Challenging institutional whiteness in postcolonial contexts

Start date: 1 September 2012
End date: 30 September 2015
Funder: Funding British Academy International Partnerships and Mobility (South Africa Partnerships Scheme)
Primary investigator: Dr Shona Hunter
Co-investigators: Melissa Steyn, (CO-I) Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Haley McEwan, Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Say Burgin, (PGR/Early career network lead) Department of History, Leeds

This interdisciplinary project brings together leading and emerging academics/practitioners/researchers from across South Africa (Cape Town, Durban, Grahamstown, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth) and the UK working with ideas from the field of critical whiteness studies. It does so in order to set local professional practices within their postcolonial transnational contexts, developing a new way of understanding intersecting institutionalised inequalities of gender, race, generation in contexts increasingly described as 'post race'.

It uses a combination of face to face visits and virtual workshop, seminar and peer support activities to build collaborative research teaching and knowledge transfer across the various disciplines represented in the collaboration, including development, health, housing, management, psychology, social welfare and cultural industries.

An additional aim is to connect this collaboration to other worldwide initiatives led by the principle investigator at Leeds. Thus, the project aims to operate as a gateway to broader international collaboration.

Research Objectives:

To develop the practical application of CWS for situating localised institutional practices within globalised relations of difference and power particularly relations between UK and South African contexts.
To bring these practice applications into the collaborative design and delivery of new curriculum materials.
To build early career and practitioner leadership capacity in the area of CWS and institutionalisation in South African and UK contexts. Further project information (see Institutionalising Whiteness project overview file attached)