Struggling for the anti-racist university: learning from an institution-wide response to curriculum decolonisation

Date

2021

Advisors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

ISSN

1356-2517

Volume Title

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Type

Article

Peer reviewed

Yes

Abstract

Increasingly, institutions are amplifying work on race equality, in order to engage with movements for Black lives and decolonising. This brings universities into relations with individual and communal issues of whiteness, white fragility and privilege, double and false consciousness, and behavioural code switching. Inside formal structures, built upon cultures and practices that have historical and material legitimacy, engaging with such issues is challenging. The tendency is to engage in formal accreditation, managed through engagement with established methodologies, risk management practices and data reporting. However, this article argues that the dominant articulation of the institution, which has its own inertia, which reinforces whiteness and dissipates radical energy, needs to be re-addressed in projects of decolonising. This situates the communal work of the institution against the development of authentic relationships as a movement of dignity.

Description

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.

Keywords

Black Lives Matter, critical race, decolonising, institutional change, whiteness, university

Citation

Hall, R., Connolly, P., Loonat, S., Patel, K., and Whitham, B. (2021) Struggling for the anti-racist university: learning from an institution-wide response to curriculum decolonisation. Teaching in Higher Education, Special Issue, Possibilities and complexities of decolonising higher education: critical perspectives on praxis.

Rights

Research Institute