This symposium aims to examine the ideas and practices of 'taking up space' by centring the intersectional experiences of students
About this Event
UK universities are founded on and continue to centre white, classist, ableist, patriarchal and heteronormative spaces, institutions and narratives. Despite the growing trend to promote diversity, inequalities remain deeply entrenched in the structure and operation of higher education. It is a timely reminder to our sector, and to our academic community, that branding ourselves as ‘diverse’ does not absolve academic institutions from the inequalities they perpetuate and does not protect our peoples from the visible and invisible marginalisations they experience.
This half-day symposium wrestles with the urgent questions pertaining to the dismantling of hegemonies and redistribution of power in UK higher education, by examining the intellectual and practical project of ‘taking up space’. Inspired by and responding to the powerful call by recent Cambridge University graduates Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi in their recent and hugely successful book Taking Up Space: The Black Girl’s Manifesto for Change, this symposium centres the experiences of those students whose intersectional lived realities are constantly marginalised by universities.
The symposium will feature a keynote from Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi alongside performances, panels and practical workshops that examine crucial questions and processes to dismantle hegemonies in higher education. It will consider the role of students as central to this endeavour. It is designed to be attended by university senior management, undergraduate and postgraduate students, academic faculties and professional services staff. It will be of interest to anyone who believes that the university still has the potential to be the most radical space of possibility and change in society.
The symposium is funded by Brunel University London’s Student Success Project and follows on from last year’s successful and sold-out day-symposium ‘Decentring Diversity: Practising Anti-Racism in the Global University’.
This event is free to attend.