Abstract:

For three years we have been working together to promote anti-racist struggle in the Academy. Positioning our working relationships as objects of research, we seek to problematise the tensions inherent to diverse collaborative staff working groups. We do so through a critical intersectional approach to the ethics of care that allows us to (re)-position the power to direct and define discourse in such groups through reflection and inclusive praxis. We propose the concept of ‘colourful caring spaces’ as a way of capturing the practices and developments that contribute to meaningful and supportive working relationships that build anti-racist praxis. Our paper makes two key contributions to theory and praxis. Firstly, we show how the concept of “counter spaces” can be leveraged and built upon to support the development of conceptions of alternative multiracial spaces. We build this from our experiences of creating such a space and the practices necessary to do so. Secondly, we frame the relational and bold nature of our methodology as itself a contribution to building anti-racist praxis. We mobilize our collective activism to enliven the complexities, difficulties, complicities and kindnesses that can proliferate in mixed racial groups and crucially, in doing so, to show how we can speak with and understand each other better.
Informed by an intersectionally-aware, critical praxis of feminist care, we look to colourful caring spaces as one way in which good enough rather than safe or perfect spaces may be crafted.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Gender in Management

Keywords: Gender diversity and inclusion policies and practices;Intersectionality

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Dr. Tolulope Fadipe

Biography