Whiteness, Racial Trauma, and the University
- Harshad Keval - Edinburgh Napier University , UK
"This is an inconvenient book, to use Berlant’s term, bursting with generous readings of cultural and sociological criticism. Just what we need." - Yasmin Gunaratnam, Professor of Social Justice, Kings College London
"An essential reading for all in Higher Education. The first in recent times to really present the state of UK HE from a truly liberatory perspective." - Melanie-Marie Haywood, Director of Education Development Service, Birmingham City University
Universities are regarded as safe havens for knowledge production and the educational transformation of lives. There is, however, a long history of universities as sites of contestation where structures of hierarchical legitimacy are played out.
In response to the upsurge in global protests against racial violence and the criticism of colonial, racialised and Eurocentric forms of thinking, universities have adopted new roles as ‘anti-racist’ and ‘decolonial’ beacons of hope. This book unravels how such liberal progressive ‘acts’ hide a much deeper racialised logic of whiteness-framed structural narcissism, producing insidiously powerful and difficult to trace forms of racialised harm.
The Social Science for Social Justice series challenges the Ivory Tower of academia, providing a platform for academics, journalists, and activists of color to respond to pressing social issues.
Keval writes an essential reading for all in HE. This book is the first in recent times to really present the state of UK HE from a truly liberatory perspective. He explores the “damaging paradoxes” at play in HE, but is able to tease, instruct, and enlighten the readers all at once. This literary work that is essential in today’s incredibly violent and unjust marginalisation of people from the global majority.
Harshad Keval’s “long goodbye” to Higher Education is a powerful, if painful analysis of the university’s racial structures. Racial trauma, a self-regarding White Narcissus, the closing down of curiosity, the transformation of white allyship into abolitionist practices, are some of the overarching ideas Keval uses to track the systemic frictions and costs of the neoliberal hustling of race equality. This is an inconvenient book, to use Berlant’s term, bursting with generous readings of cultural and sociological criticism. Just what we need.