Unmasking Academia

As a global crisis, COVID-19 was a moment of reckoning for the academy, exposing deep-seated issues. Unmasking Academia uses the pandemic as a catalyst to reflect on the intensification and intersectional impacts of white supremacy, colonialism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and misogyny in higher education. Centring the experiences and insights of historically excluded and underrepresented faculty and students and using methodologies such as auto-ethnography, policy analysis, and Indigenous ways of knowing, the authors chart new pathways toward social justice and meaningful institutional transformation. By illustrating post-secondary institutions' superficial commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), the authors are able to offer sharp critiques and suggest strategies for change. Unmasking Academia provides critical insights on survival and resistance along with recommendations for making higher education an equitable and just space. Provocative and incisive, the book is a rich resource for administrators, researchers, and teachers, and, indeed, for all involved in education.

Contributors: Pallavi Banerjee, Sepideh Borzoo, Enakshi Dua, Isabel Fandino, Leah K. Hamilton, Carl E. James, Hee-Jung S. Joo, Erin Keating, Corinne L. Mason, Ayesha Mian Akram, Nardos Omer, Fawziah Rabiah-Mohammed, Irene Shankar, Carieta Thomas, Ethel Tungohan, Gabrielle Ellen Weasel Head.
Unmasking Academia is informed by the expertise and experiences of marginalized faculty and students and exposes inequities in academia through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unmasking Academia is informed by the expertise and experiences of marginalized faculty and students and exposes inequities in academia through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. 3 B&W photographs
"Unmasking Academia advances a powerful critique of university administrators' message that 'we are in this together' during the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrates how, in fact, the most marginalized faced additional barriers and precarity. Offering insight from a range of sites within higher education, contributors provide a thoughtful analysis of the intersectional impact of the pandemic-beyond the mainstream focus on the gender gap. This important collection calls out the rhetoric of EDI and offers new understandings and ways forward for a more just academy." Claire Carter, University of Regina
"Unmasking Academia draws upon accounts of those writing from diverse stances and positions within the academy. Each of their narratives is compelling, combining general issues and specific experiences that contextualize academic work and life in the shadow of the pandemic." Terry Wotherspoon, University of Saskatchewan

• Introduction / Corinne L. Mason and Irene Shankar

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• Part 1: Space Invaders

• 1. Critical Reflections on Workload and Labour: Navigating Graduate School as a Racialized Muslim Mother during the COVID-19 Pandemic / Ayesha Mian Akram

• 2. Struggles of International Graduate Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Spectre of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Policies at a University / Sepideh Borzoo, Isabel Fandino and Pallavi Banerjee

• 3. "We Missed Out on a Lot": The Pandemic, Schooling, and Black Youth / Carl E. James

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• Part 2: Communities of Care

• 4. "Nobody's Gonna Talk to You About That": Methodological Considerations in Research with Undocumented Caribbean Care Workers During COVID-19 / Carieta Thomas

• 5. Community-Engaged Research with Refugee Communities During COVID-19 / Fawziah Rabiah-Mohammed and Leah K. Hamilton

• 6. Institutionalized Feminist Loneliness: An Exchange on Pandemic Disruptions to Research / Corinne L. Mason and Irene Shankar

• 7. "Dissident Friendships" During COVID Times / Ethel Tungohan

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• Part 3: A Future Otherwise

• 8. Resisting Racism Through a Pedagogy of Blackfoot Resilience / Gabrielle Ellen Weasel Head

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