How do we decolonise? A Regional Equality Workshop online event for UCU members, Wednesday 27 October 1.30pm
27 October 2021, 13:30 - 16:30Online (Zoom)
How do we decolonise? A Regional Equality Workshop online event for UCU members
Based on the success of the various regional UCU CPD sessions and our summer Allyship conference, we have decided to follow up these events with a Regional Equality Workshop titled How do we decolonise? where participants will be able to explore further the theme of decolonisation through the Allyship lens.
What to expect
Beyond the title of the event, the overarching idea is to assess where we are now 18 months after the murder of George Floyd given the flood of commitments to anti-racism and the historical re-thinkings that have occurred since then.
How far along are we in the decolonising process? Has the murder of George Floyd led to substantive change in terms of racial (in)justices? Was it indeed a ‘watershed’ moment for processes of decolonisation?
There is so much to do that it can quickly get overwhelming. The goal of this event is to put things into perspective and help attendees organise their thoughts and prioritise their actions. As Rowena Arshad eloquently stated, it is about moving from being non-racist to actively doing anti-racist actions.
If you are interested in becoming an agent of change and don’t know where to start or what to do please join us.
By the end of this event participants will:
- Know more about what decolonisation means in Further/Higher Education.
- Develop a network with members and activists across the region
- Gain some insights as to what tools are at their disposal
- Understand the difference between an inclusive and transformative curriculum
Who are the keynote speakers?
Professor Rowena Arshad
Rowena is CBE, FEIS was formerly the Head of Moray House School of Education and Sport. Until summer 2021, she was a member of the University EDI Committee and co-convened the Race Equality and Anti-Racist Sub-Group. Rowena also chaired a Scottish Government Working Group on Diversifying the Teaching Profession. Rowena is attached to the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland (CERES) and is a member of the RACE.ED forum at the University. Her teaching, research, knowledge exchange and scholarship activities have been in the area of race equality, anti-racism and equalities in general. Until she retired, she was a member of UCU, previously the EIS and was instrumental in setting up the Black Workers’ Committee in the Scottish Trade Union Congress.
Dr Marcella Daye
Marcella is Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management and Co-Chair of the race equality network known as the Global Ethnic Majority (GEM) at the University of Northampton. As Co-Chair of the GEM, Marcella coordinated the first Black in the Ivory conference at the University of Northampton in 2020, which due to its success, will be hosted again on 20th October 2021. She holds a PhD in Tourism Marketing from the University of Surrey and her research interests are in race equality, participatory action research, place branding, and risk communication.
Zena Agha
Zena Agha is a Palestinian-Iraqi writer and poet from London. She is a PhD student in Human Geography at Newcastle University. Zena previously served as the US Policy Fellow for Al-Shabaka: the Palestinian Policy Network based in New York and is currently a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C where her areas of expertise include climate change and Palestinian adaptive capabilities and colonial cartography. Zena’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Nation, The Independent, Foreign Affairs, The Margins, NPR and El País. Zena’s media credits include the BBC World Service, Voice of America, and BBC Arabic. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships including the Library Innovation Lab at the Harvard Law School and she was awarded the Kennedy Scholarship to complete her Masters at Harvard University.
Aderonke Apata
Aderonke is a feminist human rights activist and LGBTQI+ Equality Advocate. She was a refugee from Nigeria who sought asylum in the UK. As a result of her lived experiences, Aderonke founded the African Rainbow Family (ARF) which is a not-for-profit charitable organisation that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender intersexual and queer (LGBTIQ) people of African heritage and the wider Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.
What is the agenda for the event?
1.30-1.40: welcome and intro – Donna Chambers, University of Sunderland
1.40- 1.55: address 1 – Rowena Arshad
1.55 – 2.10: address 2 – Marcella Daye
2.10-2.25: address 3 – Zena Agha
2.25- 2.40: address 4 – Aderonke Apata
2.40-3:10 – Q&A to panellists
3:10 – 3:15 – Comfort break
3.15-3.30: Audience discussion of key takeaways