Unmasking Academia: Institutional Inequities Laid Bare During Covid-19

As a global crisis, COVID-19 was a moment of reckoning for the academy, exposing deep-seated issues. Unmasking Academia uses the pandemic as a catalyst to reflect on the intensification and intersectional impacts of white supremacy, colonialism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and misogyny in higher education. Centring the experiences and insights of historically excluded and underrepresented faculty and students and using methodologies such as auto-ethnography, policy analysis, and Indigenous ways of knowing, the authors chart new pathways toward social justice and meaningful institutional transformation. By illustrating post-secondary institutions’ superficial commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), the authors are able to offer sharp critiques and suggest strategies for change. Unmasking Academia provides critical insights on survival and resistance along with recommendations for making higher education an equitable and just space. Provocative and incisive, the book is a rich resource for administrators, researchers, and teachers, and, indeed, for all involved in education.

Contributors: Pallavi Banerjee, Sepideh Borzoo, Enakshi Dua, Isabel Fandino, Leah K. Hamilton, Carl E. James, Hee-Jung S. Joo, Erin Keating, Corinne L. Mason, Ayesha Mian Akram, Nardos Omer, Fawziah Rabiah-Mohammed, Irene Shankar, Carieta Thomas, Ethel Tungohan, Gabrielle Ellen Weasel Head.

Irene Shankar is Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University. Corinne L. Mason is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Mount Royal University.