Racism and Resistance in the Contemporary University

Dr. Remi Joseph-Salisbury is a Presidential Fellow in Ethnicity and Inequalities at the University of Manchester. He is the author of 'Black Mixed-Race Men', and co-editor of 'The Fire Now: Anti-Racism in Times of Explicit Racial Violence'. He has written widely on race and racism, with a particular focus on education and policing. His forthcoming work, with Dr Laura Connelly, focuses on anti-racist scholar-activism in UK universities and will be published as a book in 2021. Remi is a member of the Northern Police Monitoring Project, and the No Police in Schools campaign, and writes regularly for print and online media.

His talk will consider the ways in which racism pervades contemporary British Higher Education. From Why Is My Curriculum White?, to Rhodes Must Fall and calls to decolonize the university, student campaigns in the recent years have pointed to the structures that enable white supremacy to endure in the University. Pushing back against recent attacks on the concept of institutional racism, and drawing upon recent research, his talk will suggest that such campaigns reveal a 'web of whiteness' that undergirds Higher Education and threatens to ensnare Black and minoritised bodies.

The Sociology Annual Lecture is hosted by the Sociology, Criminology, and Social Policy group. The lecture showcases new work by leading academics and thinkers in the field of sociology internationally. Previous speakers have included Ruth Lister, Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University, Professor Dennis Smith, Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Loughborough University, Dr Lisa Mckenzie, Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Prof. Maggie O'Neill of Durham University and Dr. Sam Friedman, Associate Professor in Sociology at LSE.

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