Black Women, State Violence and Higher Education Spaces: How Black women navigate activism in Higher Education Spaces in the UK and US

My doctoral research proposes to investigate the lives of Black female activists in higher education spaces. My aim is threefold. First, I seek to explore the lived experiences of Black women scholars, students and staff who engage in HE based activist work in the UK and US, particularly during rising precarity and populism in both countries. Second, I hope to uncover how they view themselves as political actors within the nation-state, acknowledging the violence of the spaces they are navigating. Thirdly, I seek to better understand their political engagements with 'elite' HE institutions in both nation-states as a way of comprehending their oppressive features. I will use a combination of qualitative research methods: archival research and photo-elicitation interviews. The former will allow me to historicise my work and ground it in longstanding institutional tensions. The latter will allow me to visualise and probe the battlescapes my participants navigate.