Decolonising the University as an Institution

In this video, Professor Judith Squires, Provost of the University of Bristol talks to Professor Alvin Birdi (one of the lead educators for Week 2 of this course) about the role of the wider university in supporting and enabling decolonisation. She describes supporting activities being undertaken at institutional level at Bristol, such as in recruitment and on countering racism.

The focus of this course is on the decolonisation of various subject disciplines. However, one of the aims of this week’s material is to give you a sense of the bigger picture. Decolonisation efforts are more likely to succeed if they are part of a broader institutional strategy and if they are linked into and receive input from the community outside the academy too.

Later this week, we will look at how the University is also working with the City of Bristol and its communities to ensure that decolonisation efforts learn from and include the views and inputs of a wide sector of the community. After all, one of the purposes of decolonisation is to open the academy to knowledges and people that may have been previously marginalised.