Located in iniva on the site of Chelsea College of Arts, the Stuart Hall Library (SHL) is an excellent resource, holding collections which centre art and theory publications from the Global Majority, African, Asian, Caribbean, Polynesian, Latinx, and Diaspora perspectives. This collection is woefully underused by BA Fine Art cohorts and not well promoted to students. 

For the intervention, I would like to organise a sign-up workshop designed for BA Fine Art 2nd year students. This intervention is designed to introduce a group of students to this collection, in addition to teaching diversity-conscious research skills through persona pedagogy.

Context and positionality 

I am approaching this intervention as a white woman whose teaching practice spans academic and library departments. As such, I am both enthusiastic about expanding library engagement, while sensitive that this collection specifically caters to identities which were historically excluded from these institutional spaces. 

At Chelsea my role on the BA Fine Art team is largely as a theory tutor, working with final year students as they research and write their dissertations. This academic year just passed, I tried to bridge my library and academic teaching by setting up the introductory 1:1’s in the library. At the end of our discussion, I demonstrated how to use the catalogue and highlighted physical resources in the collection. I found that this gave the students a sense of agency in locating references which are often mentioned in quick succession in tutorials, while breaking the first barrier to effective library use: entering the often daunting space. This is the basis for my intervention. 

The historic exclusion of groups from academic libraries has led to a sustaining of what Pierre Bourdieu describes as a ‘fish out of water’ (hysteresis). This concept is explored in ‘Black People Don’t go to Galleries’ where David Osa Amadasun discusses the gallery, “traditionally seen as being a white middle-class milieu, associated with social, cultural and educational benefits” (2013). Both this sentiment and the role of cultural capital is transferable to the library space. This is expressed by Hankins et al in ‘Why Are All The Librarians Of Color? The Experiences Of People Of Color In Academia’ as a loop of exclusion which compounds as people of colour are less likely to see themselves represented either as library workers or within the collection, leading to an unwelcoming environment. 

I am sensitive that by bringing a group of students to iniva, I may be unintentionally increasing the workload of the staff, most of whom are black women. This is often the case – as outlined by Reni Eddo-Lodge in ‘Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race’ (and many other thinkers, such as Shirley Anne Tate) where she highlights that the weight of educating white folk is more often than not placed on the shoulders of marginalised groups (2017). As such, one of my key concerns while designing the workshop has been to balance the workload imposed on the staff while not eclipsing the right to frame the collection in their own voice.

Persona Pedagogy, as outlined by Cate Thomas (2022), has been key in formulating this workshop. What this approach entails requires the communication of another’s lived experience which can be engaged with and understood. She writes that a persona methodology “by virtue of communicating information through a fictional human character . . . could evoke empathy” (2022). It is my intention that by thinking through the complex lived experience of individuals through the library, that we can generate an empathetic understanding of their practice and their positionality. 

The intervention

This will be a sign up workshop for a maximum of 14 students for BA Fine Art 2nd year students. The choice to limit the group size is both to physically accommodate the workshop, but also to increase psychological safety through intimacy; generating a sense of togetherness. 

Pre-task: watch John Akomfrah’s ‘The Stuart Hall Project’ (2013). This will be screened the week before at AV Cultures, a film series I curate. 

Morning:

I will introduce the structure of the day and start a conversation about the ethics of the space, the notion of psychological safety, and the power of imagination. It is key that students feel comfortable to engage in the workshop in an exploratory way, where no one is made to feel vulnerable. While this is a skills based workshop, the exercise is speculative and requires imaginative engagement in order for it to simultaneously function as an empathy generator.

A tour and introduction will be given by a librarian from iniva who will talk about the collection, how it came to be, and how the space is used. Guidance will be given on using the library catalogue. 

Students will be introduced by me to several figures whose material feature in the collection. 

They are: 

1. Octavia Butler
2. Isaac Julien
3. Walid Raad
4. John Akomfrah
5. Marsha P. Johnson
6. King Tubby
7. bell hooks

Students will work in pairs to research their chosen cultural figure for the morning and assemble a digital dossier, in order to formulate a more complete and complex understanding of their identities, interests and positionality. These figures have been chosen to cover a range of disciplines, ethnicities, gender identities and having associated resources in the library. 

We will discuss ways in which their positionality and their research interests/outputs intersect. 

Afternoon:

Students continue in their pairs to imagine and compile a reading list for their chosen figure. I will show them the existing reading lists produced by SHL and make suggestions on how they might narrow down the list to address a particular moment in their subject’s life or career. They will be required to include the range of resources available, including special collection material, audiovisual material, journal articles, artist books and theoretical texts. 

We will then regroup and share our findings. I hope that naturally, this discussion can be brought to a conversation about the power dynamic of the library/archive. 

Post-workshop:

It would be great if the reading lists could be added to the SHL public reading lists on their catalogue. Students will be able to sign-up for a free membership to the library and be able to enjoy this calm, more inclusive space at their leisure. 

Considerations: hopeful outcomes & potential challenges

Outcomes:

1. Students should feel more confident in using (any) library or archive spaces for their own research. I want to frame the SHL as a collection which can be widely utilised not just for research specific areas, but as a collection which can help formulate a diverse reading list. I want to ensure that the students are made aware of the wide range of resources, opening up a conversation about different ways of engaging with research, reiterating that anything you engage with critically is research. 
2. Students will develop knowledge about their chosen figure and speculatively associated ideas through engaging with physical material
3. Students will have participated in a peer learning exercise through role-playing which has the potential to develop a more empathetic understanding of different experiences in different contexts while not making individuals feel vulnerable. 

Challenges:

1. How to overcome the risk of stereotyping that can come with using the persona pedagogy methodology? Thomas writes: “One limitation of a persona approach (and living the lived experiences of others) is the potentially a stereotypical view (or assumption) that individuals with similar characteristics face the same barriers, issues and complexities” (2022). I hope this risk has been reduced by using real people (as opposed to fictional characters) and by dedicating half the workshop to researching this individual to better connect with the nuances of their identity and by addressing an intersectional approach.
2. How to get a diverse range of students to sign up? One of the motivations of the intervention is to show non-white students that there is a dedicated space – intellectual and physical – in which their cultural and racial background is reflected and discussed in an academic context. 
3. Reinforcing the action of critical reflection. In Thomas’ framework, she reiterates that with the absence of this critical mode, “individuals are unable to explore their own positionality and that of others, and unable to learn new ways of thinking and doing” (2022).

Reflection:

When I first encountered Persona Pedagogy, I was sceptical. On the one hand, I have a firm belief that fiction is itself an empathy generator and use my platform as the organiser of the film series as a tool to engage with diverse experiences. However, through developing this workshop, I have come to understand the importance of foregrounding intersectional positionality in these conversations. A discussion of intersectionality, as outlined by Kimberly Crenshaw in ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’ (1991) is an important ingredient in Persona Pedagogy exercises as it can build solidarity and deepens an empathetic understanding. 

Developing this exercise has prompted me to really consider the idea of cultural capital and its role in social mobility. I have often taken for granted that my early introduction to cultural spaces has greatly contributed to the formation of my identity – socially, professionally and intellectually. While Bourdieu’s work was key in this field, he largely addresses this in male white working class contexts while omitting discussion of the way in which this is compounded in POC working class communities or women. Here, Amadasun’s article (mentioned above) and ‘What’s Race Got to Do With It? Disrupting Whiteness in Cultural Capital Research’ (2023) has been useful in unpacking this phenomenon. 

Bibliography 

​​Amadasun, D.O. , Black People Don’t Go to Galleries: The reproduction of taste and cultural value. Available: https://mediadiversified.org/2013/10/21/black-people-dont-go-to-galleries-the-reproduction-of-taste-and-cultural-value/#:~:text=Tiredness%2C%20financial%20pressures%20and%20a,to%20avoid%20the%20gallery%20visit.

Amanpour & Co. (2020) Excerpt from Robin DiAngelo’s 2018 interview with Michel Martin about White Fragility [Online]. Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx-gUfQx4-Q [accessed June 2024]

Bordieu, P. 1984, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. 

Chateigné, Y., Füchtjohann, D., Hoth, J., Miessen, M. & Schmid, L. 2016, The archive as a productive space of conflict, Sternberg Press, Berlin.

Chiang, S. (2016) Inclusive Pedagogy: Research & Practice Contributing to Policy. University of Edinburgh. [Online]. Available at: https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/electionbriefing7-inclusive-pedagogy-15-05-16.pdf

Crenshaw, K. 1991, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color”, Stanford law review, vol. 43, no. 6, pp. 1241-1299.

Haraway, D. 1988, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 575-599.

Hooks, B. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.

Gabriel, D. and Tate, S. (eds.) (2017) Inside the ivory tower: Narratives of women of colour surviving and thriving in British academia. London: UCL IOE Press.

Richards, B. N., Ceron-Anaya, H., Dumais, S. A., Mueller, J. C., Sánchez-Connally, P., & Wallace, D. (2023). What’s Race Got to Do With It? Disrupting Whiteness in Cultural Capital Research. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 9(3), 279-294. https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492231160535

Thomas, C 2022, ‘Overcoming identity threat: Using persona pedagogy in intersectionality and inclusion training’, Social Sciences, vol. 11, no. 6, 249. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11060249

Williams, B. (2017) ‘Where Are All The Librarians Of Color? The Experiences Of People Of Color In Academia: Rebecca Hankins and Miguel Juárez, Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2015.’, Journal of Access Services, 14(1), p. 41. doi: 10.1080/15367967.2017.1289093.

Currently, I am based at:

• Chelsea College of Arts BA Fine Art, year 3 theory tutor
• CCW foundation, interim specialist option leader for Photography & Time-based Media

INCLUSIVE PRACTICES UNIT

3 – Race

It is hard to engage with resources surrounding diversity and inclusion in institutions without this being framed in the hateful culture war rhetoric, enabled by legacy media. The platforming of ideas which are rooted in discourse which is othering and, often racist, gives weight to phenomena such as the rebranding of critical race theory as an ideaology rather than a tool to interpret and enacting positive change. This is most clearly evidenced in The Telegraph’s ‘Revealed: The Charity turning UK universities woke’. An analysis of the audiovisual qualities of the video – from the clickbait use of ‘Revealed’ which indicates an brave uncovering of a scandal, to the melancholic tone of the accompanying classical music indicates a clear political agenda – a message that institutions such as Cambridge University are under threat. The investigation hinges on the idea that universities should be a ‘neutral space’ – an idea expressed by Arif Ahmed, Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom at the Office for Students – which enables Orr to frame conversations outside of the perceived neutrality as ‘contraversial’. The issue here is however that what is considered to be ‘neutral’ is what is white and serving the interests of white-centric culture. This is echoed by both Shirley Ann Tate and Robin Di’Angelo in their respective videos. 

One of the students interviewed defined ‘woke’ as “culturally competent and aware” which seems like a more appropriate framework from which to move forward. As the majority of the students interviewed highlight, an empathy centered approach does not limit discourse, but rather invites a healthy and respectful conversation which can be valuably nuanced. This frame of reference does not just intersect with ‘socialising’ young people, but further allows for a more critical lens through which to engage with academic life. This also reminded me of DiAngelo’s argument that white liberals (many of whom are university graduates) ‘do the most harm’ in their rejection of responsibility for learning and actively pursuing an anti-racist agenda. To me, it seems that universities seem like an appropriate site to encourage self-education and reflection. It is important here to stress the importance of psychological safety for enabling growth. 

This echos what Asif Sadiq points out: that diversity training is not about agreement, but providing space for different perspectives to be shared respectfully, opening up the question of how to foster a sense of psychological safety as a site of learning. Interestingly, he notes that storytelling and other modes of experiential learning often take deeper roots in shaping inclusive perspectives, rather than classroom settings. This reminded me of a conversation that we had during the workshop where Amberlee suggested that intersectionality was more than a tool of analysis, that it is also a way of identifying shared experiences – referencing bell hook’s notion that relating things to personal experience is itself a liberatory act. These nuances can help us live in solidarity and build connections. 

Amanpour & Co. (2020) Excerpt from Robin DiAngelo’s 2018 interview with Michel Martin about White Fragility [Online]. Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx-gUfQx4-Q [accessed June 2024]

Bradbury, A., (2020). A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2)

Hooks, B. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.

Orr, J. (2022) Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke. The Telegraph [Online]. Youtube. 5 August. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU

Sadiq, A. (2023) Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right. TEDx [Online}. Youtube. 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw 

Tate, S.A. (2019) Tackling the ‘BPOC’ Attainment Gap in UK Universities. TEDx. Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPMuuJrfawQ&ab_channel=TEDxTalks

2 – Faith

I am conscious that I am approaching this blog post as someone who was raised in a Christian, church-going household, who became an aethist in my teenage years. While I have an appreciation for the community that religious institutions offer, the idea of faith is something which is often at friction with my own secular beliefs. Or, as Kwame Anthony Appiah might phrase it, I belong to the atheist branch of the Christain religion. I am similarly aware that my only religious experience has been in a really specific faith mode, outlined by Appiah as one which has been shaped by a history of violent negating. I found his discussion of the intersecting histories of faith and colonisation useful in furthering my understanding of the ways in which those in positions of political power have used these tools of othering. I felt empowered by the suggestion in ‘Challenging Race, Religion and Stereotypes in Classrooms’ to provide tools which help students to interpret and engage with ways in which power is harnessed through fear mongering. 

I was reminded of J. Reki’s paper wherein they write about prejudice as an “obstacle to truth”. This is further complicated in problematising the perception that secularism is a kind of ‘neutral’ way of seeing the world (and consequently providing a teaching framework). In this way, by framing education as removed from a religious framework removes the platform for students who want to engage in this aspect of their identity through their practice. This may already be challenging, especially in the contemporary western art context which has a history of critiquing particularly Christain faith. 

A key aspect which is threaded through these resources address – as with the discussion around disability and its intersectional relationship to other identity markers – is the idea of visibiltiy. While my own faith background did not visibly mark me as religious (and even if it did, living in the U.K. where Christain faith is statistically the largest faith group) many of these resources focus specifically on the intersecting identities of visibly muslim woman and challenges that they face in white dominated institutions as faith practitioners. These visible faith positions are more likely to face ‘direct discrimination’, especially when compounded by their gender positioning. I was particularly struck by Mirza’s essay ‘Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account. Taking a case study approach highlights the way in which the hypervisibility of a female muslim student’s experience has been shaped by a lack of understanding and above all, a lack of empathy. The writer describes how this perception of muslim woman in particular has not only shaped this student’s treatment – percieved as ‘weaker’ and ‘vulenrable’ but further led to doubt about her skillset and perceived lack of agency in a white dominant place of learning. This experience seems to align with Rekis’ discussion of hermeneutical injustice where in the injustice is that of having one’s experience rendered unintelligible, either to oneself or to others, on account of a structural prejudice in the collective imagination that manifests in our collective hermeneutical resources. 

In my teaching practice both at Camberwell Foundation and at Chelsea on the BA I encounter a wide range of faith groups in the classroom. Where previously, I have felt more comfortable discussing identity discourses relating to race or gender, I would like to provide more opportunites for discussion around how faith intersects as a way of fostering a more inclusive learning environment – for example, by introducing artists who address faith in their practice. 

Appiah, K. A. (2014) Is religion good or bad? (This is a trick question). Youtube [Online]. 16 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2et2KO8gcY

Jawad, H. (2022) Islam, Women and Sport: The Case of Visible Muslim Women. [Online]. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2022/09/islam-women-and-sport-the-case-of-visible-muslim-women/ 

Mirza, H. S. (2018) Threatening Bodies, Black Bodies ‘Out of Place’ in Academic Spaces: Gender, Race, Faith and Culture in Post-race Times. In Dismantling Race in Higher Education, Eds. Arday, J & Mirza, H. S. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. pp 184–187.

Reki, J. (2023) Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account. Hypatia 38, pp779–800.  
Trinity University (2016) Challenging Race, Religion, and Stereotypes in the Classroom. [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CAOKTo_DOk

1 – disability and intersectionality

Watching these videos and engaging with workshops 1 and 2, I was struck by the conversation around invisibility, visibility and hypervisibility. The privilege to become invisible, is something which I greatly appreciate in my daily life, affording me with the mental space I rely on to function socially as someone who is neurodivergent. As a white, able bodied person who can afford public transport, I am able to travel through the city without major social or physical barriers. 

Ade Adeption eloquently highlights how the intersection of race and physical disability makes him hypervisible on U.K. public transport. For example, while technically accessible, the discrimination by design segregates wheelchair users, announcing their arrival on the bus. His discussion of disability as a something which is stigmatised through systemic limitations is echoed by Chay Brown in the third interview. While there is a call for visibility – the right of all people to be seen and heard – there is a privilege in this being a choice.

These videos have highlighted importance of solidarity, empathy and active listening. All of these are actions that require critical reflection. In Audre Lorde’s 1981 text ‘The Uses of Anger’, she makes a distinction between anger which is used, and anger which is silent. This dynamic of silence, silencing and voicing seems to have a similarity to the privilege of occupying a range of ‘visibilities’. In the interview with artist Christine Sun Kim, she discusses ways in which she works with scale to become hypervisible either in enlarging her drawings or using infographics, amounting to a kind of visible voicing and demand for clarity. I was struck by her analysis of the privilege to be misunderstood and the way in which this can correlate to the the privilege to become invisible as a choice. 

Lorde’s intersectional analysis of black women’s positionality calls forward ALL women to address this through action. She writes:

“Every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change. And when I speak of change, I do not mean a simple switch of positions or a temporary lessening of tensions, nor the ability to smile or feel good. I am speaking of a basic and radical alteration in all those assumptions underlining our lives.” 

It is particularly interesting in this text, to understand intersectionality not only through Crenshaw’s framework (understanding how aspects of a person’s social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege) but also ways in which we can use shared identities to empower those more socially marginalised than ourselves through active solidarity.  

Keeping in mind an action based and humanity centered approach, there are several practical considerations around inclusivity which can be bought into standard practice. For example, something as simple as asking and listening can foster a more inclusive environment such as Chay Brown’s outline of an access requirements request that was sent to all those attending events. Creating pockets of space – such as quiet rooms – in which students can be in quiet become ‘invisible’ or providing noise cancelling headphones as standard practice is helpful to everyone. This is in addition to incorporating a large variety of voices in the curriculum from the base upwards.