1st Edition

Dismantling Constructs of Whiteness in Higher Education Narratives of Resistance from the Academy

Edited By Teresa Y. Neely, Margie Montañez Copyright 2023
    326 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    326 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book offers counternarratives from People of Color (POC) engaged in varied departments, faculties, and institutions in higher education to interrogate and challenge the construct of whiteness as an ideological form reproduced across campuses throughout the United States.

    Documenting individuals’ lived experiences, the text uses narratives, personal stories, and autoethnographic approaches to explore how social and racial injustices manifest themselves at both a macro- and micro-level through structures and ideologies of whiteness, as well as personal and group interactions. This book, divided into four valuable parts, offers reconceptualizations of racial diversity in higher education, and further explores identity politics within the academy to ultimately posit that a varied approach is necessary to combat the equally varied ideological forms of whiteness.

    This text will benefit scholars, academics, and students in the fields of higher education, race and ethnicity studies, and academic librarianship more broadly. Those involved with the multicultural education, education policy and politics, and equality and human rights in general will also benefit from this volume.

    Introduction: unmasking the personal, professional, and intersectional interstices of whiteness in higher education

    Margie Montañez and Teresa Y. Neely

    Part I: Foregrounding whiteness as a social structure in higher education

    Chapter 1: Justice in action in the ivory towers: decolonial and anti-racist work inside/outside the master’s house

    Eric Castillo

    Chapter 2: sketching otherwise im/possibilities: meditations against and beyond the state

    nicholae cline and Jorge R. López-McKnight

    Chapter 3: Vital elements in the deconstruction of whiteness and eurocentrism in higher education work settings

    J. E. Jamal Martin

    Chapter 4: Pervasive whiteness vs. black women in academia

    Sheryl Felecia Means

    Chapter 5: Microaffections and microaffirmations: refusing to reproduce whiteness via microaffirmative actions

    Isabel Espinal

    Part II: The case of academic libraries

    Chapter 6: Why are you Brown? Racial microaggressions in Canadian academic libraries

    Dee Winn

    Chapter 7: I don’t know if I’m surviving, but I’m still here: Reflections on 20-plus years in academic librarianship

    Nikhat J. Ghouse

    Chapter 8: Same scat, different century: An [unremarkable] history of inaction in US libraries and archives

    Deborah R. Hollis

    Part III: Erasures, absences, silences, and violence in higher education

    Chapter 9: Threefer: Poetic reflections on resistance to misogynoir

    Belinda Deneen Wallace

    Chapter 10: Is the door half-opened or half-closed? Advancing a career after Black Culture Center work

    Brandi Wells-Stone

    Chapter 11: African American male faculty: A study of their experiences related to intercultural competence at predominantly white institutions

    Hervey A. Taylor III

    Chapter 12: The life of a Black college athlete

    Keon R. Williams

    Chapter 13: They took my hair—racial battle fatigue in academe: Accounts from the plantation

    Evangela Q. Oates

    Chapter 14: Scholar while Black: Theorizing race-gender micro/macroaggressions as covert racist actions for maintaining white domination in academia in a “Post-Racial” Society

    Michael Muhammad and Nancy López

    Part IV: Identity Politics

    Chapter 15: Exterior college campus

    Derrick Jefferson

    Chapter 16: Decolonizing our hearts and our minds

    Nicole A. Cooke

    Chapter 17: Merit, gate keeping, and the myth of meritocracy

    Stephanie Akau

    Chapter 18: Home is where you are: An open letter to my academic Auntie

    TeyAnjulee Leon

    Chapter 19: Road trip: Heavy luggage and the doctoral HBCU experience

    LaKeshia Darden

    Biography

    Teresa Y. Neely is Professor of Librarianship at the University of New Mexico, USA.

    Margie Montañez is Assistant Professor and Curator of Latin American collections at the University of New Mexico, USA.