invisible dynamics of privilege and marginalization that perpetuate racism and its influence on the lives of White people and people of Color. However, seeing Whiteness and examining privilege are not simple tasks.