Dr Adrija Dey, who will be joining the University of Westminster as a Senior Research Fellow in March 2022, has received over £930,000 as part of a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowship for her research project to explore decolonising sexual and gender-based violence within higher education.
The Future Leaders Fellowships Scheme is run by UKRI and helps universities and businesses in the UK recruit, develop and retain the world’s best research and innovators. The investment from UKRI is the first UKRI award of its kind that Westminster has been granted, and will enable Dr Dey to progress her research by using the funding to account for essential equipment and researcher wages.
Dr Dey’s project, entitled ‘Decolonising Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Higher Education: Innovations in Theory, Policy and Practice’, explores a global problem that requires urgent attention. Keeping ideas of prevention and change of culture at its core, Dr Dey’s research will decolonise understandings of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in higher education by focusing on lessons from institutional practices and feminist struggles in the Global South.
It will present new, inclusive and survivor-centred understandings of SGBV in higher education through a programme of research that is empirically grounded, methodologically innovative and theoretically informed. To achieve this, the project will develop an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach in all three levels of theory, policy and practice for addressing a critical contemporary challenge.
The hierarchical nature of higher education gives rise to sometimes visible and other times hidden power dynamics which oppress certain minority bodies while privileging others. Hence, rethinking SGBV within higher education not only requires an acknowledgement of these power dynamics and resultant violence, but a complete overhaul of the way theory, policy and practices are imagined in these contexts.
The research will use five country-specific case studies from South Africa, Brazil, Nigeria, Chile and Australia that are comparative in their histories of colonial and imperial legacies, and display interesting intersections of institutional repression and collective action today. Dr Dey aims to address the gaps in knowledge in the sector, bringing together theories and methodologies from feminist institutionalism, gender studies and public health.
Her ambitious and challenging research project will not only explore new agendas in all three disciplines, but also bridge the gap in theory and policy in the area of SGBV in higher education.
Talking about the fellowship, Dr Adrija Dey said: “I am so excited and honoured to be joining the University of Westminster as an UKRI Future Leaders Fellow to work on my dream project. This fellowship gives me the time, resources and support structure which are essential to carry out a project of this scale and nature.
“I am so grateful for all the support I have received from the University of Westminster and very excited to join their vibrant research community. I am also extremely honoured to have the support of mentors - Alison Phipps, Professor Radha D’Souza and Dr Anastasia Kavada - all of whom have challenged the status quo and worked to redefine their own field of study.”
Find out more about research on the WestminsterResearch website.
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