PhD Thesis
Black Women’s Experiences of Working in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in UK Universities: Labour. Care. Abolition.
Abstract
In this thesis, I address Black women’s experiences of institutional racism and heteropatriarchal White supremacy in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in UK universities.
For this care-centred project, I conducted a number of unstructured interviews with Black women active in the academe, who shared their experiences of existing in the colonial space of STEM, whilst resisting surveillance, control, and capture (amongst many other things). In order to do this, I drew from theoretical frameworks of resistance such as Black feminism, abolition justice, and critical race science and technology studies so as to actively interrogate what is happening to the women in these oppressive environments.
The thesis highlights how Black women are pushed to undertake multiple forms of labour in the STEM university space, which stretch across keeping themselves safe, protecting and defending others, and having to endure exploitation from both the university and STEM itself. I classify these into "labour for the self", "labour for others" and "labour for the institution", and show how all combine in untold mental, physical, and psychic harm. In tandem, the thesis also uncovers and celebrates the ways Black women navigate, resist, and thrive through a multiplicity of fugitive means in the STEM university space, whilst also challenging the systems that seek to subjugate them.
Ultimately this thesis argues that both STEM and the university are carceral projects that become significantly more violent when brought together, particularly for Black women. Further, I stress that because these spaces are governed by carceral logic, the only way they can truly be dismantled and imagined anew is through abolitionist means. Finally, I turn to how we might create practical strategies for liberation, which allow us to believe that things can be different. Or rather, how we might work together to survive the present, supporting those that are most vulnerable now, whilst keeping our eyes on the future.
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