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Representation Matters: Celebrating our Sisters

Date 13 December 2023

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Professor Eunice Lumsden discusses how the events she was involved in as part of Black History Month 2023 led her to reflect on her first year as a professor, the impact and challenges it has brought and the launch of the MANDELA model for early childhood. 

 

A group of five people including Eunice Lumsden stand in a foyer
Professor Eunice Lumsden

As part of Black History Month 2023, I was fortunate to be invited by West Northants Council to talk at their Celebration of Culture event focusing on ‘Before Windrush and Celebrating our Sisters’. Preparation for this and the request to nominate a Black woman in Northamptonshire that has influenced me, for the VCSE Assembly Black History event led me to reflect on my first year as a professor, experiences of womanhood and the amazing Women I have, and continue to work with. I really do Salute you all.

I had not fully appreciated how becoming a professor and achieving what was seen as an unattainable aspiration, would impact on all aspects of my life. Rather than being the final destination in my academic career, it has proved to be just another stop on my journey. One that has opened the door to new challenges, opportunities and conversations.

The journey I have been on has led to a further understanding of the importance of relationships and belonging, representation and inclusivity. These areas are integral to all I do, yet the work of Jeffery Boakye stopped me in my tracks. If you have not read I Heard What you Said: A Black Teacher in a White System a Revolution in Education, I urge you to do so. Subsequent conversations and training with Jeffery, have facilitated debate about supporting students to become the professionals of tomorrow. He also enabled reflective discussions about dominant and non-dominant discourses by drawing on his experiences of ‘being a man’ and ‘being a Black man’.

I would also recommend listening to Professor Jason Arday, whose work has tackled the complex experiences of women and men from diverse backgrounds in Higher Education. His conversation with staff at the University of Northampton was challenging and inspiring. I found his views about different routes to professorship refreshing. His research into the employment conditions and lack of opportunity of ethnic minorities, especially women, in Higher Education reinforced many things I have observed over my career. His acknowledgement of the challenges and commitment to supporting change in this area is welcome.

These issues have been explored further by Dr Marcella Daye in her blog Black, (Un) Like Me: #Embrace Equity?.  Her decision to articulate sensitive, challenging and difficult issues, humbled me. Like my colleague Professor Jowett, I knew when preparing for my inaugural lecture I wanted to acknowledge her work, including her leadership of the 2022 Black in the Ivory conference that focused on Women: Professors of Colour.

Choosing the topic for my inaugural lecture, the preparation for it and the impact has been more complex than I expected. The title ‘Sticks and Stones will Break my Bones, but Names will NEVER Hurt me: The Power of Language and Actions to Empower or Disempower‘ was in tribute to my parents. My father often recited this proverb to empower me to be strong and manage the disempowering impact of the language and actions used by others towards me. They recognised my unique challenges as a child growing up in the sixties and seventies in England. My father was English, mother Sri Lankan and my elder sister’s lived experiences were vastly different because her appearance reflected our father’s family and not our Asian heritage.

As long as I can remember, I have wrestled with the complexities of being a child, adult, mother and professional of difference and strived to use these experiences to promote social justice. I have also learnt that representation right from the start is crucial. Consequently, my inaugural lecture focused on three key areas: Relationships, Inclusivity and Representation.

I aimed to explore these areas from my position as a woman and a woman of colour. I wanted to acknowledge that how we experience the world is not straightforward, it is impacted upon by our own experiences of sexism, racism, ableism, structural and health inequalities and adult and child abuse.

I particularly wanted to focus on the two areas:

  • The issues experienced by women regardless of their cultural context and the additional issues they must negotiate because of their ethnicity, culture, religious background, or sexuality.
  • The challenges for children growing up in our society and the vital importance of early childhood as a space to promote change.

I have welcomed the debates, questions and challenges, however uncomfortable, that followed the lecture. They have been growth opportunities, taking me down avenues I had not explored before, or prompting me to revisit areas through different lenses.

It also led me to finish work started ten years ago that builds on the work of Dr Prospera Tedam. Her research led to the development of the MANDELA Model. I have been able to use her work as a basis for developing a tool to explore reflexive conversations in early childhood settings. The tool was launched in September 2023.

I know that for some the breadth of my presentation meant it was difficult to process all the content at the time and they wanted to revisit the recording. Due to technical difficulties, it was not recorded and those online could not hear either. Although I cannot replicate the exact talk, l have revisited the presentation.

My lecture also prompted challenges. No one likes to be challenged, but this comes with academic debate, especially when addressing the complexities and sensitivities of equality, diversity and inclusion. As I reminded people in my lecture, we all see and understand the world differently because all our experiences are unique. I also highlighted what I term ‘the Intergenerational DNA of Colonialism’. An area I expanded on when I talked at West Northants. Here I discussed how the impact of colonialism can be passed from generation to generation.

While my work is underpinned by anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice, I have avoided academic debate and writing that specifically focuses on racism and its impact until recently – for me it is too personal, often initiating an emotional rather than a considered response.  In fact, the older and more experienced I become the harder all of this becomes. The comment of a participant in research I am conducting hits hard . . . ‘the world shouldn’t be like this’.

I also know that if we are to create change, we cannot shy away from the difficult discussions, nor ignore the impact discussing them has on the individual and wider community. This is why representation was one of the golden threads of the presentation.

For me, representation is a catalyst for change. If we are to strive for inclusivity, we need to co-create value-based environments where people feel and know they belong. We all need to appreciate that ‘belonging’ and ‘relationships’ go hand in hand and understand that the journey is complex, difficult and ongoing.

The main point of my argument was that children and young people must have role models and exposure to the rich diversity of our society and wider world. Yet if we explore education, health and social care statistics on diversity, most staff are White British and those in leadership positions often male (Gov.UK, 2021, 2023a; b; c).

This situation is echoed in Higher Education. Statistics from Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) (2023), highlight the challenges for women and ethnic minority groups. Of 23, 515 professors, 2,620 classified themselves as Black Minority Ethnic or other. When the data is explored further, the disparity of professorships between men and women is stark, there were 6,980 women compared to 16,515 men. Those from African and Caribbean backgrounds face even more challenges. There were 165 professor that identified as Black, compared to 1,750 who identified as Asian and 365 described themselves as ‘mixed’.

Becoming a professor is hard and even harder for younger academics to gain this role. Most professors fall within the age bracket 46-65, with only 80 being under 35.  Furthermore, as the data illustrates, white male academics dominate this area of Higher Education. The criteria for professorship also varies across institutions.

Given that Black males are a very small percentage of professors, the question rightly asked was why, in my inaugural lecture, did I highlight young Black academics achieving professorships, when Black women were not. My point here was not to undermine the importance of the vital shifts that are taking place but to highlight both the experiences of female academics and those that fall within the category of Ethnic Minority. (For those of you interested in exploring more about Black women’s experiences in Higher Education, the work of Showunmi (2023) is illuminating).

I specifically wanted to raise the situation for Black women in academia and value the work of Dr Daye, who has shone a light on those challenging, and often invisible, additional complexities for Black women. In fact, since my lecture the number of Black women professors has risen from 41 to 61. The question for us to ponder is how we can redress this balance and build inclusive systems where all are valued.

I can offer no easy solutions but if we want to create a culture of change, where representation matters, we need to develop empowering spaces where children, young people and adults are heard and listened to. Spaces, where we try to understand the world through the experiences of others so that new narratives can emerge, that act as catalysts for change.

References:

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Professor Eunice Lumsden
Professor Eunice Lumsden

Eunice Lumsden is Professor of Child Advocacy and Head of Childhood, Youth and Families.

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