Coping techniques and strategies for pursuing anti-racism within academe: a collective autoethnographic account from minoritised academics in the UK

• Date: 06 November 2023
• Pages: 41-60
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-03-2023-0090
• Published date: 06 November 2023
• Author: Anita Garvey,Reem Talhouk,Benjamin Ajibade

Coping techniques and strategies

for pursuing anti-racism within

academe: a collective

autoethnographic account from

minoritised academics in the UK

Anita Garvey, Reem Talhouk and Benjamin Ajibade

Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Abstract

Purpose –Drawing upon the authors’experiences as minoritised academic scholars withinleadership roles of

a Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network in the United Kingdom (UK) academe, the authors explored

the research question “In what ways do racially minoritised academics use coping techniques andstrategies to

counter racism and inequality in the higher education environment”.

Design/methodology/approach –The authors used a collective autoethnography approach accompanied by

storytelling, underpinned by a qualitative interpretative process, supported by inductive, data-driven theorising. The

authors’approach is supplementedby the usage of content analysis (Schrieier, 2012) to analyse the data and gener ate

findings.

Findings –The research findings specifically highlight (1) collectivism, solidarity and belonging, (2)

knowledge expansion and critical consciousness, (3) disarming approaches and emotional labour, (4) resistance

through setting boundaries and (5) intersectionality and BAME men allyship, as specific approaches for taking

forward anti-racism.

Research limitations/implications –Autoethnographic research has encountered challenges around

verification, transparency and veracity of data, and issues havebeen debated due to its subjective nature(see

Jones, 2010; Keeler, 2019; M

endez, 2013). Additional complications arise regarding neutrality and objectivity

associatedwith the researchers’identities and experiences being represented in autoethnographic accounts.The

authors acknowledge that the accounts provided aresubjective, and have influenced the research process and

product.

Originality/value –Research on the experiences of minoritised academics leading staff equality networks

constitutes a research gap. This article offers an original analysis through outlining the authors’lived experiences in

leadership positions of a BAME Network and hope to other minoritised employees undertaking anti-racist work.

Keywords Content analysis, Collective autoethnography, Minoritised academics, Racism

Paper type Research paper

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to explicate the lived experience and coping techniques and

strategies that three minoritised academics of colour, who are the authors of this article, have

utilised to navigate the culture, systems and processes of a university in the United Kingdom

(UK). It is supported by a key research question: In what ways do racially minoritised

academics use coping techniques and strategies to counter racism and inequality in the

higher education (HE) environment? The authors of the article have leadership and/or

strategic positions in a Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME) Network, which was

established in 2020 at the university. One of the article’s women authors is the co-lead of the

BAME Network. The two additional authors consist of one woman and one man (an ally to

the two women) both occupying key roles within the BAME Network steering committee,

which has a policy and strategy function for the BAME Network.

The focalpoint of the article will be our involvementwith the BAME Network,and our lived

experience through undertaking its associated leadership activity. Our discussion will be

Anti-racism

within

academe

41

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 27 March 2023

Revised 7 August 2023

Accepted 11 October 2023

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 44 No. 1, 2025

pp. 41-60

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-03-2023-0090

drawn throughreference to critical racetheory (CRT) (e.g. Crenshaw etal.,1995;Daffery, 2018;

Mills, 2009),as well as being informed by extantanti-racist literature(e.g. Ahmed, 2012;Arday,

2018;Arday and Mirza,2018;Bhopal, 2022). The accountspresented in this articleentail active

reflectionsof our lived experiences as academicsof colour using a collective autoethnographic

approach(see Ngunjiri et al.,2010;We

˛

_

zniejewskaet al.,2020) via the medium of s torytelling (see

Kim, 2020;Watson, 2013). Our reflections emanatefrom an understanding thatthrough efforts

to transform institutions, we generate knowledge about them (Ahmed,2017). Ideally, we hope

that we will give voice to others, particularly, minoritised scholars in the challenges that they

potentially faceas they undertake similar leadership roles. The researchhence has the wider

objective of enhancing the efficacy of minoritised scholars to pursue anti-racism within

academicinstitutions, witha broader view towardspromulgating positiveadvancements inthe

constitutive racial equality field.

Background –BAME Network’s rationale for establishment

The BAME Network’s rationale is to challenge and assist the university to address issues of

racism and racial inequality, whilst the institution itself has embarked on implementing the

advanced HE’s Race Equality Charter (REC). The BAME Network’s function, through its

collective membership, includes consciousness raising about racial inequality issues, a safe

space to discuss our lived experiences of racism, acting as a consultative body, operating as a

challenge mechanism to the university’s policies, strategies and racial equality approaches,

alongside our active involvement in anti-racist work itself. Numerous evidence highlights

that the higher education institution (HEI) landscape is characterised by racism, inequality

and discrimination (Arday, 2021). Indeed, the extensive Leading Routes (2019) report outlined

that this predicament is aligned to racism, which has become institutionalised within the

HEIs and continues to disadvantage BAME individuals attempting to pursue academic

careers within the academy. Racism itself entails a dialectical process of signification,

categorisation and ‘othering’of BAME people which renders them ‘minoritised’(Mills, 2009).

It is therefore, an ideological process whereby social relations between people and the social

construct of ‘race’leads to racialisation, which is inappropriately used to define and construct

differentiated human groups, underpinned by dubious notions of inferiority and superiority

(Miles, 1993).

The backdrop to the establishment of the BAME Network was a flashpoint incident that

became globallysignificant concerningpolice brutality and the murderof George Floyd in the

USA in May 2020. Around thistime, the university, whilst simultaneously launching itsREC

activity, put out a call for BAME staff to co-lead the BAME Network. That said, additional

recent eventsin close succession in theUK have brought issues of racismand racial inequality

into the spotlight.Specifically, the2016 European Union referendumthat resulted in the Brexit

outcome leading to an increase in racism and xenophobia, the 2017 Grenfell Tower Fire, the

2018 Windrush Scandal and the over-representation of BAME people in the COVID-19 death

and infectionstatistics in 2020. Furthermore, bleak prospectsand socio-economic insecurity in

the UK have fuelled nationalist, jingoist and populist discourses (Sandbrook, 2022). These

complex issuesillustrate the existence of ‘structural’racism and deprivation, which is shaped

by the broader political and socio-economic context and underpinned by unequal access to

finite societal resources, perpetuating White privilege and power and racial inequality

(Virdee, 2019).

BAME Network focus: Racial inequality within higher education institutions

Within HEIs, several issues pertaining to institutionalised racism have been researched and

examined and form the focal point of our BAME Network activity (see Arday and Mirza, 2018;

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