Interrupting Whiteness: An Autoethnography of a Black Female Leader in Higher Education

• In Event: Women Leaders Reimagining and Affecting Public Higher Education in New Zealand, Rwanda, and the United Kingdom

Abstract

In recent years there has been a burgeoning literature on race and ethnicity in the British education system. While the plethora of research on race in compulsory schooling abounds, higher education remains largely inconspicuous from the debate. Increasingly, however, the nature and extent of racism in the structure of academia in the United Kingdom are emerging in more recent literature. The central focus for this paper is not only to document and critique concepts of racism embedded in institutional policies and practices, but to utilize auto-ethnography to explore a black female academic’s experience in higher education. It examines notions of whiteness from a critical race perspective (Yosso, 2005) and issues of multiple identities while exploring the shifts in her identities and how these are enacted within the context of predominantly white higher education institutions in the United Kingdom.

A comparative analysis of the scholar’s journey and experiences in United Kingdom’s higher education sector provides the backdrop for the discussion. Whiteness interrupted by blackness vis-à-vis the narratives of a black female leader posits British higher education institutions as organizations that remain the province of mainly white men and to a lesser extent women. Using an intersectional approach in leadership development, intersectionality assumes that black women’s experiences and interests are not represented in black moments, (aimed at principally at men), and women’s moments, (aimed principally at white class women) (Crenshaw, 1989).

While white women academics have written extensively on women’s position in the labor market and within the gender division of labor, this has been primarily from the position of disadvantage in relation to patriarchal power (see for example Rees, 1992; Walby, 1990; and Cockburn, 1991). Ethnic minority women are rarely included within these analyses and when they are, the analysis tends to focus on the ‘double disadvantage’ of sexism and racism, such as the ‘concrete ceiling’ facing black female managers (Davidson, 1997). White women (researchers or organizational leaders) have seldom reflected on their own ethnic privilege including how this has impacted on their work—McIntosh (1992) being a notable exception.

Reviews at the intersection of leadership and diversity, (Billing & Alvesson, 2000; Powell, 2012), do not directly challenge assumptions of ethno-racial homogeneity in women, and implications for leadership. Devine (1989) suggests that many of the common stereotypes of Blacks are transferred into leadership perceptions. For instance, whereas White leaders would be described as “working well under pressure” (Rudman & Glick 2001, p. 751), “Black leaders are perceived as more incompetent than white leaders.” Understanding this enables us to make sense of the various studies that explore leadership recognition (Rosette, 2011, p. 1144).

Findings show that the black women experienced notably more challenges and difficulties in their role as leaders, and that they saw their ethnicity as having a clear bearing on their identities, their perception of leadership, and their experience as leaders, Among the white women, barriers were faced in respect of social class and gender, and struggle was evident in understanding the issues black women leaders face in organizations.

Author

• Victoria Showunmi, UCL Institute of Education,London