'Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism' (Remi Joseph-Salisbury & Laura Connelly)

Contemporary Conversations in Culture, Media and Society

Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism

Featuring Remi Joseph-Salisbury (University of Manchester) & Laura Connelly (University of Sheffield).

Anti-racist scholar-activism raises urgent questions about the role of contemporary universities and the academics that work within them. As profound socio-racial crises collide with mass anti-racist mobilisations, Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism (2021, Manchester University Press) focuses on the praxes of academics working within, and against, their institutions in pursuit of anti-racist social justice. Amidst a searing critique of the university's neoliberal and imperial character, Joseph-Salisbury and Connelly situate the university as a contested space, full of contradictions and tensions.

In this presentation, Joseph-Salisbury and Connelly draw upon data from interviews with anti-racist ‘scholar-activists’, highlighting a number of key principles that define anti-racist scholar-activism. In so doing, they consider the challenges and contradictions that arise from working in neoliberal-imperial-institutionally-racist universities, whilst also suggesting that there remain pockets of opportunities to subvert the institution and work in service to communities of resistance.

This presentation is the first in the Contemporary Conversations in Culture, Media and Society seminars hosted by the Centre for Culture, Media & Society (CCMS). Based in the Culture & Creativity Research Institute at Sheffield Hallam University, CCMS delivers critical insights and knowledge on a diversity of cultural, social and media practices. Find out more about seminars and other events hosted in the Research Institute on our CCRI Impact Blog.

Remi Joseph-Salisbury is Presidential Fellow in Ethnicity and Inequalities at the University of Manchester. He has written widely on race, racism and anti-racism, with a particular focus on racism in education and racism in policing. He is the Race and Resistance columnist at Red Pepper Magazine, and part of the Northern Police Monitoring Project and the No Police in Schools campaign.

Laura Connelly is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Sheffield. Her work sits at the intersections of race, gender and migration, and she often explores these issues within the context of the sex industry. Laura is part of the Northern Police Monitoring Project and the No Police in Schools Campaign, and is Co-Chair of the Sex Work Research Hub.