Pitfalls and Possibilities of Social Justice Ally Development Models: Lessons From Borderland Theories for Building Solidarity Across Difference

Abstract Over the past 25 years, educators and activists have used ally development models to emphasize how someone with privilege can enact solidarity across identity differences. Conceptualizing how people develop into “allies,” is even more pressing in the aftermath of the largest racial justice protests in recorded US history with concerns about how and if the momentum toward justice will be maintained. These models place a spotlight on “allyship” as a form of solidarity that could interrupt oppression and further justice. However, these ally development models can also limit imagining solidarity across identity, power, and privilege differentials especially in the context of ongoing violence and brutal dehumanization. Some limitations include a reinforcement of binary thinking about identity and a false sense of a linear process of becoming and being an “ally.” In order to expand current and strengthen future “ally” models, this article is an attempt to begin a discourse between these development models and some of the conceptualizations of identity and solidarity that come from borderland theories in the field of postcolonial cultural studies. These theories conceptualize identity and encounters across difference in a nuanced and culturally complex way, which can lead to the development of a more informed, sustainable, ethical, and accountable solidarity.