The Sociology of Dilemma in the Case of White Allyship

Abstract

Studies of “allyship”—a sociopolitical phenomenon in which members of social majorities attempt to participate in movements that counteract their own social dominance—routinely acknowledge that allyship confronts its practitioners with characteristic and often serious challenges. This study, based on in‐depth interviews with white activists in the antiracism movement, looks intentionally and non‐evaluatively at the difficulties that many allies commonly experience. Through an analysis of allies' reflections on their difficulties, I propose a theorization of allyship that advances a sociology of dilemma, which attends to modes of social life marked and defined by confrontations between irreconcilable complexes of interest.