Race, Gender, and Researcher Positionality Analysed Through Memory Work

Abstract

Drawing upon feminist standpoint theory and memory work, the authors analyse racial privilege by investigating their own racialized and gendered subjectifications as academic researchers. By looking at their own experiences within academia, they show how authority and agency are contingent upon racialization, and how research within gender, migration, and critical race studies is often met by rejection and threats of physical violence. The article illustrates how race is silenced within academia, and furthermore how questions of race, when pointed out, are often interpreted as a call for censorship. The authors conclude that a lack of reflection around the situatedness of knowledge, as well as the evasion of discussions on racial privilege, contribute to maintaining whiteness as a privileged site for scientific knowledge production.