The Persistence of Sexism and Racism at Universities

Seminar summary

#MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and related social movements have over the last years continuously shown us that sexism and racism persist in our societies, our workplaces, and our universities and that we need to invest time, care, and resources into understanding how the sexism and racism that so many continuously experience is reproduced.
This presentation discusses how sexist and racist harassment and discrimination are reproduced in workplaces at universities. Building on empirical research that integrates discourse and affect analysis to focus on the interplay of individual- and structural-level factors, it details how harassment and discrimination are facilitated in a context of in/formality which prevails at universities, leading to a continuous reproduction of inequality. Drawing on dis/organization theory as well as queer and Black feminist understandings of vulnerability, autonomy, and discrimination, it is further discussed how harassment and discrimination remain imperceptible and unspeakable.
On this basis, implications for organizational practice are discussed that recognize anti-harassment and anti-discrimination as ongoing, relational organizational practices and address the affective ambiguities of harassment and discrimination.

How to attend this seminar

This seminar is free to attend with no need to register in advance.

We welcome you to join us online on Wednesday 31st May at 12pm.

Speaker bio

Dr Bontu Lucie Guschke

Bontu Lucie Guschke is a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Group Gender Studies at the Institute of Sociology, Freie Universität Berlin. She earned her PhD degree at the Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School. Her research interests include intersectional feminist organizational analyses, queer feminist and norm-critical theory, anti-/racism research, feminist epistemologies and the interplay of discourse and affect analysis. She wrote her PhD dissertation on ‘The persistence of sexism and racism at universities - Exploring the imperceptibility and unspeakability of workplace harassment and discrimination in academia.’ Available to view online