"So then one question arises: who truly is legitimate to say “me too” in any social movement. As it does so, it interrogates: is there truly a way to know who is or isn’t to be the advocate of a...Show more"So then one question arises: who truly is legitimate to say “me too” in any social movement. As it does so, it interrogates: is there truly a way to know who is or isn’t to be the advocate of a cause. In this is the idea that there exists by opposition individuals who are considered to hold a justified role in defending a cause and are drawn as referents and entitled to a responsibility. Perhaps getting at the root of such interrogations then implies understanding how do those individuals define the origin of their responsibility in situations of social unrest. How to pinpoint such ‘responsible’ individuals is a question of first order. Responsibility entails putting something at stake in order to carry charge for a given issue. Its origin, however, is tricky to untangle as it emerges from an idiosyncratic balance between a personal sense of duty and a specific context which thrusts individuals into their engagement with hardly distinguishable degrees of influence.10 Because of how unfathomable this distinction can seem, a time-based comparison of ‘responsible’ agents in different settings yet with similar objectives would allow one to retrace whether beyond specific contexts, intrinsic features unite the process guiding their political involvement. (...) As gathering evidence is a tricky task in social movement analysis, this study cannot avoid stumbling upon its shortfalls if it is to ascertain a metaphysical truth about the origins of individual responsibility in politics. It can, nevertheless, couple representative data with observations made throughout the history of thought to hint at its general teneur and how it sheds light on the perception of legitimate participants of political action. In this attempt, the present work will study whether the mechanisms which trigger individual responsibility in politics can be identified through a time-based comparison of feminist activism in the United-States looking at the movements represented by Angela Davis and #MeToo.Show less
During the late 19th and mid 20th centuries, Native American boarding schools were implemented throughout the United States and Canada. Within the boarding school system, assimilative strategies...Show moreDuring the late 19th and mid 20th centuries, Native American boarding schools were implemented throughout the United States and Canada. Within the boarding school system, assimilative strategies were implemented. This study primarily analyzes the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. It asks: To what extent does an analysis of the Carlisle Indian Industrial boarding school demonstrate strategies and a U.S. hegemonic project of assimilation of Native Americans into the dominant culture? Based on a review of the literature on systematic racism in US educational systems and the theory of Hegemony data was analyzed. The results indicate that the current debate on Native American boarding schools entails many different experiences, values, and cultural aspects. Native American students were, upon return, more linguistically assimilated. In addition, many former Native American students experience issues related to mental health, alcohol, substance abuse and family related problems. Based on these conclusions, future studies should address the evolvement of the assimilation process, and to what extent Native American culture is being maintained.Show less
