07 February 2022

Diversity is not a silo: routes to anti-racist work in Scottish Heritage

Online talk by Dr Churnjeet Mahn

Free. Register via Eventbrite

This lecture uses a series of case studies to discuss how BAME people in Scotland are systematically excluded from the educational and organizational structures that underpin the management and public understanding of heritage in Scotland.

Rather than being part of decision making on ‘national’ bodies, or in the board rooms and governing bodies of influential organisations, BAME people are more likely to be found in ‘community’ settings or events. How do we begin to think beyond silos of diversity? What do we need from the past to make more inclusive futures?

Dr Churnjeet Mahn is a Reader in English at the University of Strathclyde. Her research investigates the history and practice of travel with reference to race, sexuality, and nationalisms. Her early work investigated the competing discourses of Orientalism, Hellenism and Philhellenism in Greece in the wake of its independence from the Ottoman Empire. After this, she worked on a project about histories of creativity and resistance in post-Partition Punjab. She is currently PI on a British Academy grant entitled Cross-Border Queers: The Story of South Asian Migrants to the UK and is an AHRC EDI Leadership Fellow on a project entitled EDI in Scottish Heritage.