ABSTRACT

But how is a young, middle-class, white woman going to recognize what she sees in that setting?

That worried query came from a thesis committee member as I submitted a proposal which outlined how I would (steadfastly) venture into a Canadian setting fraught with racial tension, social inequities, and historic injustices to do data collection. As fate would have it, before entering that setting, I took up a scholarship in Denmark and encountered Tove Skutnabb-Kangas at first hand. While I had ‘read’ her before meeting her, and was thus not unprepared for her work and attitudes, I did not know how deeply she held her convictions before meeting her. Through discussion and watching Tove in action as she championed minority causes and individuals, I came to appreciate her conviction, to learn from it, and to better ‘see’ inequities.