My presentation with Paris Connolly on 22 June 2021 at the Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories Symposium, Anti-Racist Research in the Age of Black Lives Matter (http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/centre-for-research-in-memory-narrative-and-histories)

2. Decolonising institutional research: the
possibilities for dismantling white privilege?
Paris Connolly and Richard Hall
CNMH Symposium, Anti-Racist Research in the Age of
Black Lives Matter

3. Beyond the sector BAME Awarding Gap: whole institution
• Freedom to Achieve 2017-2019
• Decolonising DMU launch November 2019
Racial Disparities amplified
• COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter
• Conversations about White Privilege/Fragility
• Real action and change: the anti-racist University

4. Institution
• Corporate actions,
policies, procedure
and ownership
• Institutional
knowledge and
data
• Representation
• Opportunities
• Places and spaces
• Communication,
awareness and
conversations
Staff
• Empowering and
involving all staff in
the journey
• Information,
workshops, drop in
sessions, training,
events
• Toolkit/resource
development
• Community of
Practice –
opportunity to
shape the agenda
Students
•Raising awareness:
through partnership
with DSU, existing
student channels,
societies and
MarComms
•Creating spaces that
drive the conversation
•Student-led
events/activities
•Engagement with
society champions
Research
• Ongoing evaluation
• Supplementary
research
Library
•Decolonise
collection
•Culturally aware
spaces
•Promote
workforce
diversity
•Raise staff
awareness
Dissemination / Institutional links / Feedback Network / Links with others

5. Working Definition amplifies issues in relation to research
• Decolonising as a process linked to decoloniality
• Anti-racism focuses upon structures, cultures and practices of dignity,
rather than denial, deficit, blame and shame
• Challenging ontological and epistemological domination
• A movement of dignity
A working position amplifies issues in relation to research
A key point in decolonising is of our shared questioning of our position in
relation to these issues, in order to venture beyond them. We do this by
acknowledging their historical and ongoing effects, and working against:
• exploitative institutional practices and strategies;
• silencing of certain bodies, identities, cultures and knowledges; and,
• imposing claims about the universality of the epistemological and
ontological certainties of the global North

6. Our working position has implications for research
Decolonising DMU does not describe an end goal, but is a new
way of working and knowing inside the institution.
• Diversify the syllabus, canon, curriculum, infrastructure and
staff;
• Decentre knowledge and knowledge production away from
the global North;
• Devalue hierarchies and revalue relationality;
• Disinvest from power structures that reinforce metrics,
citations and rankings; and
• Diminish some voices and opinions that have predominated,
and magnify those that have been unheard.

7. Research strand priorities
• Analysing the institutional research
environment.
• Analysing research institute research outputs,
impact and environment.
• Developing the DDMU evaluation.
• Initiating a research project into what DDMU
means.

8. Stake holder study
• 299 staff and student questionnaire responses
• Urgency around decolonising and anti-racist work
• The need for more Black lecturers
• Transparency about decisions
• Clear sanctions
• Clear plan of action and activities
• On going staff interviews

9. Research strand issues
• Engagement with 11 centres/institutes: objectives;
partnerships; extant impact/outputs/environment; research-
engaged teaching; decolonising theory and methods; work
with research services; ethics
• Engagement with Faculty Head of Research Students re: PGR
and diversity
• Engagement with Research Services Directorate re: bids and
processes
• Engagement with Faculty Research Ethics Committee
• Engagement with data [c.f. REC/REF environment]
• Professional development

10. Self-audit tool
• Writing and normalising position statements
• Research outputs
• Funding bids
• Ethnically minoritised students
• Doctoral training
• Research methodologies and theories
• Talks and seminars
• Community engagement
• Reading groups
• Visibility on website
https://decolonisingdmu.our.dmu.ac.uk/wp-
content/uploads/sites/12/2021/05/Centres_Institutes_self_audit_to
ol-1.pdf

11. What does this mean for universities governed and regulated in an increasingly
competitive and marketised environment?
What does this mean for disciplines that are measured, sorted and ranked,
against value-for-money, student experience, research impact and so on?
Can we meaningfully address issues of whiteness, white fragility and privilege,
double and false consciousness, and behavioural code switching in this
environment?
At the same time, is it possible for institutional projects like DDMU to:
• open-out new dialogues around research in relation to coloniality (as a
process), subaltern experiences, anti-racism and indigneity;
• connect new dialogues to critiques of the capitalist (neoliberal?) University;
and
• use new dialogues to engage with intersecting crises (austerity, environment,
epidemiology)?
What is the place of the humanities and social sciences, reintegrated within a
wider terrain of institutional decolonising, in developing new ways of knowing?

12. www.dmu.ac.uk/decolonising
@DecolonisingDMU
#DecolonisingDMU