Exploring Racial Narratives of Whiteness and Antiracist Praxis Among Postsecondary Education Administrative Staff

• In Event: Transforming Higher Education: Confronting Whiteness and Building Inclusive Praxis across Generations

Abstract

Racialization into whiteness results in white-racialized people struggling to move beyond rhetorical antiracist commitments toward enacting new racial relations. This struggle hinges on how whiteness trains people toward a lack of racial understanding and incoherent racial behaviors. While this incoherence is not new, it nonetheless poses a continued problem for antiracist educators and practitioners – how to prepare white-racialized people to take antiracist action and integrate antiracist practice into our professional roles. Although much of the work on antiracism in postsecondary education focuses on student-teacher relationships and pedagogy, administrative staff in postsecondary education play an important role in maintaining white supremacist structures therein. The purpose of this paper is to explore the racial power dynamics and functioning of racial narratives within administrative staff positions. Using qualitative methods, this paper seeks to engage with the challenges and tensions around racial narratives and antiracist actions that people who are racialized as white experience.

Authors

• S. Shiver, University of Utah

• José Gutiérrez, University of Utah