The university is not your home: lived experiences of a Black woman in academia

Abstract

Entering academia as the youngest academic in my department, I encountered my blackness in ways that mirrored my days as a university student. Joining a university department with few Black1 academics was psychologically scarring. One of those scars had been constantly wondering whether my employment had been to fulfil demographic obligations or rightfully based on merit and suitability for the job. This evoked a recollection of past experiences: my experiences as a Black student in classes with very few Black bodies to engage with and/or look up to. The burden of constantly needing to prove my worth and intellectual capability became an artificial barrier to belonging in those spaces. Reflecting on transformation in South African Institutions of Higher Education, I utilise an autoethnographic method to reveal my experiences of (un)belonging and exclusions in academia as a way of revealing the psychological cost of being a ‘body out of place’.

‘Satan is holding your tongue back’: Stuttering as moral failure

“…Autoethnography can be defined as a form of research, writing or storytelling, which uses personal experiences to reveal the cultural, political and social aspects of phenomenon (Adams & Jones 2011 ; Ellis & Bochner 2000 ; Fa‘avae 2018 ; Maseti 2018 ). According to Ngunjiri, Hernandez and Chang ( 2010 ), autoethnography has three distinct features: firstly, autoethnography is a qualitative research method that approaches data collection, analysis and interpretation of self and social phenomenon regarding the self in a systematic manner.…”

‘I Don’t Have Time For This’: Stuttering and the Politics of University Time

“…Autoethnography is an approach in which the researcher uses their personal experiences as an important aspect of research (Butz & Besio 2004;Maseti 2018). The researcher specifically gives voice to those untold life stories that reveal painful experiences, thoughts and emotions (Adams, Jones & Ellis 2015;Lourens 2018).…”

Academic pipeline or academic treadmill? Postdoctoral fellowships and the circular logic of "development"

“…All in all, this postgraduate training probably achieved the pedagogical ideal that postgraduate supervision should encourage students to identify with their profession and/or their disciplinary community (Cornelissen and Van Wyk 2007;Msimanga 2017;Tsampiras 2017). It is uncomfortable to consider that being white may also have helped smooth my path through postgraduate study, however, when I compare this narrative with accounts by black women academics that describe quite a different journey (Maseti 2018;Zulu 2021).…”