Shirley Anne Tate, PhD, MPhil, MA, BEd (Hons)

Area of Study / Keywords

Cultural Studies Black Feminist Diaspora Studies Institutional Racism Decoloniality The Body Black Aesthetics Race Gender 'Mixed Race'

About

I am a Jamaican descendant of African enslaved and Chinese and Indian indentured people. I am bilingual in Jamaican Creole (Patwa) and English. My background has impacted my approach to qualitative research, my research interests and what I see as foundational theory in terms of my work. I locate my research interests as Black feminist decolonial diaspora studies. My publications have been in the areas of intersectional institutional racism, racism, affect, hybridity, creolization, beauty and Black anti-racist aesthetics, 'race' performativity, Black/white mixed-race lives, and the “race”d and gendered body in enslavement and freedom. I have been developing Black feminist decolonial thought over a number of years drawing especially on Caribbean decolonial and Caribbean feminist decolonial thinking. This has emerged over a range of publications including monographs, commissioned book chapters, international distinguished speaker lectures, keynotes and other invitations to speak in the UK, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, South Africa, Brazil and the USA.  My international academic leadership on the topic of intersectional institutional racism, decolonization and antiracism in universities spans more than a decade and my work on decolonial perspectives on Black Cultural Studies has evolved over a number of publications in which I have been developing Black feminist decolonial approaches to critical cultural analyses.

I am currently Canada Research Chair Tier 1 in Feminism and Intersectionality. I am also a Honorary Professor in the Chair in Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET) at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa (appointed in July 2018), and Visiting Professor in the Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University, UK (appointed July 2019 for 3 years renewable). I was also a Visiting Professor and Member of the Board of the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State South Africa (2014-2018), and in November -December 2013 in the Department of International Law and Human Rights (Gender and Peace) at the UN University for Peace (UPEACE) in Costa Rica.  

Research

My Canada Research Chair 7 year program is 'Decolonization and antiracism in universities in settler colonial states', which is a comparative research project with collaborators in Brazil, South Africa, Sweden, Finland, Canada and the US. https://antiracism-lab.artsrn.ualberta.ca/

My other research area on Black Diaspora Studies focusing on the Black body in enslavement and freedom is ongoing with my most recent monograph being on Black skin and affect.

I am currently supervising PhD students from South Africa, the UK, Finland and Canada. I am open to PhD applications within my areas of research interest.

Teaching

I currently teach SOC580-A1 Colonialism, Postcolonialism and Globalization and SOC402 B04 Race, Gender and Culture.

SOC 402 - Topics in Sociology

Prerequisite: SOC 100 or consent of the instructor. Note: Consult the Department for any additional prerequisites. Course may be taken more than once if topic(s) vary.

SOC 580 - Colonialism, Post-colonialism and Globalization

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