Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
Description of Activity
Speaker on 'Decolonization, Demilitarization and Democratization: Critical Heritage Awareness in Service of EDI Objectives at the University of Portsmouth'
How can we work to decolonise the curriculum in a proud naval city so freighted with the history of imperial warfare? Promoting equality, diversity and inclusivity in HE requires an institution to reflect with candour on its own history, current practices and political economy. Several famous museums, for example, including the Ashmolean, British Museum and Wellcome Collection, have made public statements that their collections were partly acquired through the exercise of often violent colonial power, declaring their willingness to resolve some of these previously glossed-over injustices. This session will consider how we might begin to do similarly in Higher Education, specifically with regard to this university's position in a naval city with a long imperial past and arms-based present. This awareness can be applied to learning practices, curriculum and course design, research ethics and institutional policy and governance. Somewhat more radical than hegemonic discourses of diversity awareness training and ‘privatised multiculturalism’ (Paul Gilroy), our aim is to contribute to honest critical thinking, consistent moral reasoning and an analysis of racism and other social injustices on the institutional level rather than chiefly as a matter of individual responsibility. Session delivered as part of CCI's EDI Festival.