Can Subaltern Professors Speak? Examining Microaggressions and Lack of Inclusion and Equity in the Academy

• In Event: 25.086 - Sheraton Roundtable Session One - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 25.086-7 - Globalizing Postcolonial Studies in Education

Abstract

This qualitative case study draws from testimonios collected from fall 2010 to spring 2016 to highlight various ways in which micro-aggressions and other forms of institutional oppression might have affected subaltern professors and students in the academy. These testimonios show patterns across data set regarding systemic oppression subalterns have experienced in the academy. Findings of study suggest that subaltern professors face intersecting forms of discrimination– often race, language/accent, gender, and class based– in predominantly white institutions. Their testimonios demonstrate the ways in which various forms of oppression might have limited their life chances and opportunities. Suggestions are made as to how micro-aggressions and other forms of systemic oppression facing subalterns in the academy might be countered.

Author

• Pierre W. Orelus, New Mexico State University