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Fezile Sibanda

PHD SCHOLAR | UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX | 2022 – 2025

Brighton-based Fezile Sibanda joined the Stuart Hall Foundation Scholar and Fellow network in September 2022. She is a Doctoral researcher in Education Based at the University of Sussex and has been awarded the School of Education and Social Work (ESW) ‘BAME’ Studentship. Fezile is interested in how marginalised groups experience education, focusing on race and higher education. Fezile completed her undergraduate degree in Education at the University of Brighton and has since completed MA Social Justice and Education from the University College London UCL, Institute of Education IOE.

Fezile’s doctoral research aims to unpack the experiences of Black Brit-ish academics within Higher education institutions in England with a particular focus on how coloniality operates in academia. The term Brit-ish is purposefully hyphenated to demonstrate the complexity of Black British identity. She is using storytelling as a form of intergenerational knowledge exchange and has drawn on the African philosophy of Ubuntu as a research methodology. Ubuntu is encapsulated in the saying ‘I am, because we are and since we are, therefore, I am’. This research aims to amplify Black Brit-ish voices, which are often marginalised within the academy. Fezile draws on anti-colonial scholarship and is interested in counter-hegemonic world and knowledge making.

Fezile has contributed to academic articles, magazines and blogs on race, gender, and intersectional environmentalism. Fezile is also part of SHY Collective, a platform seeking to challenge educational and academic structures by making academic work more accessible.