‘Woked up the bum’ and other moral panics about academic decolonisation in the British news media

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

ABSTRACT This article provides an insight into how academic decolonisation is depicted in public discourse. It does this by analysing news media articles about academic decolonisation from a conservative news source. The analysis – which is inspired by the work of Stanley Cohen, Stuart Hall, and the Glasgow University Media Group – shows that academic decolonisation is often portrayed as a harmful project that must be resisted. More specifically, academic decolonisation is represented as a sinister plot which is forced upon universities and underpinned by an anti-white, anti-Western, and absurd logic. This article argues that this public discourse is significant because such derisory accounts of academic decolonisation are not often openly expressed within academia even though they may be present. This article also explores the possibility that these hostile depictions of academic decolonisation, despite being problematic, may provide those who wish to decolonise universities with an opportunity to refute dismissive perspectives about academic decolonisation.