When the markers of self-imposed marginalization simply become the excuse for mediocrity or laziness!
One of the everyday aspects of doing culture-centered work is the engagement with the language of marginalization. The slippery slope however in working with the margins is when we come to identify the label of the margins with our own journeys, and even more so, utilize this label to justify our own mediocrity, lack of work ethic, or our sheer laziness. For any of us that occupy positions within academe through which we gain access to the tools and languages for making knowledge claims, being marginalized typically does not mean the same thing as it does for the sectors of the population we typically work with, people who have been rendered invisible through those very knowledge structures that we inhabit. Therefore, to do CCA, one has to really step out of the comfort zone and work hard at figuring out the openings for engagement. So although I am deeply aware of the experiences of being "othered" that some within academe have to work through (because of a variety of th...