Interrogating White Men’s Allyship: Implications of Performativity for Qualitative Methodologies

False Allyship and Performativity

Blankschaen (2016) contended that allyship is a social status that provides the benefit of aligning with progressive values and offers acceptance and a moral reward. This social status is achieved through the minimal display of a rainbow flag signaling support for LGBTQ+ rights, but does not require any further commitment or action, commonly critiqued as performativity (Hamto, 2022; Hesford, 2021).

McKenzie (2014) introduced the term ally theater, where an ally only takes actions in front of an audience to look good. She has also found that allies who do one small act then claim an ally identity in perpetuity. From this fixed position of moral justification, she demonstrated that allies can then undermine analysis of oppression through minimizing comments such as “it’s not that big a deal” and “get over it.” She argued that these comments work to actively maintain the status quo. This is not meant as an exhaustive list of the challenge of engaging dominant group members in productive allyship but is meant to argue that claims of an ally identity and acts of allyship are distinct and can achieve opposite ends.

Allyship Knowledge Claims

Rather, Blankschaen (2016) asserted that allyship, as a social status like that of a medical doctor, must be bestowed and not claimed. Legitimate social status implies a set of skills and knowledge and is a tool to communicate these skills to those in need of those supports or services. In the case of allyship, it is the target group who can bestow the social status of ally. This perspective has epistemological implications for knowledge claims in the study of allyship.

Groups who White men seek to ally with hold the position from which the outcome of allied activity can be evaluated. These members can make knowledge claims based on their experiences with an aspiring ally about whether the ally acts made a difference to them, their lives, and their social movement. Therefore, research questions addressing the definition or efficacy of allyship should include the voices of people who have experiences of oppression and are members of the groups aspiring allies are seeking to support.

Allyship as a bestowed identity, at minimum, indicates that the target group should be involved in the identification of participants. For instance, if the allyship research recruits false allies, the subsequent research would present results of the development of false or performative allies. While this research can still contribute to the literature on allyship, the “falseness” of the allies needs to be made explicit. The same logic can be applied to allied actions for research that takes up the fluidity of allyship—which recognizes that one act can be allied, but another can be oppressive. The efficacy of each action still needs to be assessed by the group allied to. White men aspiring to allyship hold useful contributions to research as they have experiences upon which they can make knowledge claims about their experiences, perceptions of their engagement, and the processes through which they have come to aspire to allyship, but they are not in a position from which they can evaluate the trustworthiness or efficacy of any attempted allied acts.

To date, there is a dearth of research that has taken into account the possibility of “false allies” (Blankschaen, 2016, p. 12) or a more nuanced view of how allies are perceived and experienced by the target group (Edwards, 2006). There is also a need to examine the methodological implications of the distance between the definition of allyship and the practice, impact, and experience of being allied with (e.g., causing activist burnout, Gorski, 2019). In the current study, I seek to examine the current methodological approaches used to investigate allyship, how the existing research integrates minoritized voice, and other procedures that allyship researchers have integrated into their studies that have increased trustworthiness. The dominant methodologies are then interrogated for tools to enhance future allyship research. I approached this study guided by Denzin and Lincoln’s (2005) admonition for researchers to find a tradition to “anchor and locate” (p. xviii) their qualitative work.

Phenomenology

To begin with a rudimentary definition of phenomenology, I draw on Creswell’s (2013) qualitative text in which he included phenomenology, hermeneutic phenomenology, and transcendental phenomenology within a single phenomenological genre. To define the methodology, Moules and colleagues (2015) highlighted Schleiermacher’s (1828/1990) focus on the “expression of a thought by one person and its reception and comprehension by another” (p. 11) as the underlying metaphor for the approach. From this everyday process comes the conception and centrality of interpretation, the focus of phenomenology.

Four notable studies in allyship used a phenomenological approach and I provide a brief review of each study here. Asta and Vacha-Haase (2013) interviewed 12 female and two male heterosexual LGBTQ+ allies working as interns or psychologists in a university counseling office. Participants perceived an ally identity to be bestowed, not claimed, open, and fluid. Instead of an identity, participants focused on the ally work and some interchanged the term advocate as focused on actions instead of a personal characteristic. Participants also identified the need for awareness of intersecting oppressions where the target group can also be engaged in allyship.

Broido (2000) interviewed three female and three male college students. Participants came into college with egalitarian values, gained information about social justice issues, engaged in a meaning making process about their increased awareness, developed the confidence necessary to act on this awareness, changed their understanding of privilege and oppression, and were presented opportunities to act as social justice allies. DeTurk (2011) interviewed 15 participants in a variety of roles in a university setting. She found allied action emerged from moral identity concerns, the strategies employed to enact allyship reflected positions of power and were tailored to the ideologies of what those positions demanded. For the powerful, she found a response to the demand of political correct notions of virtue. Identity and power categories were fluid, contextual, and multiple that complicated ally identification.

Russell (2011) interviewed 127 heterosexual allies over 17 years on their motivation for engaging in allied activity. Two categories emerged: motives based on fundamental principles (i.e., justice, civil rights, patriotism, religious beliefs, moral principles, and spending the social capital of privilege) and personal relationships and experiences (i.e., role, family or close relationship, sharing the riches of marriage, resolve past experiences, transforming guilt through action, and anger). Action based on these motives may engage allies in collective action.

Consistent with a phenomenological methodology, all studies emphasized the centrality of the researcher’s interpretation of the participant’s understanding of their experience. Recruitment was focused on allies using reputational selection and nomination processes (Broido, 2000; Russell, 2011), and targeted email lists (Asta & Vacha-Haase, 2013; DeTurk, 2011). Data analysis and coding procedures included general inductive coding (Broido, 2000), grounded theory coding (Asta & Vacha-Haase, 2013), a three-step phenomenological process (DeTurk, 2011), and consensus coding employing an interpretive stance (Russell, 2011).

Trustworthiness was enhanced with the use of reflexivity, peer review, member checks, and a thick description (Asta & Vacha-Haase, 2013). Asta and Vacha-Haase (2013) interviewed 14 heterosexual allies and included a peer review by a grad student and her supervisor, both of whom identified as heterosexual. As a result, no LGBTQ+ voices were represented in the study. Broido (2000) and Russell (2011) included minoritized voices in their study through the use of nomination procedures where target groups nominated the people they identified as allies for inclusion in their studies. Russell (2011) also integrated minoritized voices into the study with the use of a minoritized interviewer who conducted two thirds of the interviews and having minoritized individuals from the research team complete some of the coding. These steps are not included in the guidance to complete a well-designed phenomenological study. A good hermeneutic study would locate allies within their context and include interviews with the group allied to (Moules et al., 2015).

Grounded Theory

Glaser and Strauss (1967) developed grounded theory in an effort to create scientifically rigorous qualitative research consistent with a postpositivist paradigm. Internal and external validity was pursued, and the researcher was largely removed to reduce bias (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Grounded theory was used to investigate allyship in five studies.

Bridges and Mather (2015) employed constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006). Potential participants were identified by “informed staff and faculty” (Bridges & Mather, p. 158) at a single private, Jesuit midwestern United States university. They conducted semi-structured conversational interviews with 10 White college age men. In their findings, they suggested a grounded theory that included gender-specific strategies in developing White men as allies such as matching White men with social justice mentors, shared reflection tools, and a space for White men to address guilt and confusion.

Casey and Smith (2010) interviewed 27 men, 26 of whom were White, on their engagement as anti-violence allies. They found men had sensitizing experiences that shifted the meaning men made about the world and these interacted with opportunities to engage in anti-violence work that further shifted meanings. This theory was used to inform the development of a suggested model for engaging men in anti-violence allyship. Casey (2010) also used the same data to construct a theory of how to engage men as anti-violence allies.

DiStefano et al. (2000) received 87 responses to an open-ended survey from heterosexual student affairs professionals who identified as allies of the LGB community. The study was structured around allied actions, the times participants did not act, and the responses from LGB and heterosexual people to both situations. They found allies were encouraged and welcomed by the LGB community, worried they were not doing enough, or angry at homophobic responses. In response to inaction, allies were self-critical or were okay with the decision because of strategic reasons.

Munin and Speight (2010) interviewed eight female and five male college students, 11 of whom were White. They found five factors that supported ally development: common personality characteristics (i.e., extroversion, leadership, empathy, impatience, and competitiveness), faith, family influence, and realization of otherness. These studies have created theory about the process through which allies develop and can be engaged in social movements.

Recruitment strategies varied considerably across the studies. These studies focused on the process of allies’ engagement and development and aligned with a recruitment strategy that focused on self-identified allies. Bridges and Mather (2015) mixed a nomination procedure with self-identification criteria by asking “informed faculty and staff to recommend students who might identify as White male allies” (p. 158). Casey and Smith (2010) followed a wide recruitment strategy, including posters, emails to targeted list servs, referral from local organizations, and attending social justice–oriented meetings to recruit participants. Participants were eligible if they had participated in a social justice activity in the previous 2 years. DiStefano and colleagues (2000) mailed a survey to a social justice group within a professional association. Munin and Speight (2010) asked two student affairs professionals to nominate participants who met the criteria of dominant group membership, involvement in organized social justice allyship longer than 1 year, and self-identified as an ally.

For data analysis, these studies used a traditional grounded theory strategy (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), with the exception of Bridges and Mather (2015) who used constructivist grounded theory analysis (Charmaz, 2006). In analysis and in the study, the position of the researcher was minimized, which is consistent with a grounded theory methodology.

Across the studies, validity, not trustworthiness, was addressed through discussion of internal validity. For instance, Bridges and Mather (2015) described the study in depth, their own interest in the study, and developed contracts with potential participants. During analysis and theory development, they wrote essays, memos, and notes that were shared with co-researchers and asked for their feedback. External validity was addressed as a limitation of the generalizability of findings (Casey & Smith, 2010). Throughout the studies, there was no strategy disclosed to include minoritized voices.

Critical Theories/Methodologies

Within ally development, there is a focus on moving from an aspiring ally’s beliefs and thinking to engaging in activism (e.g. Broido, 2000). This focus on action and the lived reality of “how” allyship is enacted aligns with a critical ethnographic focus on how a phenomenon is produced (Carspecken, 1996; Madison, 2019; Thomas, 1993). This is evident in the allyship literature conducted in the critical theories genre that drew on critical race theory, queer theory, and critical ethnographic methodologies.

Kessaris (2006) analyzed eight confessional counter narratives of Mununga (White) men who resisted racism in Australia. In these texts, she found that racism is covert and normative; it works through inverting the truth that the Blekbela (Indigenous people) were disposed through stolen land and instead blames Indigenous people by recasting them as poor and primitive. Kessaris (2006) contended that White men acknowledging the truth of the land being stolen from Indigenous people by White people can counter overt and covert racism in White communities and is one productive contribution White men can make to anti-racist and anti-colonial allyship.

Patton and Bondi (2015) interviewed 15 White male university faculty and administrators. Their study was designed to problematize the idea that “by virtue of being a good person, one is also an ally” (Patton & Bondi, 2015, p. 493). They found that participants situated their allyship at the individual level, viewed allyship as aspirational, and their allied activity involved few personal risks.

Lapointe (2015) interviewed four heterosexual high school students who participated in gay-straight alliance clubs. She found allies felt pressure to disrupt homophobia on the individual level and a lack of response from school administration. She called for a shift in responsibility for intervention from the individual ally to the institution.

Young (2010) provided a thick description of a 2-year critical ethnography in a high school focused on one classroom that took up the issue of heterosexism and homophobia. Through collective action, the class of heterosexual students learned how these discourses are reproduced and disrupted through active and visible allyship. Together, these studies problematize normal, taken-for-granted covert racist, homophobic, and “nice-guy” ally discourses. They offer concrete lived examples of how to disrupt systems of oppression and highlight the methodological focus on how phenomena are produced.

Recruitment strategies varied across all four studies. Young’s (2010) 2-year critical ethnographic study focused on students in a Canadian high school in which she was the teacher. Kessaris (2006) chose six published anti-racist confessional texts written by Mununga (White people) in Australia that formed counter narratives to engrained and normalized White domination. Lapointe (2015) recruited five allies from high school gay-straight alliance clubs in Ontario, Canada. Patton and Bondi (2015) used a nomination process to recruit White men in academia who were considered allies by their peers.

Data analysis was completed in Young’s (2010) study using critical discourse analysis with a focus on revealing “ideologies and pervading discourses” (p. 468). Kessaris (2006) develops her conceptual framework using Blekbala (Indigenous) ways of knowing, critical race theory, feminist standpoint theory, and White identity theory. Through this conceptual framework and her Blekbala experience, she reads the chosen texts and “perceives” (p. 350) themes. Lapointe (2015) employed content analysis and used a queer interpretive lens. Patton and Bondi (2015) used a three-step inductive coding process to identify “patterns” (p. 495) in their data.

Procedures to enhance trustworthiness varied study to study. Consistent with critical ethnography, Young (2010) developed a thick description through extensive observation and interviewing. Students were provided with transcripts of interviews and class discussions. Notably, openly LGBTQ voices were not included in data collection or in the review of findings. Kessaris (2006) foregrounds the writing of the texts she is analyzing to “increase the transparency” (p. 348) of her interpretations. Similar to Young (2010), Lapointe (2015) does not include openly LGBTQ voices in the data collection or review of findings. However, she defines allyship through a Queer lens as disrupting heteronormativity and focuses the research question on straight ally experiences of this allied activity. The trustworthiness of the study could arguably be improved with a review of coding from an LGBTQ+ identifying peer debriefer. Specifically, the code of “coming out as an ally” (Lapointe, 2015, p. 160) appears problematic in minimizing the LGBTQ+ experience of coming out. Patton and Bondi (2015) increase trustworthiness through reflexivity, disclose their sites of privilege (educated, middle class, one White author) and oppression (women, one racialized author), disclose their conceptual framework grounded in critical race theory, which guided them to engage six peer debriefers, two White and four racialized people as well as member checks where participants were invited to review transcripts and codes.

Phenomenology

Taken together, I found that phenomenological studies contributed the perspective that allyship can be experienced as fluid, open, and nonfixed, and is bestowed and not claimed (Asta & Vacha-Haase, 2013). In my analysis, the studies highlighted the context of shifting power and identity and their importance in understanding how allies make decisions about their allied identity and actions. Broido (2000) created the seminal model of ally development where people gain information, engage in meaning making, gain confidence, and then are pulled into action.

Phenomenology and hermeneutics generally do not provide procedures to address the problem of false allies. The phenomenological investigation of the context of the ally would lead a researcher to investigate allyship through the group the ally is working with and would provide further context and deeper understanding of the complexities of how allyship is enacted as a researcher seeks the essence of the phenomenon (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2008). This approach focuses on the trustworthiness of the interpretation, established when the interpretation conserves the truth, gives it new life, and opens the conversation (Moules et al., 2015). The full context of the White male ally, including the experience of the group he allied with, allows the researcher to collect data from legitimate sources, namely, the experience of allyship from the ally and the identification and assessment of the efficacy of the ally by the target group.

Gadamer’s (2004) ethical commitment, identified as doing the right thing for the participants, in the context of allyship, is a complex notion given participants have privileged group membership and are working to dismantle the systems that create this privilege. I argue, as I imagine many White male ally research participants would, that if there is a conflict between the participant and the target group, that the ethical focus should be on doing the right thing for the group allied to, even at the expense of the participant with the privileged identity. An example of this would be the question of whose actions should be highlighted in dissemination. Does the researcher provide voice and platform for the ally or for the group allied to? Previous allyship literature points to minimizing the voice of allies and instead promoting the target group (Bishop, 2015). However, this approach does not explicitly direct the researcher to include this consideration in their knowledge dissemination activities.

One area of promise for future allyship research is to use the hermeneutics of suspicion (Ricoeur, 1977). This methodology still relies on the researcher’s interpretation; however, the researcher’s interpretation can adopt insights from minoritized voices to deal with the concerns of performativity and false allyship. Philosophically, this approach aligns with the hermeneutic understanding of truth as both “objective” and “contingent”; this suggests that there is a right way to do something, but it is time bound, contextual, and changes (Moules et al., 2015). Trustworthiness of interpretations by hermeneutic researchers can be enhanced if they take up the idea that allies perceive the experience of ally development, whereas groups allied to legitimately identify allies and evaluate allyship. However, this strategy would not necessarily draw the researcher’s attention to the tensions and promises of engaging White male allies, or necessarily offer a critique of the White male ally actions.

Grounded Theory

Grounded theory allyship studies provide practical models for engaging allies in social justice movements. The focus on gerunds in grounded theory research questions aligns with the allyship focus on social action as opposed to perception—for example, “engaging men in anti-violence work” (Casey & Smith, 2010, p. 953). However, grounded theory allyship research has not taken advantage of methodological developments in the form of constructivist grounded theory and situation analysis that offer practical guidance in analyzing the complexities of allyship data.

Charmaz (2017) argued grounded theory is appropriate for social justice research because it employs “inductive logic, emergent strategies, comparative inquiry, and is explicitly analytic” (p. 359). This group of methodologies could lead a researcher to develop theories that include the reproduction of privilege and oppression reproduced with misguided White allyship, specifically as a result of the invisibility of oppression to White men. Grounded methodologies rely on the substantive area and theoretical training of the researcher to tend to this risk as opposed to explicitly including procedures that address these concerns. Furthermore, the use of traditional grounded theory backgrounds the researcher’s social position. What is at issue here is the invisibility of the researcher that suppresses discussions of the social location of the researcher (dominant vs. minoritized) and the audience (dominant vs. minoritized) and the trustworthiness of the interpretation and representation—who can know and say what from what position and how is it heard and understood?

Situation analysis (Clarke, 2003) would direct the researcher toward the resources of critical theories as sensitizing concepts in investigating allyship given the definition of allyship as overturning structures that create privilege and oppression. Situation analysis employs three maps: situation maps, social worlds/arena maps, and positional maps (Clarke, 2003). Situation maps include the major elements in the research area and draw the researcher’s attention to the relationship between these elements. Social worlds/arena maps lay out the key arenas of collective action and negotiation that condition action. Positional maps focus on the major positions taken and those that are missing, as well as the controversies associated with the situation. These maps center a shift from grounded theory’s basic metaphor of a “social process” to integrate complexity and difference through a metaphor of “social worlds/arenas/negotiations” (Clarke, 2003, p. 558). Situation analysis has yet to be applied to the study of allyship and may offer particular support for researchers navigating the complexity of multiple human and structural forces influencing ally actions and their meaning. The reliance on the sensitizing concept of social justice suggests that allyship researchers interested in grounded theory procedures should augment them with the commitments outlined in critical theories.

Critical Theories/Methodologies

Studies conducted with a critical theoretical approach problematize normal, taken-for-granted covert racist, homophobic, and “nice-guy” ally discourses. They offered concrete lived examples of how allies can disrupt systems of oppression and become trustworthy allies. Their findings contributed to our knowledge of allyship, to the ways systems of privilege and oppression are enacted in daily life, and how these systems are disrupted in pursuit of equality.

Critical theories/methodologies put forth the argument that researching allyship from a position of privilege creates the imperative to suspect researcher interpretations and privilege the perspective of marginalized groups (Harding, 1991). Ethnography, however, has a history as a tool of knowledge production used to support colonialism. Interpretations originated from the outsider perspective to create many of the systems of racism supporting White supremacy and domination in place today (Hage, 1998). As a result, critical ethnography has created procedures and commitments to hold the researcher’s interpretations accountable to the research participants, particularly extensive member checking (Carspecken, 1996; Madison, 2019). Studying allyship adds a further layer of complexity by studying a privileged group that is aspiring to use their privilege in the service of equality and to undermine the systems that give them privilege.

Much of ally development involves seeing the world through the lens of privilege and oppression (Bishop, 2015), knowledge that has largely come from the criticalist genres of feminisms, critical race theory, Marxisms, Queer theory, and expositions of other forms of oppression. Consistent with the development and perspectives of many allies, criticalists generally center this theoretical perspective and previous empirical investigations of power and oppression in their work (Bishop, 2015; Carspecken, 1996; Creswell, 2013). Furthermore, both allies and criticalists have explicitly emancipatory aims. Arguably, criticalists who belong to the dominant group could be thought of as allies in their work in resisting oppression and dominance through their studies. From these commitments, critical researchers are duty bound to respond to the critiques of allies developed through previous allyship and social movements research noted above. Critical ethnographic methodology has integrated critical theories and offers several procedures to the study of allyship that I now turn to examine.

Critical ethnography offers life history interviews that help to understand men’s interpretations of their own lives, accounts which then are deepened through observations to see how these interpretations and commitments to allyship are enacted in daily life. We see this in research examining how male allies enter feminist spaces and dominate the conversation or take leadership, for example (Bishop, 2015; Patton & Bondi, 2015). Further highlighting the inadequacy of relying on self-identified allies accounts is feminist (Harding, 1991; Hartsock, 1983) and critical race theory (Bell, 1987) contributions that have examined how normative power relations are invisible to allies who do not experience the oppressions of the group allied with. This injects the previously noted complexity into researching allyship and addresses the critique that “ally” is a title that must be conferred from the target group (Blankschaen, 2016; Patton & Bondi, 2015). Many White men allies are located within communities, cultures, and activist social movements and this analytic focus draws the researcher’s attention to how they are perceived by the target group (Carspecken, 1996). Recruitment through referral from the target group is one way this issue has been attended to within the critical genre (Patton & Bondi, 2015) or through the lead researcher locating herself within the target group (Kessaris, 2006). Researchers from dominant groups can also attend to concerns of the invisibility of oppression and the trustworthiness of their findings by integrating peer debriefers from the target group who have knowledge of qualitative methods and can review transcripts, codes, findings, and dissemination (Carspecken, 1996).

Critical ethnography also offers the practice of reflexivity and co-implication both in the research process and through the representation in text. Privileged researchers can co-implicate themselves in systems of oppression and integrate designs into their research to acknowledge their limitations and privilege the experiences and interpretations of marginalized voices. They can then address this limitation by integrating perspectives of people with lived experience of oppression to guide a study’s decisions and interpret findings.

A critique of critical ethnography is that significant effort can result in words on a page and not live up to the emancipatory commitments of the methodology. Lather (1986) introduced the concept of catalytic validity that measures the value and validity of the research by the subsequent changes it inspires and contributions to a more equal society. In the case of allyship research, this is of particular concern. It is not ethically benign research. It takes time, energy, and resources away from “doing” allyship. It also has the potential to impact ally development, potentially contributing to social movements and a more equal world while reducing the emotional and resource burden on minoritized people to carry allies along from ignorance to meaningful contribution. Catalytic validity draws our attention to the value and contribution of the research. Are researchers changing the world as they claim?

Living up to the emancipatory promise of the critical approach is supported through critical ethnography’s call for a sharing of the cultures of the participants and the researcher along the research process. Research participants are viewed not only as knowledge holders but also as learners who have the capacity to learn about the theoretical insights we have as researchers (Carspecken, 1996). In the context of White male allyship, this offers the opportunity to share the knowledge of the subtle use of power in language which is made invisible through its everydayness. Through this culture sharing, we can contribute to our White male ally participant’s social justice analysis and foster further commitments to social justice.