The Emotional Aspects of Resistance and Solidarity

Gender and racial discrimination are critical and pervasive problems in academic institutions world-wide.

Apart from being underrepresented in some fields such as STEM and Philosophy gender and racial minorities are disproportionately vulnerable to sexual and racial harassment in Higher Education.

In 2021, a report on universities in the UK determined that women were nearly two-and-a-half times as likely to experience sexual violence as men, while staff on insecure contracts, those with disabilities, LGBTQ+, or black, Asian or minority ethnic were also at greater risk.

Academic institutions have sometimes sought to remedy to these exclusions by implementing diversity policies aimed at increasing the number of underrepresented groups among staff and students.

However, and more problematically, even when diversity policies and measures to fight against sexual and other forms of harassment are in place, academic institutions tend to be more concerned with protecting the institution from reputational damage than with the safety and well-being of the victims.

Reports that document the extent of these harms in universities point out that a change of culture is needed.

If we do not address the cultural environment that feeds these violent forms of exclusion, diversity and anti-harassment policies will be insufficient.

However, as long as we do not understand what makes this culture so persistent, we will lack the appropriate concepts and tools to change it.

My contention is that, while sexual and racial harassment are among the most harmful and violent manifestations of oppression, they are rooted in an ecosystem of cognitive and emotional habits that sediment in exclusionary practices against minorities.

My research project will be especially concerned with addressing these emotional conditions, by asking how oppressed and oppressors need to engage with their emotions in order to resist against oppression and build more cooperative ways of living together.