Heidi Safia Mirza

Heidi Safia Mirza (born 1958)[1] is a British academic, who is Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London,[2] Professor Emerita in Equalities Studies at the UCL Institute of Education,[3] and Visiting Professor in Social Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE).[4] She has done pioneering research on race, gender and identity in education, multiculturalism, Islamophobia and gendered violence, and was one of the first black women professors in Britain.[5][6][7] She is author and editor of several notable books, including Young, Female and Black (1992), Black British Feminism (1997), Tackling the Roots of Racism: Lessons for Success (2005), Race Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail (2009), Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times (2012), and Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators (2012).

Biography

Early years and education

Heidi Safia Mirza was born in Britain to a Trinidadian father and an Austrian mother, and at the age of four she moved with her parents to Trinidad.[8][9] She returned to England in 1973, when she was 16, attending school in Brixton, and has written of the shock of encountering racist strife in 1970s England after her relatively sheltered experience of growing up in rural Trinidad and attending a secondary school founded by her grandmother: "You don’t question your right to exist, but that is what happens when you become a racialized 'other.'"[8] In 1977 she went to do Development Studies the University of East Anglia, where in her first year she met and married her husband;[8] she was pregnant with their daughter when she sat her final exams.[9]

She studied for a PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London,[9] and her thesis became her first book, Young, Female and Black (1992), about second-generation Caribbean young women in British comprehensive schools[10] and "the interplay between career choices, aspirations and educational structures", which she has described as "in effect, both an academic and an autobiographical journey".[9]

Career

Mirza's academic career has encompassed lecturing and teaching in the US at Brown University, then at South Bank University for nine years, and at Middlesex University (1998), where she became the UK's first Chair in Racial Equality Studies.[9] She is currently Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmiths,[2] Professor Emerita in Equalities Studies at the UCL Institute of Education,[3] and Visiting Professor in Social Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE).[4]

Mirza has published widely on race, gender, Black British feminisms, multiculturalism, postcolonial theory and educational inequalities, her books including Young, Female and Black (1992), Black British Feminism (1997), Tackling the Roots of Racism: Lessons for Success (2005), Race Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail (2009), Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times (2012), and Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators (2012).[2] She co-authored the OfSTED school government inspection report Educational Inequality: Mapping Race, Class, and Gender.[2]

She advises English Heritage on diversity, and established the Runnymede Collection at the Black Cultural Archives.[3]

Honours and recognition

In 2014 Mirza won the Media Diversified Eight Women award, which celebrates the achievements of women of colour in the UK.[11]

In 2015, in recognition of her achievements, she gave the 50th Anniversary Martin Luther King Lecture with Doreen Lawrence in St Paul's Cathedral.[12][13][4]

In 2020, Mirza featured in the Phenomenal Women exhibition at London's Southbank Centre celebrating the 35 Black professors at UK universities.[14][15]

Bibliography

Books
  • Young, Female and Black, London: Routledge, 1992. ISBN 978-0415067058
  • Black British Feminism: A Reader, London: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 978-0415152891
  • Race, Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail, London: Routledge, 2009. ISBN 978-0415448765
  • "'A Second Skin': Embodied Intersectionality, Transnationalism and Narratives of Identity and Belonging among Muslim Women in Britain". Women’s Studies International Forum 36: 5–16, 2013.
  • With Bhavnani, R., and V. Meetoo, Tackling the Roots of Racism, Lessons for Success, Bristol: Policy Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1861347749
  • With Joseph, C. Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times: Researching Educational Inequalities, London: Routledge, 2010. ISBN 978-0415633956
  • Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators, IOE Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0854738878
  • Co-edited with Jason Arday, Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy, Palgrave MacMillan, 2019.

Selected articles
  • With Yasmin Gunaratnam, "'The Branch on which I sit': Heidi Safia Mirza in conversation with Yasmin Gunaratnam", Feminist Review, 108, 2014, pp. 125–133. ISSN 0141-7789.
  • "'A second skin’: Embodied intersectionality, transnationalism and narratives of identity and belonging among Muslim women in Britain", Women's Studies International Forum, 36, 2013, pp. 5–15. ISSN 0277-5395.
  • "Plotting a History: Black and postcolonial feminisms in ‘new times’", Race Ethnicity and Education, 12(1), 2009, pp. 1–10. ISSN 1361-3324.
  • "'The Golden Fleece': The Windrush quest for educational desire". Windrush Stories, British Library, 8 October 2018.[16]

References
  1. Mercedes Smith, "Tracy Satchwill’s unique art project Magna Carta Women goes on show in Devon", Devon Life, 14 January 2015.
  2. "Heidi Safia Mirza", Staff in the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths.
  3. Heidi Mirza biography, London Festival of Education, 2015.
  4. "Professor Heidi Safia Mirza". Department of Social Policy. LSE. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  5. Heidi Mirza, "Black British feminism then and now", Media Diversified, 23 March 2014.
  6. Phil Gregory, "14,000 British professors – just 50 are black", The Black Presence in Britain, 20 June 2011.
  7. "'Stereotype' fear from race data", BBC News, 25 November 2008.
  8. K. P. Sian, "Heidi Mirza", in Sian, K. P. (ed.), Conversations in Postcolonial Thought. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 27–28.
  9. Heidi Safia Mirza and Kate Hoskins, "Love in the cupboard: A conversation about success and sadness when race, gender and class collide in the making of an academic career", in B. Cole and H. Gunter (eds) ( 2010), Changing Lives: Women Inclusion and the PhD, Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books.
  10. C. N. Trueman, "Heidi Safia Mirza", The History Learning Site, 22 May 2015.
  11. Carly Read, "Professor at Goldsmiths wins prestigious diversity award for race, gender and identity research", News Shopper, 21 September 2014.
  12. Heidi Safia Mirza, "A New Year’s message of hope? Martin Luther King’s dream to ‘end racism today’", IoE London Blog, UCL Institute of Education, 6 January 2015.
  13. Heidi Mirza, "Martin Luther King's dream: how can we end racism today?", Sociology, Goldsmiths, 23 June 2015.
  14. "Britain's Black female professors take centre stage in a new exhibition". Melan. 17 September 2020. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  15. "The Southbank Centre presents an outdoor exhibition celebrating Britain's Black female professors" (PDF). Southbank Centre. 17 September 2020. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  16. Heidi Mirza, "'The Golden Fleece': The Windrush quest for educational desire", Windrush Stories, British Library, 8 October 2018.
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