On (un) Becoming Ghosts in Academia: A Coloured Female Academic’s Narratives in Post-student Protest Higher Education in South Africa

I am conducting an autoethnographic study on the narratives of female academics of colour in the post-student protest era. I am interested in exploring how women of colour navigate this space, the progress made through the unrest, and the remaining obstacles. Autoethnography is a research and writing approach that aims to describe and analyse personal experiences to gain a broader understanding of cultural and social experiences. This approach challenges colonial research practices and aims to represent others in a more politically, socially just, and conscious manner. The concept of hauntology, as explained by Derrida (1994), suggests that socio-economic and political phenomena such as apartheid, racism, inequality, and injustice are not dead but continue to have a lingering impact on our existence. My connection to these ghosts’ dates back over 300 years, to the arrival of the first slave ships from India and Ceylon. These ghosts have been with me throughout my life, from my mother's womb through my upbringing, education, and now my academic career. In the current emotionally charged debates surrounding coloured identity, my goal is to explore how a group of female academics of colour engage with these ghosts from our past and how they can be utilised to navigate these still troubled spaces. By intertwining my growth stories with black feminist theory, particularly the concepts of respectability politics, anger, and creative resistance, I will illustrate what becomes possible in our academic and personal lives when we embrace, welcome, and liberate our ghosts.