The Contested Academy: African Canadian Women’s Experiences as Tenured, Tenure Stream and Non-tenured Faculty

This thesis explores the experiences of Black women who are in tenured, tenure-stream, and non-tenured faculty positions and presents how Black women negotiate their intersectional identities in the academy. The study documents their self-identifications and struggles with the academy in terms of power relations in their respective universities, including racial and sexual discrimination. In addition, the study explores the career paths of Black women faculty from contract faculty to full professor. Methodologically, the study uses Black Feminist theorizing along with autoethnography in order to explore the nature of the experiences of Black Canadian women faculty within the academy. I interviewed 13 self-identified Black women across Canadian universities, including myself as the fourteenth key informant. This study reveals a complex and rich text of how Black women see themselves in the university, their experiences with multiple and overlapping oppressions and how this affects their careers, and finally, their contributions to the academy and their visions of success.

Accepted: 2021-11-30T19:28:17Z