Becoming both: “students” and “experts” of race in Australian higher education contexts
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to highlight how Black African academics who live and work under coloniality are systematically seen as “out of place” and how this positioning compounds their experiences of interpersonal and systemic marginalisation within predominantly white universities.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper that theorises the experiences of two Black African academics in Australian higher education. It takes a form of autoethnography, to demonstrate the intersectional barriers and setbacks within white academia that interact with gender, class and migranthood, potentially undermining their academic progression and/or professional well-being.
Findings
Black African academics in white-majority workplaces repeatedly report experiences of microaggressions, hyper-surveillance and epistemic Othering. This is characterised by research alienation, funding gaps and being passed over for promotion leading to feelings of exclusion and fractured belonging within academia.
Originality/value
The paper argues that while the Coloniality of Power within institutions of higher learning continues to racialise Black African academics as Other, the Coloniality of Knowledge marginalises their intellectual, theoretical and experiential perspectives and contributions. The power of Coloniality and white supremacy are implicated in the epistemic impositions, erasures and negations of the ontological legitimacy and contributions of Black academics in higher education institutions.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Statements and declarations.
Funding statement: The authors did not receive support from any organisation for the submitted work.
Competing interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
Financial interests: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organisation or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
Citation
Gatwiri, K. and Udah, H. (2024), "Becoming both: “students” and “experts” of race in Australian higher education contexts", Journal for Multicultural Education, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JME-12-2023-0139
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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