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Abstract
This article wants to contribute to the emerging debate on decolonisation in Belgian universities by sketching the challenges posed by critical decolonial analyses and how these affect both academic institutions and the individuals working within them. In the first section, I provide an overview of the main critiques formulated by postcolonial, feminist, and critical race theorists on issues of difference and diversity in the academy. Starting with the critiques voiced towards discourses of “diversity” - which has become the dominant paradigm to address “difference” and inequality in education - I continue by discussing the analyses developed by postcolonial, feminist, and critical race scholars that may provide an answer for the persistence of the “institutional wall” which - despite firm commitments to diversity - forestalls any real change or inclusivity of “other” bodies, perspectives, and knowledges. In the second part of the article, I reflect on the dilemmas that arise for scholars driven by feminist and postcolonial perspectives, but who work within those same academic environments that actively thwart the realisation of the ideals put forward in these critical traditions. By reflecting on what can actually be done within this restraining environment, I make a distinction between tactics and strategies which - although not immediately able to completely subvert an entrenched legacy of institutional oppression and exclusion - may inspire further discussion and activism and may contribute to weakening the wall currently forestalling transformational change.
... However, it is important to consider Belgium's colonial history in order to understand the relevance and importance of decolonizing higher education curricula in Flanders. Belgium would fit the colonization "type" of those who conquered/ invaded and returned to their homeland while maintaining control (Parson and Weise 2020), and this colonial past has only just begun to be recognized after decades of (documented) ignorance and denial (Withaeckx 2019). ...
... There is a lack of critical and systemic perspective in addressing and researching the underrepresentation of minority students. Rather, the focus is on individual characteristics or values and norms or other "gaps" in the profiles of these groups (Withaeckx 2019). ...
Colonization and coloniality have affected society in different dimensions: axiological (values), epistemological (knowledge), and ontological (understanding of one’s own reality); these dimensions can be seen from different perspectives (a dominant or non-dominant perspective) and reveal power relations among individuals. These dimensions, perspectives and power relations form in this paper the coloniality diagram which provides the basis for initiating a decolonization/decoloniality process in higher education in Flanders, Belgium. Together with the coloniality diagram, a series of steps/stages are presented in the Decolonizing the Academic Framework (DtAF): (1) Unlearning/Relearning, (2) Mourning and Acceptance, (3) Recentering Voices and Addressing Race, Gender and Class, (4) Reviewing Coloniality, (5) Imagining, (6) Committing, (7) Acting and (8) Reviewing Decoloniality. These stages are iterative, ongoing and adaptive. The DtAF aims to address the needs of decolonizing higher education through a structured model. It is a proposal based on empirical knowledge and available literature. In conclusion, this framework which has yet to be tested aims to generate ‘transclusive’ dialogue (transclusive: from the Latin prefix trans—meaning across plus the word inclusive) and consequently ‘transclusive education’. The latter is a pioneering concept that challenges the concept of inclusive education and aims to go beyond the concept of inclusivity.
... Dans les années 1980, dans un contexte global marqué par une hégémonie 4 européenne et nord-américaine blanche, patriarcale et par un capitalisme extractif globalisé, se font alors entendre des critiques plus vives des rapports de pouvoir à l'échelle globale interrogeant ceux-ci à l'intersection de la race 5 , de la classe et du genre (voir notamment Crenshaw, 1989 ;Collins, 1990 ;Collins/Bilge, 2020 ;Harrison, 2011 ;Lugones, 2008Lugones, , 2019. Les critiques féministes soulignent qu'indéniablement, l'univers académique est un espace normatif définissant quels sont les corps, les perspectives et les savoirs qui y sont légitimes (Butler, 2004 ;Withaeckx, 2019), la fabrique de la connaissance étant façonnée par des forces sociales (Collyer et al., 2019). Indépendamment des engagements institutionnels formels, elles démontrent à quel point cet univers académique est résistant, voire même hostile, à la diversité en tant qu'ensemble de pratiques à caractère politiques (Ahmed/Swan, 2006). ...
... En guise d'ouverture, bien que les milieux académiques soient des espaces d'exclusion raciale et genrée, ils recouvrent également un potentiel émancipateur et libérateur ouvrant sur des espaces d'opportunités, de développement individuel et de résistance collective (Heinemann/Castro Varela, 2017 ;Withaeckx, 2019). Ce dossier thématique entend donc aussi répondre à l'appel de Heinemann et Castro Varela (2017 :270) qui plaident pour «un abandon du désespoir» (an abandonment of hopelessness) et la construction d'un «espoir instruit» (a learned hope) par rapport à l'ensemble de ces enjeux dans la production des savoirs en contextes postcoloniaux. ...
... It was then that stronger critiques of power relations emerged on a global scale, interrogating the intersection of race 5 , class and gender (see in particular Crenshaw, 1989;Collins, 1990;Collins/Bilge, 2020;Harrison, 2011;Lugones, 2008). Acknowledging that social forces shape the making of knowledge (Collyer et al., 2019), feminist critics point out that the academic world is, undeniably, a normative space that defines which bodies, perspectives, and knowledge are legitimate (Butler, 2004;Withaeckx, 2019). Regardless of formal institutional commitments, they demonstrate how the academic world as a set of politically charged practices is resistant, even hostile, to diversity (Ahmed/Swan, 2006). ...
... By way of opening, although academia is a space of racial and gendered exclusion, it also holds an emancipatory and liberating potential that opens up spaces of opportunity, individual development, and collective resistance (Heinemann/Castro Varela, 2017;Withaeckx, 2019). Therefore, this special issue also intends to respond to Heinemann and Castro Varela's (2017:270) call for «an abandonment of hopelessness» and the construction of «a learned hope» in relation to these issues in the making of knowledge in postcolonial contexts. ...
... Belgian universities have not been spared from calls for decolonizing the university and the production of knowledge. Nevertheless, Sophie Withaeckx identified several challenges that may explain the relatively late emergence of these critical perspectives in the academic context, compared to other countries, which are linked to the Belgian context and university normativities 66 . The specific relationship between Belgium and race, as well as its colonial history -as discussed in the article -has led to ignorance, denial, and silence regarding race and colonization, as well as a lack of attention paid to critical voices. ...
The article’s initial point is to question the limited attention devoted to anti-racism and racial issues more broadly in Belgium, including in the field of migration studies. This inquiry allows for a critical exploration of the status of racial issues in a ‘post-racial’ and post-colonial Belgian society. Moreover, it examines the insights that anti-racist activism may provide regarding the underlying power dynamics of our society.
... These narratives tend to reproduce a deficit view of these students whose competencies in surviving institutional barriers and everyday racism remain overlooked (Gusa, 2010). As such, proposed solutions and strategies usually aim at the so-called cultural, linguistic, and academic deficiencies of racialized students who are described as vulnerable and disadvantaged in diversity action plans (Iverson, 2007;Withaeckx, 2019). Furthermore, the silence of university diversity policies on race and institutionalized racism makes it difficult to unpack the material impact of race on students (Adhikari-Sacré & Rutten, 2021;Bourabain & Verhaeghe, 2022). ...
This study focuses on how Belgian students of Turkish origin reflect on and resist inequities and racialized othering while attending a predominantly White university in the Flemish-speaking northern part of Belgium. Building on the insights of an antideficit framework, community cultural wealth (T. J. Yosso, 2005), the study demonstrates students’ knowledge, skills, and capital in navigating their racialized belonging in higher education and society. This research seeks to fill in the gaps in the literature by centralizing the experiences of marginalized students as valuable resources of knowledge and challenging the deficit framework that rationalizes inequities by blaming racialized ethnic minority communities as lacking capital to succeed within the education system. A qualitative approach comprising a critical counternarrative methodology was adopted to unpack the narratives of 20 undergraduate Turkish Belgian students. The findings suggest that Turkish Belgian youth are enacting their community cultural wealth in complex and interconnected ways by drawing on their cultural, linguistic, social, and familial capital to critique, make sense of, and resist everyday and institutional forms of racialization and reclaim their belonging. The counternarratives of students particularly highlight the key role of family and friends in helping them maneuver through structures of inequity and othering as well as their aspirations to making their families proud and contributing to community well-being. The implications for higher education practice include recognition of students’ resources and competencies within and outside classrooms and creating conceptual and physical spaces that affirm and amplify these.
... The latter additionally implies recognition of work (existing or new) without a desire or need for it to belong in dominant research. Reflecting on my position at a Belgian university, significant institutional walls need to be weakened to make way for such changes systematically (Withaeckx, 2019, or see Lorde, 2017. ...
... Subsequently, in South-Africa decolonization became a method in the actions against structural racism. What happened in South-Africa made its way to the U.K. and then to the Netherlands, France, and Belgium (Withaeckx 2019). ...
... Because individual researchers have limited power in the institutions of academia, decolonizing such institutions is probably the most difficult aspect for researchers to address in this call to action. However, researchers can use "tactics" such as epistemic disobedience to "gradually contribute to a weakening of the wall and open up possibilities for transformational change" (Withaeckx, 2019). Profound transformative change towards an equity-oriented gerontological research requires actions from powerful actors within both academia and funding bodies. ...
Population aging and international migration are two of the most critical social trends shaping the world today. As a result, scholars across the globe have begun to investigate how to better incorporate ethnicity into gerontological research. The integration of insights from life-course theory, post-colonial, and feminist theories have resulted in valuable attempts to tackle issues related to ethnicity and old age. Inspired by these bodies of research, this paper explores how decolonial perspectives can strengthen social gerontological research at the intersection of ethnicity and old age.
This theoretical paper advances four key insights drawn from decolonial perspectives that expose some current blind spots in gerontological research at the intersection of aging and ethnicity. Through a process of awareness and resistance decolonial perspectives reveal that: 1) colonial thinking is deeply embedded in research; 2) critical reflection about who is considered the “knower” in research is warranted; 3) alternative ways to generate, analyze, and publish knowledge exist; and 4) the places and systems of knowledge production are not neutral. To address these issues empirically, decolonial frameworks call us to actions that include decolonizing the conceptual underpinnings of the research enterprise, scholars themselves, research-in-action (through “epistemic disobedience”), and current knowledge systems and structures that reflect and reinforce colonialism. Potential applications of these insights are explored, but acknowledged as an essential first step on a nascent path.
This paper concludes by arguing that decolonial perspectives offer a more genuine gaze by demanding nuanced reflections of contemporary realities aging persons embodying the intersection of aging and ethnicity, like racialized older migrants and ethnic minorities, while simultaneously revealing how historically-rooted power hierarchies that are often invisible constrain their aging experiences.
... We live with an acute sense of irony that those of us who work on postcolonial and feminist perspectives do so 'within those same academic environments that actively thwart the realisation of the ideals put forward in these critical traditions'. 6 The academics most radical in their writings can also be the first to uphold the racist and hetero-patriarchal underpinnings of their institutions, siloed as they are within their ideological camps and defensive towards the systems which maintain their own privilege. ...
Decolonisation of the curriculum is a burgeoning yet controversial project of radical change, gaining slow but steady traction in higher education politics departments across the country. At its heart is the acknowledgement and systematic unravelling of colonial and imperial practices in the UK university system. This article pins down what decolonisation is and is not, highlighting the barriers and tentative opportunities to effective decolonisation work. This is discussed in the context of the structural constraints that critical scholars of race—particularly those at the intersection of marginalised racial and gender identities—work against in the academy.
Based on collaborative research and reflections on media depictions, marketplace experiences, and Black life in Belgium and Britain, this article embraces Black joy, while critiquing societal demands and (re)presentations of it. Informed by scholarship on racialised emotions, Black interiority, and Black emotional epistemologies, we analyse how the idea of “Black joy” has been (re)presented in media in ways connected to racialised, classed, and national discourses of “we-ness” during the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis. By analysing public (re)presentations of Black people, we critically consider how “Black joy” becomes “Black JoyTM” – a defanged expression, enabling brand advertising by tapping into the racial and capitalist politics of marketable and mediated Black emotions and intimacy. We ask, “when, how, and why are the everyday emotions and experiences of Black people (re)presented by contemporary marketplace institutions as joyful?”. Consequently, we theorise the relationship between Black joy, crises, and forms of Belgian and British advertising and media.
This article examines Afro-Belgian resistance to sociological research procedures and in particular, the way in which demands for compensation and citation policies have recently emerged as a sine qua non activist condition for participation in academic devices. Grounded on a long-term ethnography conducted within Afro-Belgian anti-racist circles (2011–2019), the article argues that activist resistances, whether or not they give rise to political claims, have something to do with the colonial engagement of sociology and more generally of science. Building on postcolonial/black/feminist studies and decolonial indigenous research, the article explores to what extent, academic politics of citation and compensation of anti-racist activists could then be considered as decolonial interventions. Against the background of research involving groups whose activism is intrinsically linked to a political and epistemic domination, the paradigm of ‘protection’ of the ‘researched’ (through procedures of anonymization) is not only insufficient but problematic. Decolonial intervention should not only be addressed under the lens of knowledge co-production (participative/decolonial/anti-racist research) but also in terms of co-ownership policies of data/knowledges.
This article focuses on Black women in and beyond Belgian mainstream media. It discusses media practices and interventions by Black women in Belgium and examines the discourses that Black women use when engaging with the topics of coloniality, racism, and blackness. Drawing from semi-structured interviews (N = 20) with Black women in Belgium, this article provides insight into who speaks, what is spoken about, and who is spoken to in Black women’s media discourses. In doing so, three frames of engagement are distinguished: opinion-making, dissidence, and marronage. Data shows that Black women are positioned and framed in public debate by media institutions to perform a proximity to radical Black activism. Additionally, Black women’s anti-racist discourses and strategies diverge in ways that creates tensions in the way they reflect on their (sense of) agency in regard to media institutions. Moreover, Belgium’s colonial legacy influences the media landscape and public engagement in the French- and Dutch-speaking regions of Belgium in different ways. Where Dutch-speaking Belgium positions itself as progressive by including Black “radical” voices, French-speaking Belgium averts critical Black voices in mainstream media and public debate which, in turn, leads to innovative, radical, grass-roots mobilizations among Black women in and beyond digital media.
The PhD dissertation explored: 1) a multilayered image of the dementia experience and dementia care provision among labor migrant families, and 2) methodological pathways to contribute to more ethical research involving this population. The findings of this dissertation are based on five studies.
The findings show that the experience of dementia and the dementia care trajectory is defined by the intersectional social position of older labor migrants and their families, inviting us to move beyond the binary division between migrants and non-migrants with “having a different culture” as the division line. This while recognizing the impact of having a migration background, a non-normative culture and
religion on care provision. The current dementia care is provided by a complex and dynamic transnational network of informal and formal caregivers that also includes alternative care forms.
This picture of care provision is sought by family caregivers as an answer to their unmet care needs: A “complexity-sensitive person-centered responsive care” considers the multilayered identity of the older migrant with dementia. This reflects individual and structural professional care gaps to provide inclusive dementia care. Understanding this complexity can advance the provision of better dementia care for older migrants with dementia. Therefore, a new conceptual lens to examine dementia care for a diverse population is suggested.
This dissertation also contributes to the debate on how to conduct ethical research on dementia among older migrants by moving away from the culturalist frame where it is currently embedded with biased and narrow assumptions about this population as a result. This dissertation suggests therefore a further exploration of decolonial frameworks as compass for an ethical gerontological research praxis: a praxis that engages us into a process of awareness of and resistance to the historically rooted coloniality of mind in our own knowledge production.
Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden in einem ersten Schritt mögliche Verschränkungen von institutionalisiertem Rassismus und Ableismus erläutert, um die Kontingenz sozialer Ungleichheitsverhältnisse mittels intersektionaltätstheoretischer Perspektive zu reflektieren. In einem weiteren Schritt werden Implikationen einer wechselseitigen Betrachtung der beiden Diskriminierungs- und Ausgrenzungsverhältnisse, sowohl für die deutschsprachige Intersektionalitätsforschung an der Schnittstelle Behinderung und Migration/Flucht als auch für die sozialpädagogische Praxis, herausgearbeitet. Um nicht bei der Problematisierung bestehender Ungleichheits- und Diskriminierungsverhältnisse stehen zu bleiben, werden abschließend theoretische Überlegungen zum Konvivialismus als potenzieller Ausweg aus der meritokratischen Leistungsgesellschaft erläutert.
The coronavirus pandemic is the most challenging health emergency in generations, as it has already impacted on the capacities of health infrastructures and is dramatically affecting the local and global economy. Since the global spread of the pandemic, the importance of social distancing as well as the hygiene measures for self-protection and protection of other persons has been enforced, to reduce the rapid spread of the coronavirus. However, these ever-more restrictive protection measures are often not feasible for many, especially marginalized and subaltern groups in the Global South, as state-funded social security systems are very limited there. Therefore, it is not surprising that these developments pose a huge socioeconomic threat as well as potential for social and political unrest, especially to those communities living in already politically fragile and precarious situations in countries such as Ethiopia. Developing Santos’s understanding of social work epistemologies of the South’ and based on a small-scale explorative qualitative study in cooperation with Addis Ababa University, this chapter highlights the impact of historical postcolonial inequalities as well as contemporary political conflicts on the agency of Ethiopian Social and Community Workers as well as their perspectives regarding the multiple crises they confront.
Download the full special issue here: https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/13883186/21/1
Actual hegemonic structures are imperial structures. They rely on the oppression and marginalisation of all of those who are produced and marked as the Other . Considering the profound impact of the epistemic violence that was deployed to build empires, it comes as no surprise that, to be able to decolonise the university, it will not be enough to change the curricula, to challenge the canon, to employ ‘diversity officers’, or to make the classroom more inclusive. Instead, this contribution proposes a deconstruction of the university and pleas for unlearning as a strategy that aims towards an epistemic change. Furthermore, in a deliberate attempt to save the unsalvageable ‐ the European university ‐ we call for the respelling of hopelessness.
This article discusses the epistemic racism/sexism that is foundational to the knowledge structures of the Westernized University. The article proposes that the epistemic priviledge of Western Man in Westenized Universities' structures of knowledge, is the result of four genocides/epistemicides in the long 16th century (against Jewish and Muslim origin population in the conquest of Al-Andalus, against indigenous people in the conquest of the Americas, against Africans kidnapped and enslaved in the Americas and against women burned alive accused of being witches in Europe). The article proposes that Dussel´s argument in the sense that the condition of possibility for the mid-17th century Cartesian "I think, therefore I am" (ego cogito) is the 150 years of "I conquer, therefor I am" (ego conquiro) is historically mediated by the genocide/epistemicide of the "I exterminate, therefore I am" (ego extermino). The "I exterminate" as the socio-historical structural mediation between the "I think" and the "I conquer".
What about diversity and inclusion at the University of Amsterdam? In this report the Diversity Commission presents the study they conducted between March and September 2016. Based on qualitative and quantitative results we develop recommendations on how to make the University more inclusive, on how to further diversify staff and student body, to develop an inclusive language, and be more sensitive to the social and political context of research and teaching.
This chapter argues that multilingual education is not the only way of responding to language diversity at school; indeed, the large number of home languages present in many schools means that it is impossible to implement traditional modes of bi- and multilingual education. We begin by distinguishing between the multilingualism of educational elites, which involves languages that enjoy a high degree of cultural prestige, and the multilingualism of children from immigrant homes, whose languages are often felt to have no educational value. We then consider the arguments advanced in favour of monolingual and multilingual educational models. Proponents of the monolingual model believe that children from immigrant backgrounds should be immersed in the language of schooling; home languages have no role to play at school because they are seen as obstacles to effective acquisition of the majority language. Proponents of bilingual models, on the other hand, argue that education partly in the pupil’s home language provides a more effective basis for learning the language of schooling than immersion, enhances pupils’ self-esteem, and helps to preserve immigrant languages. A review of empirical research shows that there is no knock-down argument in favour of one particular model of language education; clearly, no single model can possibly suit all contexts. We propose that there are three strategies for responding to linguistic diversity at school: a constructive language policy; raising language awareness; and facilitating functional multilingual learning. This last is conceptualised as an alternative to the binary opposition between monolingual and multilingual education: a new pedagogical approach that exploits children’s plurilingual repertoires as didactic capital for learning.
Abstract Long absent from the scholarly literature, Congolese migration to Belgium now occupies a greater place in academic research. Nevertheless the various disciplinary approaches undertaken and the many topics of interest explored have not exhausted the complexity of this diaspora, too often the object of prejudice in popular opinion and public policies. The position of “the Congolese issue” in the academic world is thus rarely problematized due to confusion over how to categorize the Congo and the Congolese – either as ‘Africa,’ ‘Central Africa,’ ‘Sub-Sahara,’ etc. This reflects a ‘geography of the Other’ that significantly confounds current social processes at work in Belgium and the particularity of this (post)migratory situation. Grounded in empirical research, this issue in moving beyond merely highlighting a relatively marginalized group in Belgian Migration Studies, is focusing on the postcolonial stakes of the Congolese presence in Belgium. The authors take different viewpoints to explore the place of the Congolese in the former metropole and the forms of marginalization they face. The everyday life, the state regulations and the dynamics of identity are then various lens to bring to light the racial logics at work in the Belgian multiculturalism.
Houdaille Jacques - Reconstitution des familles de Saint-Domingue (Haiti) au xvine siecle Cette etude corrige les resultats d'un article publie en 1963 sur trois paroisses du sud de Saint-Domingue. Elle s'appuie, en outre, sur un nombre beaucoup plus eleve d'observations (11 paroisses). Le mariage est tardif chez les hommes, surtout chez les natifs de France (33 ans environ, contre 29 ans chez les Creoles). Chez les femmes, il augmente fortement entre le debut et la fin du xvnie siecle, passant de 19 a 22 ans. La fecondite ne peut etre estimee qu'approximativement car tous les enfants n'etaient pas baptises au lendemain de leur naissance. Elle semble avoir ete assez forte, ce qui va a rencontre des idees recues a l'epoque. La mortalite des adultes nous echappe, car les deces n'etaient pas tous enregistres, celle des enfants etait probablement un peu moins forte qu'en France. Cette particularite peut s'expliquer par le niveau d'instruction relativement eleve de la population blanche.
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Background: Universities continue to undertake a range of initiatives to combat inequities and build diverse, inclusive campuses. Diversity action plans are a primary means by which U.S. postsecondary institutions articulate their professed commitment to an inclusive and equitable climate for all members of the university and advance strategies to meet the challenges of an increasingly diverse society.
Purpose: To examine, using critical race theory, how discourses of diversity, circulating in educational policies, reflect and produce particular realities for people of color on university campuses.
Data Collection and Analysis: Data were collected from 20 U.S. land-grant universities. Line-by-line analysis, employing inductive and deductive coding strategies, was conducted to identify images of diversity and the problems and solutions related to diversity as represented in 21 diversity action plans generated throughout a 5-year period (1999-2004).
Findings: Analysis reveals four predominant discourses shaping images of people of color: access, disadvantage, marketplace, and democracy. These discourses construct images of people of color as outsiders, at-risk victims, commodities, and change agents. These discourses coalesce to produce realities that situate people of color as outsiders to the institution, at risk before and during participation in education, and dependent on the university for success in higher education. Using critical race theory as an analytic framework, this article aims to enhance understanding about how racial inequality is reproduced through educational policies.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that well-intentioned attempts to create a more inclusive campus may unwittingly reinforce practices that support exclusion and inequity.
Academic culture is not uniformly accessed or experienced. Whilst financial constraints have a major impact on student entry and retention, students from 'non-traditional' backgrounds are also disadvantaged by institutional cultures that place them as 'other'. Individuals do not passively receive these cultural discourses, however, but actively engage with them and attempt to challenge them. This article explores such negotiations by looking at students' conceptions of 'belonging' and 'isolation' at a post-1992 university with a statistically high proportion of 'non-traditional' students in terms of class, maturity and ethnicity. It looks at: the extent to which such students can challenge their positioning as 'other' by choosing a university where they feel they can 'belong'; the extent to which institutional academic cultures work to constrain and disrupt such feelings of 'belonging'; the adoption of alternative discourses of the student-lecturer/student-institution relation, and the extent to which such discourses can challenge feelings of isolation and marginalisation in the academy.
Although many predominantly white universities exert great effort to recruit minority students, statistics regarding retention and graduation for these students are disturbing. Previous research indicates that academic concerns are not paramount in the attrition of minority students, suggesting that greater attention must be given educational experiences of black students over and above academic matters. Using in-depth phenomenological interviewing, 11 graduating seniors from diverse majors were asked to describe salient incidents of their university experience. These interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to hermeneutic interpretation by an interdisciplinary research group. Dominant in student descriptions of their experiences were five themes: (1) "It happens every day": Unfairness/Sabotage/Condescension; (2) "You have to initiate the conversation"; (3) "They seem the same; I'm the one who's different"; (4) "I have to prove I'm worthy to be here"; and (5) "Sometimes I'm not even here/Sometimes I have to represent every black student": Invisibility and Supervisibility.
The effects of membership in ethnic organizations and fraternities and sororities on intergroup attitudes were examined using a 5-wave panel study at a major, multiethnic university. The results showed that these effects were similar for both minority and White students. Membership in ethnic student organizations for minorities and Greek organizations for Whites was anteceded by the degree of one's ethnic identity, and the effects of membership in these groups were similar, although not identical, for both White and minority students. These effects included an increased sense of ethnic victimization and a decreased sense of common identity and social inclusiveness. Consistent with social identity theory, at least a portion of these effects were mediated by social identity among both White and minority students.
This article reviews two decades of work carried out at the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds in the area of racism and higher education. It introduces key issues and themes in this field and also identifies a seven-point agenda for action. This article provides an overview and agenda-setting account of the theoretical and policy innovations developed by this research team, which provide a contextual background for this volume as a whole. Historical recognition of the role of universities as key sites for the production of racialised knowledge across a range of intellectual fields is an essential starting point. We urge promotion of fundamental de-racialisation and de-colonisation of the academy. This cannot be achieved by self-regulation by the sector or by the setting of minimum legal requirements, it requires strong political, institutional and intellectual leadership, alliance-building and mobilisation.
What does diversity do? What are we doing when we use the language of diversity? Sara Ahmed offers an account of the diversity world based on interviews with diversity practitioners in higher education, as well as her own experience of doing diversity work. Diversity is an ordinary, even unremarkable, feature of institutional life. Yet diversity practitioners often experience institutions as resistant to their work, as captured through their use of the metaphor of the "brick wall." On Being Included offers an explanation of this apparent paradox. It explores the gap between symbolic commitments to diversity and the experience of those who embody diversity. Commitments to diversity are understood as "non-performatives" that do not bring about what they name. The book provides an account of institutional whiteness and shows how racism can be obscured by the institutionalization of diversity. Diversity is used as evidence that institutions do not have a problem with racism. On Being Included offers a critique of what happens when diversity is offered as a solution. It also shows how diversity workers generate knowledge of institutions in attempting to transform them.
Winner of a Susan Koppelman Award, Women's Caucus of the Popular and American Culture Associations
Ingrid Gogolin, Universität Hamburg
The Challenge of Superdiversity in Europe.
Education Inquiry
Vol. 2, No. 2, May 2011, pp.239–249
Abstract
How does, and how should education in a social and democratic society react on societal change? These questions, according to my reading, is a red thread through Lisbeth Lundahl’s research agenda and publications. Her research is imbedded in the context of the Swedish social welfare state and the transitions towards a stronger market orientation. She strives to analyse the consequences of these developments not least for children and youth at risk – in Sweden as well as in a broader European context (Lundahl 2002; Lundahl 2007). Our research interests meet at that point. My own work is concerned with the question: which features of the education systems on one hand, of a specific selection of pupils on the other hand, contribute to the effect of lasting inequality in many European education systems. The focus of my research is on children and youth from immigrant minorities. One guiding question of this work is the following: How does the conceptualization of ‘normality’ in a society and her schools contribute to the educational disadvantage of students, namely those from immigrant minorities – a group, that is especially ‘at risk’ in so many education systems?
In my contribution to the Festschrift, I will offer some thought on this question. The starting point of my considerations concerns the fact that diversity of languages and cultural heritages in a society is in many countries still regarded as ‘exceptional’. A brief inspection of demographic and social reality shows, however, that (not only) due to migration, cultural and linguistic diversity is a general feature of societies in Europe and elsewhere in the World. Educational systems, however, are still based on the assumption of homogeneity as normality in a (school) population. Thus, they make difference look like disadvantage, or in worst case: turn difference into disadvantage.
For the moment, I focus my considerations to a description of observations concerning the German education system. A comparative analysis of these and the Swedish system could be wise, as the policies for migrants in education were for a long time much more welcoming and caring in the Swedish welfare state than they were in the German speaking countries of Europe. Sweden officially promoted an extensive integration policy – including precautions fostering bilingualism and bilingual education. Does this also indicate a different view on diversity, and especially: a different concept of ‘the normal pupil’ in a diverse society? – I conclude my contribution with a sketch of a comparative research perspective that could seek answers to this question. A respective project was discussed, but not realized yet; it would be more than a pleasure to take the initiative up again together with Lisbeth Lundahl – not least because of her excellent insights on the difference between political rhetoric and actual practise of education.
Superdiversity is among the latest theories of diaspora cultural identities from the Global North inspired by the failures and limitations of multiculturalist social policies of the twentieth century. This paper addresses the question to what extent do theoretical suppositions of superdiversity constitute a genuine and radical departure from the logics of multiculturalism. The paper concludes that superdiversity suffers from the same limitations that prompted the rejection and ultimate demise of previous theories such as multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. Like multiculturalism and other similar theories that have tried to grapple with questions of diaspora cultures and identities, superdiversity reinforces the same ideas that it purports to question and challenge – namely, the tendency to homogenize cultural and social groups, and the uncritical embrace of elitist neoliberal conceptualizations of culture and identity.
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In this conceptual paper, Diane Gusa highlights the salience of race by scrutinizing the culture of Whiteness within predominately White institutions of higher education. Using existing research in higher education retention literature, Gusa examines embedded White cultural ideology in the cultural practices, traditions, and perceptions of knowledge that are taken for granted as the norm at institutions of higher education. Drawing on marginalization and discrimination experiences of African American undergraduates to illustrate the performance of White mainstream ideology, Gusa names this embedded ideology White institutional presence (WIP) and assigns it four attributes: White ascendancy, monoculturalism, White estrangement, and White blindness.
Universities, like many major public institutions, have embraced the notion of ‘diversity’ virtually uncritically – it is seen as a moral good in itself. But what happens to those who come to represent ‘diversity’ – the black and minority ethnic groups targeted to increase the institutions’ thirst for global markets and aversion to accusations of institutional racism? Drawing on existing literature which analyses the process of marginalisation in higher education, this article explores the individual costs to black and female academic staff regardless of the discourse on diversity. However, despite the exclusion of staff, black and minority ethnic women are also entering higher education in relatively large numbers as students. Such grass-roots educational urgency transcends the dominant discourse on diversity and challenges presumptions inherent in top-down initiatives such as widening participation. Such a collective movement from the bottom up shows the importance of understanding black female agency when unpacking the complex dynamics of gendered and racialised exclusion. Black women's desire for education and learning makes possible a reclaiming of higher education from creeping instrumentalism and reinstates it as a radical site of resistance and refutation.
Belgium recently celebrated a number of major anniversaries related to its colonial history. This coincides with great societal interest in the Congo and the appearance of an abundance of new books. Strikingly, the prior decade's debates over Leopold II's ‘genocide’ and the assassination of Lumumba appeared to be over. Instead, there was great nostalgia for the Belgian Congo. A single and less critical narrative dominated, epitomized by David Van Reybrouck's bestseller on Congolese history and by the sustained monopoly of Leopold II monuments. This situation drastically contrasts with the postcolonial memory in neighbouring countries, particularly the Netherlands. The Belgian particularity can be explained by the Belgian identity crisis following the rise of Flemish nationalism and the years of government negotiation. But it should also be accounted for by the absence of counter-voices and viewpoints. The traditional left-wing criticism of postcolonial triumphalism was limited to Internet publications that were given scant attention by a broader readership. Academic historians published extensively on the Congo, but embarked on ‘new imperial history’ and avoided debate. There was no opposition from another traditionally critical angle: scholars in the former colony or postcolonial migrants in the former metropole. Congolese historians were only marginally given the floor – not a single one has been translated into Dutch – and Belgium has the smallest postcolonial immigration of all former colonial empires. Only since the 1990s has it allowed greater numbers of Congolese within its borders. These immigrants, and particularly the second generation, are gradually becoming more vocal. Anthropologists and artists, who may be an avant-garde of new postcolonial debate, accompany them.
Hegemonic "norms of recognition" determine what can be read, heard and understood as legible. Intelligibility is deeply linked to survival, whereby the very possibility of life depends on being recognized as a legitimate subject. At the heart of critical ethico-political practices is the politics of representation, that is to say, speaking for and speaking about those who cannot speak for themselves. This paper seeks to address the challenge of representation and the problematic role of the (postcolonial) feminist who attempts to recover and represent the perspectives of those who are illegible and unintelligible within hegemonic frameworks and thereby rendered ethically, politically and rhetorically illegitimate.
This paper examines various components which constitute the “chilly climate” for women in universities and argues that such behaviours and institutional practices must be understood as forms of violence against women. The instances of violence against women on campus are connected to each other because each incident represents men's attempts to socially control women through force, coercion, abuse, and silencing.
American racism and discrimination continue to plague our institutions of higher education. Predominantly white law school environments are especially notable for being inhospitable and unfriendly. Many law students of color create and join race/ethnic-specific organizations in order to receive support on otherwise unwelcoming campuses. While many students view these groups as a safe space that provides a buffer from the rest of law school life, others worry that these organizations may increase segregation. When considered through a lens of structural inequality and privilege, we see that “exclusion” may have different meanings and outcomes based on the relative racial hierarchy of the groups involved. My research utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data to better understand how what some consider “self-segregation” may be necessary for creating safe space.
This paper examines some of the problems and paradoxes of embodying diversity for organisations. With reference to a research project based on interviews with diversity practitioners, as well as personal experience of working within universities as a Black feminist, this paper explores how diversity becomes a commitment that requires that those who embody that diversity express happiness and gratitude. Our very arrival into organisations is used as evidence that the whiteness of which we speak no longer exists. Most importantly to embody diversity can mean to be under pressure not to speak about racism. The very talk about racism is seen as introducing bad feeling into organisations. Drawing on the work of bell hooks and Audre Lorde, the paper argues that we need to reclaim the figure of the angry Black feminist, and that we need to refuse the injunction to be happy objects for the organisation, which means being willing to cause trouble and being prepared to stay as sore as our points.
On the basis of direct experience in the Dutch university system, the author analyses the ways in which knowledge about ethnic minorities—so-called “minority research”—has been hegemonized by dominant elites who view minorities as problem populations and seek to manage minority problems in such a way as to minimize them and never question their own domination nor the historical heritage of colonialism and slavery. He describes several initiatives undertaken—mainly outside the university—by minority groups to re-examine race and ethnic relations and the history of slavery and abolition, including the National Platform on the Legacy of Slavery, the National Institute for the study of Dutch slavery and its Legacy (NiNsee), and the Black Europe Summer School.
This paper problematizes gender and racial sameness in higher education, in particular among the gatekeepers of academic knowledge. It seeks to re-conceptualize discrimination against women in higher education in terms of preferences for, that is, practices sustaining imagined male homogeneity. The notion of cultural cloning is used to account for the persistence of the idealized image of the full professor as masculine, white, European.
CR: The New Centennial Review 3.3 (2003) 257-337
In this incisive book, Michel de Certeau considers the uses to which social representation and modes of social behavior are put by individuals and groups, describing the tactics available to the common man for reclaiming his own autonomy from the all-pervasive forces of commerce, politics, and culture. In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws brilliantly on an immense theoretical literature to speak of an apposite use of imaginative literature.
The hiring of women of colour faculty is not without unwritten presuppositions. We are expected to draw from cultural experience in catering to students of colour or when it fulfils institutional needs such as bringing ‘colour’ to all-white committees. Yet, the normative profile of university teachers demands detachment with a focus on high output in terms of students and publications. In the light of this, commitment to social justice seems in (certain) disagreement with mainstream interpretations of the academic profession. This article addresses how this dilemma is worked out in teacher-student relations.
Discrimination against women in public sector organisations has been the focus of considerable research in recent years. While much of this literature acknowledges the structural basis of gender inequality, strategies for change are often focused on anti-discrimination policies, equal employment opportunities and diversity management.Discriminatory behaviour is often individualised in these interventions and the larger systems of dominance and subordination are ignored. The flipside of gender discrimination, we argue, is the privileging of men. The lack of critical interrogation of men’s privilege allows men to reinforce their dominance. In this paper we offer an account of gender inequalities and injustices in public sector institutions in terms of privilege. The paper draws on critical scholarship on men and masculinities and an emergent scholarship on men’s involvement in the gender relations of workplaces and organisations, to offer both a general account of privilege and an application of this framework to the arena of public sector institutions and workplaces in general.<br /
All radicalisation is local”: The genesis and drawbacks of an elusive concept (Egmont Paper No. 84). Brussels: Egmont-Royal Institute for International Relations
- R Coolsaet
Designs and (co)incidents. Cultures of scholarship and public policy on immigrants/minorities in the Netherlands
- P Essed
- K Nimako
Tegen radicalisering. Pleidooi voor een postkoloniaal Europa
- N Fadil
The undercommons. Fugitive planning and black study
- S Harney
- F Moten
Women in academia crossing North-South borders. Gender, race and displacement
- R Icaza
The production of space
- H Lefebvre