View in EDS

'How do we name the air that we breathe?' – The haunting presence of white supremacy and settler colonialism at UC Berkeley.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Title: 'How do we name the air that we breathe?' – The haunting presence of white supremacy and settler colonialism at UC Berkeley.
Authors: Anbert, Lærke Cecilie1 (AUTHOR) lca@edu.au.dk
Source: Globalisation, Societies & Education. May2026, Vol. 24 Issue 3, p593-606. 14p.
Subject Terms: *Student activism, *Universities & colleges, Settler colonialism, White supremacy, Reparations for historical injustices, Social justice, Social stratification
Company/Entity: University of California, Berkeley
Abstract: Social-justice-oriented student activists at UC Berkeley are concerned with structural inequalities and their connection to past unacknowledged atrocities associated with the campus. Through different activist endeavours, students seek to raise awareness of UC Berkeley's settler colonial past and legacy of white supremacy. They unearth, reactivate, and relocate past atrocities in the present. The students call forth and are called upon by the past to dismantle structures of inequality on campus and beyond and encourage each other to be attentive to these structures. Building on five months of in-person fieldwork among student activists and online fieldwork from 2020 to 2022, I explore how rumours and narratives of the past, in resonance with broader translocal calls for justice, becomes a way for activist students to deal with the unaddressed settler colonial past of the university. Inspired by a theoretical framework of hauntology, I show how (past) injustices haunt the campus and demand a reckoning with the past and present. I argue that activist students understand current inequalities as directly connected to past atrocities and that this understanding of history positions the students as implicated. Being implicated entails discomfort but also opens possibilities for action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Globalisation, Societies & Education is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Database: Education Research Complete
Description
Abstract:Social-justice-oriented student activists at UC Berkeley are concerned with structural inequalities and their connection to past unacknowledged atrocities associated with the campus. Through different activist endeavours, students seek to raise awareness of UC Berkeley's settler colonial past and legacy of white supremacy. They unearth, reactivate, and relocate past atrocities in the present. The students call forth and are called upon by the past to dismantle structures of inequality on campus and beyond and encourage each other to be attentive to these structures. Building on five months of in-person fieldwork among student activists and online fieldwork from 2020 to 2022, I explore how rumours and narratives of the past, in resonance with broader translocal calls for justice, becomes a way for activist students to deal with the unaddressed settler colonial past of the university. Inspired by a theoretical framework of hauntology, I show how (past) injustices haunt the campus and demand a reckoning with the past and present. I argue that activist students understand current inequalities as directly connected to past atrocities and that this understanding of history positions the students as implicated. Being implicated entails discomfort but also opens possibilities for action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:14767724
DOI:10.1080/14767724.2024.2355190