Decolonising inclusion: Reframing equity for non-academic women of colour in UK higher education

Abstract

This article critically examines how non-academic women of colour experience inclusion within UK higher education institutions. Drawing on narrative and semi-structured interviews, it reveals that inclusion is often choreographed through surface-level gestures that legitimise universities without redistributing power. The analysis develops three conceptual tools – curated inclusion, institutional affective discipline and progression ambiguity – to theorise how diversity initiatives function as containment strategies rather than mechanisms for transformation. Informed by Black feminist, critical race and decolonial theories, the study exposes how emotional labour, strategic silences and conditional belonging operate as everyday technologies of racialised governance. By centring the voices of women in non-academic roles, the article extends existing debates on institutional whiteness and performative inclusion, arguing for a structural reimagining of equity work grounded in decolonial praxis and epistemic justice.