Who feels it knows it! Alterity, identity and ‘epistemological privilege’: challenging white privilege from a black perspective within the academy

The paper considers some of the contemporary issues faced by black academics, denoting our constant struggles for equal and fair treatment, which are not based on what we bring to the table but the skin we are in. To do so I will utilise ‘Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis’ (IPA) because ‘[W]hen people are engaged with an ‘experience’ of something major in their lives, they begin to reflect on the significance of what is happening’ (Smith et al 2009: 3). IPA therefore enables us to consider a form of reasoning as that which firmly locates the ‘nebulous’ concepts of whiteness and white privilege in a socio-cultural and historical context. Moreover, by interrogating and exposing the centrality of whiteness, we make known that any discussion of the value of human life, in white racist societies, requires black voices to be at the forefront of discussions regarding, race, representation and belonging; especially within the hallowed halls of academia