ABSTRACT
This chapter is written by two racialized professors: Andrew B. Campbell who is Jamaican-Canadian and Ardavan Eizadirad who is Iranian-Canadian. Reflecting and sharing our identities and experiences via duoethnography and from a critical race theory paradigm, we argue that there is no such thing as a safe space. We outline and theorize brave spaces as a counternarrative to safe spaces to facilitate unlearning and promote risk-taking to challenge systemic oppression. We explore how to cultivate brave spaces to take risks to challenge oppression. The term cultivate emphasizes intentionality in how we do things and for what purposes, as brave spaces do not just happen by accident. Brave spaces encourage stepping outside of comfort bubbles via calculated risk-taking and sharing and embracing of vulnerabilities. Within brave spaces, storytelling is enacted as critical pedagogy to share pain, suffering, and trauma to disrupt the norm with intentionality. Although brave spaces encourage authentic raw conversations and truth-telling from multiple perspectives, it also involves navigating tensions, drama, and unexpected teachable moments rooted in differences in opinions and lived experiences. This is why it takes time to cultivate brave spaces with intentionality guided by love, respect, support, risk-taking, and reciprocity to foster trust and relationships to deconstruct tensions and emotions and harness collection action.
