I was asked tonight what is my passion and why am I involved in it by @KenChapman46. When I said community engagement, he responded by saying, “Don’t you think community engagement is a form of activism?”
I have never defined myself as an activist. But let me start by explaining why I love to connect with audiences or communities. When I worked as a journalist, I loved to write stories that would move people into acting or reacting around an issue. I use communication, even now as a volunteer and a full-time public relations practictioner, (if I may say so a bit politely) to get people off their butts and get involved.
Involvement means perhaps attending events that I may promote or swaying them to volunteer in the community league.
I’m not the type to be waving placards or jumping in with protesters to push an issue forward. If I am passionate about a cause or an issue, I will start by working on the communication strategies around it.
Ken’s comment also had me look up the definitions of an advocate and an activist. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary describes an advocate as “someone who recommends or supports by arguement a cause or a policy. Activism is a “vigourous action to support a cause”.
After looking at these definitions, I would say that how I am involved with community engagement is as an advocate. Ken would point out and say that I’m on my way to becoming an activist.
However, my passion still lies with overcoming the challenge of community engagement and pushing this engagement forward through communication. Define me as an advocate but I don’t think I’ll ever be an activist.
I agree with most of what you have written here, but I take exception with one thing: activism is much more than “waving placards or jumping gin with protesters.” Activism is exactly as defined in your post: “vigourous action to support a cause.” What that looks like can differ depending on the cause and activist(s) involved. It can be writing letters to the editor or government, organizing a teach-in to educate others on issues from a particular perspective, lobbying the government for change, online information campaigns (we see a lot of this on Facebook and Twitter), and yes, pickets and protests – all of which don’t just happen and require a lot of planning for everything from location and logistics to legal issues to sending our press releases to media. I would argue that as a result, those of us on the organizing side of activism also do a lot of advocacy as well, because of the extensive work we do (communications being a big part of this).
Let me look at it this way – I do a lot of my activism on Twitter, Facebook, and writing blog posts – with exactly the hopes of getting people to take action if they agree with the issue I am writing about. I also maintain websites for numerous non-profit/activist organizations. Am I less of an activist when I do that as when I am singing in front of a crowd at a rally about peace or the environment? Or giving a speech? What about when I am there but not in the crowd itself because I am running around taking pictures and video for posterity and educational purposes? It’s all activism.
I would say you are an activist to an extent – pushing people to get involved makes activists out of others, so by extension, so are you. And who knows? Maybe some day there will be a cause that moves you enough to vigourously support it!