From Activists to Terrorists: The Politics and Ethics of Research Representations of Transnational Resistance

Abstract

This paper reflects critically on our ethical responsibilities as social work researchers who report on transnational resistance movements in the age of terrorism. Through my own research on the 2009 Tamil diaspora protests in Canada, I problematize why and how research representations of racialized activists and activisms come to be profoundly political. I reflect on how a research project is framed, how the researcher and participants are involved, how attention is paid to ethical issues, and the extent of critical reflexivity around how movements are represented. Recognizing that all activism is socially constructed and that research labels inform social identities and social practices, I also examine contested categories of resistance to unpack how they inform or challenge dominant constructions of migrants, their activism, and their struggles in relation to Canada’s own context of separatism, sovereignty, and colonization. Rather than employ any one term to refer to a singular narrative of transnational resistance in our research, I argue that we foreground the power structures and global relations that fundamentally mark colonized identities and their activism across spaces and movements. I draw upon Indigenous, critical, and anti-oppressive research approaches to centre the transgressive potential of decolonial representation and resistance.