Agency from the Margins
Write a 1.5 pages up to 2 pages single-space final essay that brings 3 (you can do more if you wish) weekly themes together around the bigger theme of activism and agency. Make an original argument that ties them all together. To argue for something, you need to first argue against something. Activism is something we all admire (or denigrate) in society, but how is it tied to agency, the ability to shape one’s own life? Do people who have no/little agency have recourse to activism? Does activism deliver or provide much agency? Use themes and materials from the second part of quarter to discuss the activism/agency dyad. Theme 1: racism, sexualiTY, internationalism racism, sexualiTY, internationalism Use the reading “queering the color line within the color” Theme 2: Palestine, activism, geopolitics Use the reading “spirit in opposition” Theme 3: coloniality, authoritarianism, aesthetics Use the reading “Enmeshment aesthetics” USE QUOTES FROM THE 3 FILES OF THE READINGS THAT I ATTACHED. CITE PAGE NUMBERS AND CITE IN MLA FORMAT. DONT USE AI.
Agency from the Margins
-
How is activism tied to agency and self-determination?,
-
Can individuals with little or no agency still engage in activism?,
-
Does activism produce or enhance personal and collective agency?,
-
How do racism, sexuality and internationalism intersect with activism?,
-
What insights do Palestine and colonial aesthetics offer on activism?
General Comprehensive Answer:
Constructing Agency Through Activism: Resistance from the Margins
In societies marked by entrenched systems of oppression—racial, sexual, geopolitical, and aesthetic—agency is not a given. It is not evenly distributed, nor is it guaranteed by citizenship or visibility. For the marginalized, activism is often not an expression of preexisting power but a method of forging it. To argue that activism stems from agency overlooks how, historically and presently, activism arises in spaces of constraint, silence, and surveillance. Drawing from themes of racialized sexuality, stateless Palestinian resistance, and subversive aesthetic practices under authoritarian regimes, this essay contends that activism is not the product of agency—it is its creator.
To begin, we must counter the liberal assumption that activism is only viable when individuals possess agency—that is, social capital, freedom of expression, or legal recognition. This view would exclude queer communities of color, stateless peoples, and artists in authoritarian states—yet history proves these are among the most active resisters. In Roderick Ferguson’s Queering the Color Line Within the Color, he critiques how the state and capital regulate which bodies are productive, and therefore “legible” within the sociopolitical order (Ferguson 4). This regulation marginalizes queer people of color, marking them as deviant and stripping them of normative agency. Yet through transnational activism and radical cultural practices, these communities reclaim agency by refusing normative legibility. Ferguson writes, “Queer of color critique arises as a way to challenge dominant modes of racial and sexual governance” (6). In other words, when formal agency is denied, activism becomes a means of self-authorship.
This pattern extends globally, as illustrated by Palestinian activism. In Spirit in Opposition, the authors examine how Palestinian identity itself is forged in resistance to occupation and displacement. Without a recognized state, Palestinians operate in a constant condition of disenfranchisement. Yet it is precisely this absence of agency that gives rise to innovative and resilient forms of activism. Cultural resistance—such as poetry, music, and storytelling—emerges as a political force. The essay notes, “When Palestinians sing their losses, draw their past, or narrate their exile, they create a memory that resists erasure” (Spirit in Opposition 12). Here, activism does not require institutional support; instead, it generates collective memory and identity, serving as a form of reclaimed agency. The
Agency from the Margins