Coloniality and Racial (In)Justice in the University: Counting for Nothing?

by Sunera Thobani (Editor)

Overview

Coloniality and Racial (In)Justice in the University examines the disruption and remaking of the university at a moment in history when white supremacist politics have erupted across North America, as have anti-racist and anti-colonial movements. Situating the university at the heart of these momentous developments, this collection debunks the popular claim that the university is well on its way to overcoming its histories of racial exclusion.

Written by faculty and students located at various levels within the institutional hierarchy, this book demonstrates how the shadows of settler colonialism and racial division are reiterated in "newer" neoliberal practices. Drawing on critical race and Indigenous theory, the chapters challenge Eurocentric knowledge, institutional whiteness, and structural discrimination that are the bedrock of the institution.

The authors also analyse their own experiences to show how Indigenous dispossession, racial violence, administrative prejudice, and imperialist militarization shape classroom interactions within the university.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487532055
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	11/01/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	422
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Sunera Thobani is a professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Beverly Bain and Min Sook Lee

Introduction: Present Pasts: The Anxieties of Power
Sunera Thobani

1 Don’t Cry, Fight! vs. Deference to the Corporate State: Abrogation of Indigenous Rights and Title, Civil Rights, and Social and Environmental Justice at the Imperialist University
annie ross

2 The State Is a Man: Theresa Spence, Loretta Saunders, and the Gender of Settler Sovereignty.
Audra Simpson

3 Colonizing Critical Race Studies/Scholars: Counting for Nothing?.
Sunera Thobani

4 “Our Canadian Culture Has Been Squeamish about Gathering Race-Based Statistics”: The Circulation of Discourses of Race and Whiteness among Canadian Universities, Newspapers, and Alt-Right Groups.
Enakshi Dua

5 Access Denied: Safe/guarding the University as White Property.
Delia D. Douglas

6 Invisibility, Marginalization, Injustice, Dehumanization: Precariousness in the Academy.
Sarika Bose

7 Refusing Diversity in the Militarized Settler Academy.
Carol W.N. Fadda and Dana M. Olwan

8 How Canadian Universities Fail Black Non-Binary Students.
Cicely-Belle Blain

9 Interrogating White Supremacy in Academia: Creating Alternative Spaces for Racialized Students’ Scholarship and Well-Being.
Benita Bunjun

10 Dreaming Big in Small Spaces: Prefiguring Change in the Racial University.
Jin Haritaworn

Contributors

What People are Saying About This

Joyce Green

"Sunera Thobani has given us a fascinating collection of works on the ways in which systemic racism, sexism, and similar oppressions function in universities. This is an entirely helpful set of analyses and insights, which can only help to improve the scholarly spaces into which we invite our students. Scholars, students, and activists will want to read this timely intervention into the contemporary conversation on systemic racism and other forms of oppression perpetuated in the ivory towers that determine so much of our elites' thinking on these matters."

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond

"Make no mistake here — Canadian universities and colleges are spaces that have minimized and denied the truth of residential schools, leaving Indigenous survivors, communities, and families to try to find a path to truth, justice, and accountability for a genocide. Canadian thought leaders at universities have been painfully slow to offer culturally safe space for Indigenous thought leaders and scholars, often privileging colleagues who feel unbridled to push back hard on the work of these disruptors. This book is refreshing, honest, and necessary reading for those who seek to work and speak truth within our institutions of higher learning."

Editorial Reviews

"Sunera Thobani has given us a fascinating collection of works on the ways in which systemic racism, sexism, and similar oppressions function in universities. This is an entirely helpful set of analyses and insights, which can only help to improve the scholarly spaces into which we invite our students. Scholars, students, and activists will want to read this timely intervention into the contemporary conversation on systemic racism and other forms of oppression perpetuated in the ivory towers that determine so much of our elites’ thinking on these matters."

—Joyce Green, Professor Emerita of Politics and International Studies, University of Regina

From the Publisher