Black Women Academics’ Hypervisibility and Hyperinvisibility in British and Postcolonial British Caribbean Higher Education Institutions

Black women academics often experience social and intellectual isolation and are overworked and underpaid within the academy. There has been seminal research on the experiences of Black women academics in British and postcolonial British Caribbean higher education institutions; however, few comparative studies have been conducted on their experiences between ex-colonial states and former colonies. This study aims to better understand the intersectional harms of Black women academics’ experiences within colonial systems of oppression within British and postcolonial British higher education institutions. This comparative study utilizes intersectionality, Black British feminism, and Afro-Caribbean feminist thought as onto-epistemological frameworks to center the intersectional harms they experience. Using intersectionality methodology, comparative patterns in the data suggest that Black women academics in England, Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad experience hypervisibility of race, mammification tropes, hyperinvisibility, and misogynoir. The persistence of these harms requires sustained efforts to dismantle systemic oppression that limit the professional and intellectual freedoms of Black women academics.