When Becky Pulls 'a Karen': How university research ethics processes expose Black women to White rage (CRRE Seminar)

Dr Nadena Doharty, Durham University

Dr Doharty will talk about how university research ethics processes are failing racialised Black researchers by offering them too few protections when presenting research findings that shed light on institutional racism.

These ethical procedures are rooted in Enlightenment principles of ostensibly objective, neutral, and reasoned researchers that are incongruous to the racial stratification of our social world. Consequently, studies such as racism are labelled ‘high risk’ and subject to further scrutiny. However, ‘high risk’ considerations are for the participants rather than researcher. While this presentation recognises that participants are observed to be people with complex backgrounds and experiences that the researcher must pay attention to, less attention is paid to the researcher whose role it is to produce knowledge and who cannot be divorced from the research process. They are implicated in rather than distanced from the research process, and any claims to neutrality is upholding White supremacy.

Taking one of the researcher’s own projects, this presentation will bring together theoretical perspectives from Cultural Studies and Critical Race Theory to explore white rage and institutional silence. It will explore the consequences of being a racialised Black academic woman presenting findings about inequalities that dominant white audiences refute because they ‘read’ the researcher in ways that are consistent with the unequal racial and gender stratification of wider society.

Taking the meme of a ‘Karen’, this presentation argues that racialised Black women are being exposed to and harmed by ‘Karens’ who continue to police Black bodies in the academy because research ethics procedures pay too little attention to the impact of being a racialised researcher, and thus, a target of ‘white rage’ (Anderson 2017).  

All welcome. Registration is essential to receive the link to ZOOM.