In this presentation, I reflect on my practices in teaching critical race and whiteness studies to undergraduate and postgraduate students over the past fifteen years in higher education.
I discuss some of the key theoretical insights of critical race and whiteness studies and outline some strategies for negotiating white privilege and white possession in professional training and education contexts.
I situate myself in these teaching practices as a white and non-Indigenous academic and critically examine what facilitating anti-racist teaching means in the relational space of learning. In recognising how non-Indigenous peoples view me as an ally in deficit discourse regarding Indigenous peoples, I can work in a pedagogical space to contest these views and the emotional responses to critical reflection and histories of colonial racism.
Promoting racial literacy through critical race and whiteness studies is one contribution to decolonising the knowledges that circulate in public institutions and discourse regarding the nation-state, history, and national identity. Non-Indigenous teachers such as myself have a pedagogical responsibility to work with their communities in challenging the cultural norms of white possession and the privileges we derive from it.
Presenter
- Holly Randell-Moon, Charles Sturt University
