The Essex End Everyday Racism project

This January, we are launching a new independent research project. It is called the Essex End Everyday Racism project, and it provides a vehicle for university staff and students to share their experiences of racism.

It is the sister project of similar initiatives at a growing number of universities, including Cambridge and Oxford. We have been working with the University of Cambridge to help inform our project.

The research team, based at Essex Business School and the Institute for Social and Economic Research, want to help build an understanding of the impact of racism on the lives of students and staff.

By encouraging the members of our Essex community to share their experiences of racism on an anonymous and informal basis, the project will help the research team draw on individual stories to develop periodic reports that help to map any racism.

The project aims to develop our understanding of everyday racism with numeric, descriptive and geographic evidence. However, this is not just a mapping exercise. The evidence collected will be used to support antiracism advocacy and social justice activism, engaging with our policy and practice.

We are asking staff and students to participate by anonymously sharing their experiences of what, how and where racism happens including, for example, the emotions experienced, life consequences, social support, and whether/why the incident was/was not formally reported.

Any Essex student or member of staff can participate, whether a victim of racism or bystander witnessing it. The project really is for everyone.

To take part, participants will need to go to our project webpage to access an incident reporting form.

We are officially launching the project on Wednesday 25 January 2023 from 10.30am to 11.30am at Causeway Teaching Centre (CTC.1.05), on our Colchester Campus. All are welcome. You can also attend on Zoom. 

If you have any questions about this research, you can contact the Essex End Everyday Racism research team – Maria Hudson, Emmanuelle Dazogbo and Alita Nandi – by email.