Throwing our bodies against the white background of academia

Abstract

This paper addresses the difficulty of conducting research about non ‐ white racialised persons while working within predominantly white academic institutions. Specifically, I examine how to conduct research without representing Black bodies as a fixed, exoticised Other that is oppositional to a disembodied white Self. To do so, I use double consciousness alongside Black feminist work on dialogues as a methodological framework to centre Black Muslim women as knowledge producers. This novel approach moves away from simply describing (and fixing) racialised bodies to a particular performance/experience, and instead explores how performances shift as we negotiate different bodies, objects, and spaces. The paper advances discussions in critical race studies and the ethics of geographical research by illustrating how the situated experiences of the researcher and the participant are embedded in processes of knowledge production: I look to subvert the fixing of racialised bodies as deviations from the normative white background of academia.