Decolonising the university curriculum: an investigation into current practice regarding Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities

Abstract

This article explores how Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are positioned in relation to current decolonising work in higher education. Drawing on interviews with fifteen equality, diversity, and inclusion staff at twelve universities in Britain, we examine the extent to which the decolonising agenda tackles anti-Gypsyism. We find that, despite recognition of the importance of including Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in decolonising initiatives, they are overlooked and omitted from institutional discourses and strategies. We identify and discuss the main barriers to the inclusion of these groups in university decolonising work, conceptualising these within a thematic framework of factors relating to invisibility, ignorance, and unease. Arguing that anti-Gypsyism is a core component of both coloniality and established, institutionalised whiteness, we advocate for an extension of Critical Race Theory and the development of a RomaniTravellerCrit to expose and address the impacts of anti-Gypsy and anti-Roma racism and discrimination in higher education.