Acclaimed feminist scholar Sara Ahmed discusses her latest incisive and insightful work, on complaint and institutional injustice, with fellow academic Heidi Safia Mirza.
In No is Not a Lonely Utterance, Sara Ahmed dissects the anatomy of a complaint, revealing how institutions create hostile environments that stigmatize complainers, and charts a way we can listen to grievances with ‘feminist ears’: going beyond mere validation and seeking instead to address the root causes of injustice and inequality.
Weaving together testimonies from various walks of life, Ahmed shows us what we learn about the ways institutions exercise their power when complaints are raised, and indeed what we learn about our capacity to collectivize and create social bonds through complaint. In doing so, she inspires us to create better environments for our life’s work.
Sara Ahmed is an independent feminist scholar who works at the intersection of feminist, queer and race studies. Her research is concerned with how bodies and worlds take shape; and how power is secured and challenged in everyday life as well as institutional cultures. She has published eleven books, including The Feminist Killjoy Handbook.
Heidi Safia Mirza is Emeritus Professor of Equality Studies in Education at UCL Institute of Education. She is internationally known for her pioneering intersectional research on Race, gender, and identity in education and championing equality and rights for Black, Asian and Muslim Women and young people through educational reform. A daughter of the Windrush generation from Trinidad, Heidi has been honoured as one of the first and rare 35 ‘Phenomenal Black Women Professors’ in Britain. She is author of several best-selling books including, Race Gender and Educational Desire, Black British Feminism and Young Female and Black, which was voted in the top 40 most influential educational studies in Britain.
The event will be followed by an audience Q&A and a book signing.
