Ongoing Educational Resources for Meaningful Solidarity

An Ethic of Accountability | Educational Resources for Meaningful Solidarity

We are deeply appreciative of everyone who presented their work, offered invitations to build community, took fervent notes at peers’ sessions, exhibited at the conference, and for all of our featured speakers who offered incisive insight and recommendations for how we do this work in and outside of academia. We are also especially grateful for the calls for accountability and meaningful solidarity as we bear witness to ongoing - decades long - systemic violence in Palestine, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Myanmar, sites of struggle here in the United States of America and its colonies, as well as across the globe. This call for accountability is a direct product of the Association's lack of meaningful response and offering of resources following the escalation of colonial violence since October 7th, 2023. This misstep was deeply painful given the 21st President and acting Interim Executive Director's (roles held simultaneously) violation of the Association's BDS policy (adopted in 2015) and continued inadequate responses to critique since. As we move forward, we know that these issues are interconnected across cartographies of power. As we reckon with the genocide of Palestinians, it is vital to name and make visible the threads of colonial logics that shape/maintain these issues of dispossession. "We refuse to look away from what feels unbearable to know" - Palestinian Feminist Collective.

As an interdisciplinary organization, NWSA recognizes and asserts our commitments to not only teaching about these issues but engaging in tangible modes of solidarity. We are amplifying fact checked and credible educational resources, calls to action, and tools that we hope prove to be helpful in y/our collective work. It is easy to imbibe materials that contextualize these communities through and in response to colonial imaginaries. Therefore, we encourage you to also explore the rich art, prose, poetry, music, film, and stories that not only humanize the oppressed but center the joy, innovation, resilience, and creativities that exist within each respective culture.

We recognize that these offerings are not exhaustive and do not capture the breadth and depth of ongoing struggles towards liberation across the globe; we invite you to contact the National Office should you have recommendations or additional resources that can enrich our current materials. 

Kristian Contreras, PhD

Interim Executive Director

November 10, 2023

NWSA Statements Archive

The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) is frequently asked to advocate specific public policies, issue a response to an academic/institutional concern, or make a statement about the field of women’s and gender studies. Our guidelines are grounded in NWSA’s mission as a professional organization “dedicated to leading the field of women's studies, as well as its teaching, learning, research, and service wherever they be found.” Issues related to the academic field of women’s and gender studies should receive the Association’s highest attention. 

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  • The Hilltop’s reporting on the current violence and displacement  in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) 
  •  Conflict Watchlist 2023: Democratic Republic of the Congo via The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
  •  Understanding Forced Migration in the DRC as reported by UN Migration 
  • United Nations Refugee Agency’s Breakdown of the Crisis in the DRC
  • Human Rights Watch 2022 Events Report Democratic Republic of Congo
  • Films and Documentaries that Contextualize the Current Crisis:
    • This is Congo (2017) 
    • City of Joy (2016)
    • The Real Rebels of Congo: Searching for Joseph Kony and M23 (2012)
  • Recommended Reading: 
    • The War That Doesn't Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo by Jason K. Stearns
    • The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja
    • Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara
    • The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality by Thomas Turner

  • The WoLakota Project  - a rich resource for culturally responsive teachings specific to South Dakota and Teachings of Our Elders , the North Dakota sister site
  • All My Relations Podcast , hosted by Matika Wilbur (Tulalip and Swinomish) and Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation)
  • The Henceforeward  podcast produced by Eve Tuck (Unangax/Enrolled Member of Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Alaska)
  • Native Land Digital is a worldwide map of Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages across the worl
  • Whose Land mobile app : Whose Land is a web-based app that uses GIS technology to assist users in identifying Indigenous Nations, territories, and Indigenous communities across Canada. The app can be used for learning about the territory your home or business is situated on, finding information for a land acknowledgement, and learning about the treaties and agreements signed across Canada.
  • Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Canada)
  • Boarding School Healing Project  (US)
  • Beyond Land Acknowledgement Series curated by the Native Governance Center 
  • “The Ya Ne Dah Ah School” and “The Two-Plus-Two-Plus-Two Program” case studies from the  Honoring Nations Project at Harvard
  • Reconciliation Book Club, led by Pam Palmater (Mi’kmaw Nation) 
  • Changing the Narrative About Native Americans: A Guide for Allies developed by Reclaiming Native Truth
  • Films and Documentaries:
    • Native America: A Four Part PBS Series
    • WE STILL LIVE HERE (Âs Nutayuneân) (2011)
    • Trick or Treaty (2014)
    • NÎPAWISTAMÂSOWIN: WE WILL STAND UP (2019)
    • Silvestre Pantaleón (2011)
    • Tierra Brillante (2011)
    • Gods of Mexico (2023)
    • The Angry Inuk (2017)
    • Tío Yim (2019)
  • Recommended Reading:
    • The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk
    • Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought by Sandy Grande
    • Mexico's Indigenous Communities: Their Lands and Histories, 1500-2010 by Ethelia Ruiz Medrano
    • A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty edited by Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua (Kanaka ʻŌiwi Hawaiʻi), Ikaika Hussey (Kanaka ʻŌiwi Hawaiʻi) and Erin Kahunawai Wright (Kanaka ʻŌiwi Hawaiʻi)
    • Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes (Lower Brule Sioux Tribe)
    • Whose Land is it Anyway? A Manual for Decolonization , developed by the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia

  • Who are the Rohingya? Understanding the identity, culture, and struggle of Rohingya Muslims
  • Learning/Teaching resources developed by the United States Holocaust Museum on the Genocide of Rohingya People
  • Documentation  of Human Rights Violations in Myanmar since 2014
  • The Ethnic Cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (produced by Vox)
  • Refugees International’s Call to Action and video testimonies from survivors and advocates 
  • UNICEF’s  Calls for Support and Resources on Addressing Gender-Based Violence and Forced Migration to Bangladesh
  • Films and Documentaries:
    •  I Am Rohingya: A Genocide in Four Acts (2018)
    • Wandering: A Rohingya Story (2020)
    • Frontline: Myanmar’s Killing Fields (2018)
    • Rohingya Documentary: ‘A boy with no name for a people with no identity’ (2017)
  • Recommended Reading:
    • Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity, History and Hate Speech by Ronan Lee
    • First, They Erased Our Name: a Rohingya Speaks by Habiburahman
    • The Rohingya Crisis: A People Facing ExtinctionThe Rohingya Crisis: A People Facing Extinction by Muhammad Abdul Bari 
    • The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar's Hidden GenocideThe Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar's Hidden Genocide by Azeem Ibrahim
    • The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century by Thant Myint-U