On being a white academic in the Global South

• In Event: Negotiating embodied differences within Western academia. Experiences beyond the United States.

Abstract

A foreign last name and a white complexion have placed me in Chile among the privileged elite with doctoral degrees from the Global North. However, since I have never been interested in maintaining the dominant views in the discipline of international relations, my physical appearance actually placed me in social circles that defended social and political structures that I seek to transform. Physically embodying the Global North opens doors but it also encloses us within limited worlds, especially as white women in the Global South. Indeed, to be able to obtain academic work in the Global South, we accept to teach classes like US foreign policy so we can get ‘our foot in the door’. We must face our colleagues’ expectations on how (white) academics should think and act, expectations that are surprisingly similar for both mainstream and subaltern academics. Based on my experiences teaching, living and researching in Chile, as well as participating in postcolonial academic circles in the Global North, I reflect on how intellectual conceptualisations structure our interactions at personal and professional levels, where there is an unspoken assumption that skin colour defines one’s political position and academic views. I also identify spaces for transformation.

Author

• Jeanne W Simon, Universidad de Concepcion