The possibilities and perils for scholar-activists and activist-scholars: Reflections on the “feminist dialogues”

Feminism, among other critical social movements, has a long and rich history of scholar-activism (e.g., Hewitt 2005). What is increasingly evident now, and less studied, is the ubiquity of activist-scholars, whose primary location is in social movements or NGOs but who also produce knowledge, are in dialogue with feminists in the academy as well as policy arenas, and who move easily between the academy and other sites.  

As with other hyphenated identities, that of scholar-activist is also fraught with tensions depending on which part of the hyphen is privileged, who does the privileging, and with different consequences for scholars in the academy and activists in social movements. I begin by reflecting on how I experienced these tensions in my early years as a scholar-activist, how changes in the academy as well as social movements have made this movement across borders easier, and then discuss some implications of this relationship for ethnography as well as for activist-scholars located in movements via the example of the Feminist Dialogues at the World Social Forum.