I recently attended a Political Theology seminar. This movement has emerged, largely, through the Liberationist Theologians who have created power from the margins as we have challenged everything from decoloniality (imposed power based on both race and ethnicity) to other forms of inequity.
Although I began my doctoral studies in 2014, the seed was planted for the idea five years earlier, in 2009. It came in the form of a statement by then Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a news conference of the 2009 G20 summit, where without batting an eye he declared, “We also have no history of colonialism…”
The world as we currently experience it, is beset with waves of crisis (Guilherme and Dietz, 2015: 1) all related to capitalist economics that have paved the way for stringent austerity and a growing sense of ‘not knowing where the world is or could be going’.
After recently writing a blog on hegemonic whiteness in the higher education classroom, my CERES colleagues invited me to reflect further on ‘white backlash’, or ‘pushback’ particularly from those who would deem themselves pro-social justice.
Racism pervades every aspect of life in Scotland. In 1989, on our own doorstep in Cowgate, racist youths attacked Somalian student Axmed Abuukar Sheekh and his Somalian friend.
If we want to create a more equal society, where everyone is valued, then we need to take action. Surely this is especially the case for teachers?
Every so often, we all have a reflective moment where we think about where we are and what are we doing. For me, it has been reflecting on my work in Education, in particular race equality, across almost four decades.
In 2020, not only did the United States government fail in supporting the country’s most vulnerable and historically marginalized families, many of our schools did as well.
Great educational leadership might previously have acknowledged that racism exists. A bigger challenge within educational leadership, and our collective professional learning, is to take the step towards understanding that ‘racism exists in me.’
There is currently revived interest across disciplines and educational institutions to ‘decolonise the curriculum’ (Arshad, 2020). There are many layers to this, from diversifying reading lists to unpacking racist underpinnings of key concepts, from deconstructing representations of history to hiring more Black and Minority Ethnic staff.
© 2023 All rights reserved | The University of Edinburgh
