'But you're white': An autoethnography of whiteness and white privilege in East Asian universities



Moosavi, Leon ORCID: 0000-0002-1639-5049
(2022) 'But you're white': An autoethnography of whiteness and white privilege in East Asian universities. RESEARCH IN COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, 17 (1). pp. 107-123.

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Abstract

<jats:p>It is well established within the field of Critical Whiteness Studies that white privilege routinely materialises in Western universities. Yet, even though a third wave of Critical Whiteness Studies is increasingly focussing on whiteness in non-Western contexts, there has been insufficient attention toward whether white privilege also exists in East Asian universities. This article seeks to explore this issue by offering an autoethnography in which the author, a mixed-race academic who is racialised as white on some occasions and as a person of colour on others, critically interrogates whiteness in East Asian higher education. It is argued that those who are racialised as white are privileged in East Asian universities and may even seek to actively sustain this. In departing from the dominant understanding of whiteness as always-and-only privileging, this article also explores the extent to which white academics in East Asia may also be disadvantaged by their whiteness.</jats:p>

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Whiteness, white privilege, East Asia, higher education, coloniality, autoethnography
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Law and Social Justice
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 09 Feb 2022 09:33
Last Modified: 24 Jan 2023 15:38
DOI: 10.1177/17454999211067123
Open Access URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/17454999211067123
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URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3148579