Decolonisation as a Contested Practice: Evidence from The Open University

Opening April’s Seminar will be Professor Allan Laville, OU’s Pro VC of Equality Diversity and inclusion.

Presenter – Dr Shannon Martin

Despite growing commitments to racial equality, racism and racial inequality continue to shape how higher education is experienced by ethnic minority students and staff, particularly those from Black backgrounds. In response, decolonisation has become increasingly visible across UK higher education, gaining renewed attention following the murder of George Floyd and the global reckoning with structural racism that followed.

Decolonisation is now widely used yet remains a deeply contested concept. Its meaning and application vary significantly, raising pressing questions: what does decolonisation actually mean in higher education, and what does it look like in practice?

This presentation draws on doctoral research conducted at The Open University and explores how decolonisation and anti-racism are understood, interpreted, and enacted by those who work and study within the institution. Through the voices of students and staff, it examines how lived experience, racial identity, and institutional power shape what decolonisation means.

The findings show that decolonisation is not a neutral or shared concept, even within a single institution. Instead, it is contrastingly understood, differently supported, and shaped by institutional hierarchies. While many individuals’ approach decolonial work with genuine commitment, the research highlights how coloniality continues to operate within the Westernised university through everyday practices of power, control, and decision-making. The talk ends by questioning whether decolonisation can move beyond rhetoric within the existing university structures, and what kinds of change this would require.

Dr Shannon Martin – Researcher/Equality & inclusion/Government &Academic sectors/Decolonisation. Sociology Dept, Open University