No love found: how female students of colour negotiate and repurpose university spaces

Abstract

This study explores the lived experiences on campus of five female undergraduate students of colour. Drawing on a critical race theory perspective and inspired by CRiT walking, walking interviews were conducted to give voice to the students’ experiences of marginalisation, both metaphorical and physical. The findings reveal how whiteness impacts on participants’ negotiation of university spaces; how the ‘white gaze’ influences their geographies; and how their experiences lead them to occupy counter-spaces within the university. Further, we found that participants’ aspirations of postgraduate education were tainted by these negative experiences at the undergraduate level, leading them to reject altogether or begrudgingly continue their education. The study proposes theoretically framed walking interviews as a productive methodology in future critical studies of race in education and highlights the urgent need to address the marginalisation of female students of colour on campus as one means of addressing postgraduate recruitment imbalances.