Anti-racist scholar-activism raises urgent questions about the role of contemporary universities and the academics that work within them. As profound socio-racial crises collide with mass anti-racist mobilisations, this book focuses on the praxes of academics working within, and against, their institutions in pursuit of anti-racist social justice. Amidst a searing critique of the university’s neoliberal and imperial character, Joseph-Salisbury and Connelly situate the university as a contested space, full of contradictions and tensions.

Drawing upon original empirical data, the book considers how anti-racist scholar-activists navigate barriers and backlash in order to leverage the opportunities and resources of the university in service to communities of resistance. Showing praxes of anti-racist scholar-activism to be complex, diverse, and multi-faceted, and paying particular attention to how scholar-activists grapple with their own complicities in the harms perpetrated and perpetuated by Higher Education institutions, this book is a call to arms for academics who are, or want to be, committed to social justice.

Introduction: Anti-racist scholar-activism and the neoliberal-imperial-institutionally-racist university
1 Problematising the ‘scholar-activist’ label: Uneasy identifications
2 Working in service: Accountability, usefulness, and accessibility
3 Reparative theft: Stealing from the university
4 Backlash: Opposition to anti-racist scholar-activism within the academy
5 Struggle where you are: Resistance within and against the university
6 Uncomfortable truths, reflexivity, and a constructive complicity
A manifesto for anti-racist scholar-activism

Index