SEASON THEME: Colonisation, Coloniality and Whiteness in the Academy
Led by Dr Thushari Welikala, St. George’s, University of London, UK & facilitated by Prof Carola Boehm, Staffordshire University, UK
Hosted by Carola Boehm, the International Society for Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education organising virtual social meets, where we come together and chat informally about topics around current challenges for Higher Education and for our Higher Education Futures.
Homepage is at https://pathes.org/pathes-online-social-meets-season-4/
SEASON THEME: Colonisation, Coloniality and Whiteness in the Academy
Led by Dr Thushari Welikala, St. George’s, University of London, UK & facilitated by Prof Carola Boehm, Staffordshire University, UK
Season 4 Online Social Meets focus on how the continuing processes of colonisation, coloniality and whiteness are being utilised by the geo-political Centres to create a particular type of ‘global’ higher education. Colonisation and coloniality are processes that perpetuate the hegemony and the supremacy of whiteness within higher education systems across contexts. Whiteness reflects a set of “narrative structural positions, rhetorical tropes and habits of perception” (Dyer, 1997, p. 12) that enable power structures to continue different forms of coloniality of knowing within higher education institutions, despite the absence of white bodies (Shahjahan and Edwards, 2021).
Audre Lorde (2007) identifies whiteness as a mythical norm that enforces the supremacy of whiteness over others’ life and thought, maintaining the core of white dominance brought on by colonization and enslavement. Whiteness, as the colonial superstructure (Quijano, 2000), operates within current higher education under the guise of global university rankings, globalisation, internationalisation and projects on decolonisation and inclusion, shaping our social and educational imaginary and futurity through colonial ontologies and epistemologies (Christian, 2019).
The global higher education magnifies white supremacy through racial neo-liberalisation, capitalism and competition, constructing particular values and beliefs about what is meant by learning, teaching and Being human. In question here is, how the often invisible and uncontested whiteness moulds the social- cultural and intellectual imaginaries within higher education and their impact on the process of maintaining and continuing the coloniality of knowing, supressing alternative ways of perceiving the world.
References
Christian, M. (2019). A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep and Malleable Whiteness. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2019, 5(2) 169–185
Dyer, R. (1997). White. Routledge.
Lorde, A. (2007). An Open Letter to Mary Daly, in Sister Outsider. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, pp.57-62.
Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3), 533–580.
Shahjahan, R. A. and Edwards, K. T. (2021). Whiteness as futurity and globalization of higher education, Higher Education 10.1007/s10734-021-00702-x
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