10 - Fighting the power: challenging institutional discrimination – a personal perspective

Summary

In this chapter I really grapple with how to challenge and confront institutional discrimination, while trying to use the processes and mechanisms of the same institution to obtain my PhD. Audre Lorde's words immediately spring to mind when I critically reflect on my experience: ‘the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change’ (Lorde, 1984 (emphasis in original)).

When I embarked upon my PhD three years ago, I was full of hope and excitement to begin this new academic chapter. I had received a studentship to begin my doctoral studies at a small postgraduate campus based in London (with the larger main campus elsewhere in the UK). At the time, our campus had 14 PhD students, all of whom, except me, were international. Going into it, I expected the PhD journey to be an intellectually demanding, intensely challenging, yet rewarding labour of love. What I did not anticipate, however, was to find myself within an oppressive working environment, which operated through a culture of fear and intimidation and the systematic bullying of its marginalised PhD students.

Within the first year of my studies, I witnessed serious issues with the way international students were treated at my institution. These ranged from students being denied access to work laptops, phones, office spaces, research training and, at times, being prevented from taking their legal entitlement to annual leave. These issues, while problematic and disruptive, were less severe in comparison to some of the major issues we faced, which included students being reported to their supervisors for raising issues about university practices, being threatened with being reported to immigration for taking leave, failing to process ethics form submissions, withholding information, and confidential emails being forwarded to other staff members. Outraged, I encouraged my PhD colleagues to raise issues through their supervisory teams and postgraduate researcher (PGR) representative (rep). However, as those further along in their studies explained, raising issues typically resulted in one of two things: being ignored or targeted victimisation. As I would witness, the impact of this victimisation was profound and had, unfortunately, already taken its toll on many students.