Towards Decolonising the University: A Kaleidoscope for Empowered Action

As part of the aim to amplify those otherwise silenced voices, particularly the range of experiences of students of colour in the academy, this collection is ground breaking in embodying what has been an ostensible and deliberate collaboration and co-production of knowledge between students and academics of colour. It was inspired by an institutionally funded research project in 2018-2019 'Decolonise the Curriculum', at the University of Kent and presents a Kaleidoscope for Decolonising a university. It operationalises conceptual thinking, fed into expressions of national and international student-led movements as well as others in the UK and elsewhere including: Why is my curriculum White?; Decolonise SOAS; Reclaim Harvard Law School (RHLS); #LeopoldMustFallQM; and Why isn't my professor Black? What they have in common is that they seek to unveil colonialism, racism, sexism, ageism and its intersectional inequalities with other (protected) characteristics, whilst also doing the structural labour towards the utopia of dismantling white supremacy in the academy. The success of this project lies in the unearthing of different formations of inequality in the academy. The perspectives presented in this book all share a common theme of decolonisation of the university. These are some of the reverberations that concern us. Our sincere hope is that it will inspire students to enact change no matter how small or large as part of their empowerment including hold their institutions to account to eliminate inequality and injustice in all formats.