Although I am identified as BAME, I am aware of the privilege in my positionality, having been brought up in a euro-centric, middle class environment. I have personal experience of ‘othering’ but also acknowledge that my background means I have internalised the whiteness that is the dominant culture in which I am situated. So from this perspective, I have found the Shades of Noir resources incredibly useful to my practice. It is an accessible body of authoritative information around a sensitive and challenging subject, which both provokes and educates. The collection of current terminology, diverse reading lists and case studies around inclusivity play an important part in empowering me with the tools to articulate my thoughts and experiences. Especially within an academic setting, by giving the subject matter a language through which one can express these ideas, it imparts a legitimacy which is helping me to build more confidence in becoming anti-racist. It is something I would signpost to students whenever possible, as it would begin to free them, as it has me, to engage in conversations around inclusivity by reducing the fear of saying the ‘wrong thing’.

This fear, the perception that conversations around inclusivity can be difficult and therefore to be avoided and critically, that if they are not a minority themselves, it does not involve them, comes across very starkly in the interview White Academia: Does this affect you? (Peekaboo We See You: Whiteness, 2018). A senior academic who is white, appears very tentative when attempting to answer questions about how they are supporting diversity and social justice. They ask ‘Can I say Black?‘ and admit that they ‘don’t feel comfortable talking about race’. They also did not attend university meetings about attainment and inclusion. Richards’ acute, yet non-judgemental interrogation of this academics’ behaviours encouraged them to confront their own complicity in perpetuating the status quo. It highlighted the importance of being active in building an understanding of the ‘other’ in order to enact change. (It’s going to take more than a few token lunches!) It is also an archetypal example of how the idea of ‘unconscious bias’ functions as an excuse to do nothing about racism, which Kwahli describes with evident frustration in Witness: Unconscious Bias, pointing out that it is necessary to be conscious of these biases, otherwise they are being passed on to yet another generation of students.

Bringing us to Hahn Tapper’s A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education, which examines an educational approach which is actively addressing inclusivity, underpinned by Frierean Critical Pedagogy. It introduced me to Social Identity Theory (SIT) and helped me to disentangle the ways in which people’s multi-facetted positionalities manifest in different situations, determined by one’s identity in relation to varying social contexts. One of their findings regarding their exploration of SIT in conflict resolution revealed a worsening in relations between identity groups when utilised in a specific way. This highlighted the complexity of social interaction and the need to contextualise the intersectional issues at play, and was a cautionary example of the consequences for harm to occur as a result of well intentioned intervention. Ultimately, these attempts to understand the entanglement of personal and group identities was a hopeful reminder of the positive developments in education that can inform my own practice, and that in acknowledging ‘the power dynamics that exist in relation to‘ the students that I teach, I can be an agent for change.

PS. I did read Finnigan and Richards’ paper on Retention and Attainment in HE with interest as, because of it’s references specifically to Art and Design, it relates directly to my practice. I am incorporating a lot of the thoughts inspired by this paper into my artefact research instead of this blog.

Bibliography

Richards, A. (2018) ‘White Academia: Does this affect you?’, Shades of Noir, Peekaboo We See You: Whiteness, pg 27-31.

University and College Union (2016) Witness: Unconscious Bias. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6XDUGPoaFw (Accessed: 20 June 2023)

Hahn Tapper, A. (2013) ‘A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment’, Conflict Resolution Quarterly, Vol. 20(4), pp.411-445.

As an atheist, I thought of religious belief as something intensely personal, belonging to an individual’s private sphere. And therefore, not part of the public discourse around education. (Head slapping emoji). My view had been influenced by contemporary western orthodoxy which has sought to separate religious influence from public institutions, including universities. But as with a lot of work in this Inclusive Practice unit, I have had to examine my own preconceptions about the importance of religion, faith and belief, and through this topics readings, I have come to appreciate that something so intrinsic to identity must have a profound effect on students’ lives at university and beyond.

The Stimulus papers (Modood, T. and Calhoun, C. 2015) argues for increased knowledge and understanding of religion among educators to better facilitate students’ learning. Religion plays a central role in numerous cultures, evidenced by the many countries that still retain an official or preferred religion, Britain included. It is because, as Kwame Anthony Appiah posits (Reith lecture, 2016), religions are mutable, transforming through dialogue with the past and intertwined with a peoples’ shared practice and community, that they continue to retain their relevance. Religion features so prominently in certain identities, that it is sometimes conflated to label these ethnic groups. So efforts to become a more inclusive institution cannot be resolved without improving the religious literacy of all within the university.

One implication, then, is that ‘religious literacy’ must not be understood in a narrowly religious way but in a context of wider social divisions and group power relations, especially racism, ethno-religious exclusions and inclusions, and the struggle for multicultural equality.(The Stimulus Papers, 2015)

It touches all parts of the university. ‘Decolonising the Curriculum’ means widening the resources around different religions as well as different cultures. Consideration of religious and spiritual beliefs in moral and ethical debates around free speech, gender and sexual equality, capitalism and inequality are central to an arts education that wishes to ‘create a better world’ (UAL, 2023).

In Interview with Mark Dean, the chaplain at CCW and CSM explains how ‘UAL has a Religion and Belief Champion as well as a Community of Practice focused on religion, belief and faith identities and how these impact on learning and teaching.’ But also how ‘The situation is further complicated by questions of intersectionality and the way identities associated with race, religion, gender, sexuality overlap and sometimes conflict.’ (Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality and Belief, 2017) Chaplains, as well as being a source of knowledge about religions, are often called upon to give pastoral care to students of their own, as well as of different, religions. Where once a student would have gone to an academic for pastoral care, the commercialization of universities has led to an increase in student numbers and a reduction in contact time where these interactions previously took place. So if the university is genuine in its wish to improve inclusivity, this cannot be outsourced to chaplains. Does there need to be a more integrated approach to improving the knowledge and understanding the importance of religion, intertwined as it is in the social, political and cultural lives of its students?

Bibliography

Modood, T. and Calhoun, C. (2015) Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education, London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education

Reith Lecture (2016) BBC Radio 4, 22 October, 22:15

UAL (2023) Guiding Policy 3. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/strategy-and-governance/strategy/guiding-policy-3 (Accessed: 16 May 2023)

Dean, M. (2017) ‘Interview with Mark Dean’, Shades of Noir, Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality and Belief, pg 24-25

Exploring the Shades of Noir journal around Disability, I came across a pertinent article about a research project undertaken by a LCF tutor examining what adjustments might encourage wider participation in fashion for visually impaired students. I was instantly intrigued by the title ‘Understanding Visual Impairments by Claudette Davis-Bonnick’ (Davis-Bonnick, 2020), partly because I recently assisted a student who admitted that, having forgotten her glasses, her vision was impaired.

One aspect of the research highlighted a multimodal approach to teaching, where a number of senses were engaged to enhance learning. It was noted that Fashion has become very visual-centric, with emphasis on what something looks like (Davis-Bonnick, 2016). So audio resources were advocated, which would help not only visually impaired students, but those with specific learning differences. The sense of touch was found to be under employed and different techniques around feeling shapes, edges and textures were trialled.

This approach resonated with the artworks of Christine Sun Kim and Khairani Barokka. Both incorporated elements of the artists’ relationship to their different senses in their art; interrogating the ‘disablity’ in one of their senses. Barokka was transforming what she was feeling ‘to make an ‘invisible disability’ visible, through refusing to stand up to perform, and through the paint’s visualisation of my pain’ (Barokka, 2017)) and Kim was using various objects to create a language which could translate her thoughts and emotions more truly (A Selby Film, 2012); an embodiment of her audio ‘disability’.

These resources drew my attention to the reductionist emphasis of fashion on a single sense, both limiting the scope for designs and the entry for potential designers. They also prompted me to consider the exciting possibilities within fashion practice that could be extrapolated from them; to include the entirety of the human experience in the design of a garment, from touch, smell and sound, to emotional, political and social responses.

 As a side note, I had never regarded wearing glasses (which I do myself) as a disability. But perhaps it is just a matter of degrees whether one is labelled ‘disabled’ or ‘normal’. And therefore, following the social model of disability, Davis-Bonnick’s research is an example of where making adjustments to help visually impaired people could benefit all students. Further, it is this labelling of someone as ‘disabled’ or ‘normal’ which according to Critical Disability Theory, leads to a binary approach of othering and the ‘oppression of disabled people perpetuated in many societies globally… Perhaps if there were more recognition that there is no single acceptable mode of embodiment, and that all bodies are unstable and vulnerable, then rather than being labelled as deficient, the bodies that are further from normative standards would be revalued as simply different.’ (Shildrick, 2012)

I had never considered that whole groups of people might feel excluded from Fashion because of how they had been labelled. Maybe we should approach the delivery of education in our institution with the idea that we are, all of us, differently abled.

Bibliography

Davis-Bonnick, C. (2020) ‘Understanding Visual Impairments’. Disabled People: The Voice of Many, pg 106-108.

Davis-Bonnick, C. (2016) Seeing is Believing Documentary. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqgxB9iaq2s (Accessed: 1 May 2023)

Barokka, K. (2017) ‘Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, Vol. 22(3), pg. 387–392.

A Selby Film (2012) Christine Sun Kim. Available at: https://vimeo.com/31083172 (Accessed: 1 May 2023)

Shildrick, M. (2012) Critical Disability Studies: rethinking the conventions for the age of postmodernity. London: Routledge.