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About Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE)
An advocate for the field of theatre and performance in higher education, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) serves as an intellectual and artistic center for producing new knowledge about theatre and performance-related disciplines, cultivating vital alliances with other scholarly and creative disciplines, linking with professional and community-based theatres, and promoting access and equity.
About Our Session
Together, we will identify and define common racist practices that are present within Higher Education Institutions, and explore anti-racist actions and methods of disrupting those practices. In this Anti-racism and Allyship workshop, we aim to share a framework for anti-racism practices and establish an understanding of critical race theory through interactive engagement, supported by theorists such as Austin Channing Brown, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, and Layla Saad. The content of this workshop is grounded in the theory of our published article for the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Equality and Diversity Journal titled “Reflections on Researching Within a Structurally Racist Institution,” where we explore how multiple underlying and intersecting axes of oppression affected our work within academia. Additionally, it is influenced by our shared experience with structural racism that exists in Higher Education in the United Kingdom, as well as our own independent research on the impacts of anti-racism within US-based Higher Education Institutions. We will facilitate an honest dialogue about perspectives and experiences in operating within racist educational institutions and systems, and analyze those experiences through Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality.
Our workshop will focus on how we exist in the technology of structural racism and how we can identify it within higher education. The aim of our workshop is to equip attendees with more knowledge and awareness of how seemingly small instances of institutionalised structural racism can be named, defined, and compounded, and armed with that knowledge, promote change. We intend to open the session with a brief introduction and open an initial dialogue with attendees on our experiences of structural racism within a Higher Education institution in London, UK. This will lead us to then defining critical race theory and intersectionality. Utilizing virtual features such as Zoom break-out rooms, we have designed virtual learning spaces to educate and afford opportunities for practical and experiential engagement. The practices we have designed provide real-life scenarios to role-play and collectively determine how people and institutions can become complicit in the operations of anti-Black racism. From hypothetical scenarios to real-life experiences, attendees will have the opportunity to explore multiple outcomes and solutions by evaluating what needs to be rethought, rejected, reinvented. They will be opportunities to “try on” perspectives and differing points of view, and expand their understanding of the intricacies of racism on a structural, cultural, and institutional level.
Our closing dialogue would include self-reflection and a review of our “tools” and strategies that were explored during the activities. We would repeat key terms and provide recommendations to re-evaluate beyond the workshop engagement.
Although our workshop is framed by experiences in Higher Education Institutions, the tools and awareness fostered in this workshop would be beneficial for anyone wishing to learn more about structural racism, intersectionality, and emotional labor.
Session Coordinators
Mary C. Parker
BA, MA (Applied Theatre), Facilitator, Coach, Consultant, Just Collaboration | www.justcollaboration.org, Session Coordinator & Presenter and Moderator
Anna Claire Walker
BFA (Musical Theatre), MA (Applied Theatre), Facilitator, Puppeteer, www.annaclairewalker.com
Session Coordinator & Presenter and Moderator