(Anti-)racism and gender (in)equality at the university

Academia is often considered as a place where meritocracy helps evening out inequality in the field. However, this idea of 'meritocracy' does not work the same way for everyone, especially for minority groups like people of color, women, and the LGBTQ+ community, especially those with overlapping identities prone to discrimination. Even though many institutions are trying to diversify faculty staff by hiring more people from minority groups, there are still obstacles that make it hard for these researchers to build and sustain their careers. Inside the academic world, issues like sexism, classism, racism, and homophobia persist and often go unnoticed, making it even tougher for minorities to speak up against their oppressors. To tackle these problems, we need both structural and cultural changes. In this Debating Development session we will create a space where we can openly discuss and recognize the inequality and various social injustices that happen in academic settings.

Invited speakers

Dounia Bourabain is assistant professor of sociology at the School of Social Sciences at Hasselt University. Her work centers on sexism and racism in academia investigating the struggles and resistance of minoritized academics in the European context. She has published in Gender, Work and Organization; the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; the DuBois Review; Race, Ethnicity and Education among others. She is part of the editorial team of the race and ethnicity section of Sociology Compass and the Dutch Journal of Gender Studies. She has previously received the Emma Goldman Snowball Award 2023 for her contribution and engagement to feminist and inequality issues in Europe.

Sophie Withaeckx is assistant professor in philosophy (UD) at Maastricht University. Previously, she held post as coordinator and post-doc researcher at RHEA (Centre of Expertise on Gender, Diversity and Intersectionality at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel), and as lecturer and researcher at Odisee University College. She holds master degrees in African Languages & Cultures (UGent), International Politics (University of Antwerp, and a PhD in Philosophy and Ethics (Vrije Universiteit Brussel).  Her PhD research (2014) studied honour-based violence and understandings of culture, gender and morality in experiences with violence. She has remained involved in projects on gender-based violence while also participating in research on transnationalism and social work. Her current research focuses on how normative understandings of ‘humanity’ shape public spaces and institutions and in particular. In this regard, she examines how diversity and ‘decolonization’ have become managed in higher education, but also how the practice of transnational adoption has become shaped according to taken-for-granted notions of humanity, family and kinship.

Remi Joseph-Salisbury is Reader in Sociology at the University of Manchester, with interests in the study of racisms and antiracisms, particularly in the contexts of education and policing.

Remi is co-author of Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism (2021, Manchester University Press) which was awarded a 2023 Society of Professors of Education outstanding book award. He is co-editor of The Fire Now: Anti-racism in Times of Explicit Racial Violence (2018, Zed Books) and author of Black Mixed Race Men (2018, Emerald Publishing), winner of the Philip Leverhulme Prize for best first book is Sociology.

He has recently written on issues including the presence of police in schools, the policing of the pandemic, police abolition, and the enduring nature of racism in British education. His current project looks at the impact of the presence of security and police officers on British university campuses.

Remi is also a steering group member of the Northern Police Monitoring Project, a police abolitionist group based in Greater Manchester, the No Police in Schools campaign, and a member of the Centre of Dynamics on Ethnicity (CoDE).

Moderator

Naoual El Yattouti is an FWO-Aspirant, studying the intersection between health law and non-discrimination law. She is currently preparing a PhD at the Faculty of Law, UAntwerpen on the topic of multiculturalism in healthcare.