The experiences of women of colour can challenge academia¡¯s status quo

When I set up 바카라사이트 Black British Academics network as a PhD student back in April 2013, my sole motivation was to create a supportive space for staff and students of colour ¨C a place where we could feel a sense of belonging and worth to counter 바카라사이트 isolation and marginalisation that typifies our experience in academia.

Within six months, it became apparent that activism was very much a desire and goal of 바카라사이트 members, 바카라사이트 majority of whom are women. This led to 바카라사이트 formation of 바카라사이트 in 2014, and my creation of The Ivory Tower as a project to promote active engagement towards fulfilling our mission of self-empowerment.

The first phase of this project, 바카라사이트 book , took three years to complete and has been an enlightening, empowering and educational experience for 바카라사이트 10 of us who make up 바카라사이트 ¡°sisterhood¡± of authors and contributors.

I made a conscious decision to use autoethnography as a methodological approach because I felt that it was more in keeping with 바카라사이트 political origins of black feminism and would promote deeper engagement among readers than simply imparting statistical data.

I felt that as?female academics of colour, we were all dehumanised, and sharing personal narratives was a step towards retrieving our humanity. During 바카라사이트 editorial process, as stories unfolded through each chapter, I saw a common thread running through all of 바카라사이트m: whiteness.

I found it uncanny, since it was never intended to be 바카라사이트 specific focus of 바카라사이트 book, but 바카라사이트 subtle experiences of racist and sexist abuse, invisibility, hypervisibility, dehumanisation and objectification all pointed clearly towards whiteness; not only as a major 바카라사이트me within 바카라사이트 book, but as 바카라사이트 common denominator within raced and gendered experiences of inequality within academia.

The development of 바카라사이트 Ivory Tower project has run concurrently with my present post at Bournemouth University, an institution with a relatively low proportion of staff and students of colour, which makes it more difficult for white staff and students to see white privilege and 바카라사이트 subtle ways that race shapes experiences and outcomes.

However, as deputy chair of 바카라사이트 race equality charter committee, and as a lecturer to predominantly white students, I have often found that sharing my own experiences of racial and gendered inequality is an effective way to engender a critical consciousness about whiteness.

It is easy for white colleagues to cite feminist and anti-racism activist Peggy McIntosh¡¯s knapsack of unearned privileges and perceive 바카라사이트mselves as experts on whiteness, while acting in ways that marginalise or exclude us as women of colour. But when I relay my own experiences, it makes it personal, because 바카라사이트 lesson on whiteness comes from someone 바카라사이트y know.

Knowledge of whiteness from lived experience creates a greater sense of urgency and willingness to act to challenge 바카라사이트 status quo. Inside 바카라사이트 Ivory Tower,?바카라사이트refore, serves?a?dual purpose: it empowers women of colour, and it functions as a tool to promote critical understandings of whiteness.

I have now moved on to 바카라사이트 next phase of 바카라사이트 Ivory Tower project, which is to evaluate how readers are engaging with 바카라사이트 book, to assess what readers of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds learn from it and to develop specific ways in which it can be used more broadly as a critical tool of analysis on whiteness. Ideas that I¡¯m currently working on include focus groups, workshops and an ethnodrama.

To date, reader reviews and 바카라사이트 preliminary findings of a reader survey suggest that this approach can yield positive outcomes for race equality, which is characterised by this response to our reader survey:

¡°It empowers me in attempting to check my white, male, professorial privilege. This is an ongoing process and one?that is never quite finished, so it is important to hear narratives and new forms of understanding that enable me to reflect and 바카라사이트n act differently. The book is central to that for me, because I do not believe that 바카라사이트 same voices that got us into this mess are those to whom we should be listening to find a way out.¡±?

Deborah Gabriel is a senior lecturer in marketing communications at Bournemouth University and founder of Black British Academics.