Voice Through Text, Tradition and Community

Abstract Employing autoethnography to examine two sets of texts, I present an understanding of voice politics. The first set includes all published addresses by CPSA presidents. In these texts, I identify dominant narratives about what political science is and who political scientists are. I also identify a tradition of some presidents expanding the discipline by giving voice to the marginalized and oppressed. The second set of texts comes from my family. Exploring several family stories reveals a disconnect between dominant concepts and themes within our discipline and experiences of human suffering, resistance and resilience. This disconnect clarifies my motivations for pursuing studies in political science and employing political science skills as acts of solidarity. Exploring these texts in parallel helps me clarify what, in my view, should be the fundamental concerns of political science: humans, their relationships of domination and subordination and the voices of those who suffer oppression and seek liberation.