{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/386185"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/386185","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Of, but not in: A poetic exploration of how Black women students respond to the coloniality of Oxbridge","abstract":"What would we give to be free again? To live in these spaces unbound by the clasps of our skin. To love and laugh as though our melanin were the very thing that brought us freedom, The thing that taught us to be true and remain within the unbounded nature of Love. What would we give to be free again? Or should we ask, What have we given? My project was inspired by Kwakye and Ogunbiyi’s 2019 publication, Taking Up Space, which occurred at a time when new and significant attention was given to the experiences of Black women at elite universities. Media and publications exploring the experiences of Black women at Oxbridge have since emphasised the process of taking up space, which often entails occupying spaces Black women have been historically discounted from or silenced in. The taking-up-space model generally requires a level of self-sacrifice from Black women. Like trends across elite HEIs, Black women at Oxbridge often feel isolated and forced to consider “what they must ‘give up’ of themselves to belong” (Arday and Mirza, 2018:180). As an alternative to the taking up space model, I theorise Black women’s navigation of Oxbridge as marronage, which involves escaping the logic of slavery and coloniality that are pervasive in UK HEIs. This mode of marronage is necessitated by the racialised and gendered discrimination present with Oxbridge (Bledsoe, 2018). Marronage facilitates the creation of a community through which we can refuse to relinquish any facet of who we are and revolt against coloniality’s epistemic and ontological alienation (Bell, 2018). Instead, we carve out “a space for shared empathy” (Stockfelt, 2018:1017). Different from taking up space, marronage involves taking flight from oppressive environments and forging communities unbounded by the clasp of coloniality. My research highlights that marronage is not the only choice for Black women students at Oxbridge. There is also great power in staying and taking up space since~ “the actual physical [Black] body can interrogate and potentially disrupt the [racialised] status quo” (Cox, 2014:5). Hence, both taking up space and marronage emerge as counter-practices employed by Black women at Oxbridge. My research theorises the marronage counter-practices through which Black women navigate Oxbridge. Exploring Black women's current and historical experiences at Oxbridge, my PhD research project asks How do Black women students respond to the coloniality of Oxbridge? I highlight London as the Foothill of Black women, theorising how marronage operates as a transformative praxis that challenges the dehumanising agenda of slavery and colonial logic (Bledsoe, 2018) present within Oxbridge. I also highlight Potlucks as Marronage, theorising potlucks as acts of culinary and cultural sustenance which seek to meet the needs of Black women students in a way that is neglected by the institutions of Oxbridge. Through potlucks, I theorise how Black women’s eating rituals in Oxbridge operate to create and preserve cultures and identities (see Dacin et al., 2010 and Sperry, 2021). My research explores the experiences of Black women in the elite Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of Oxford and Cambridge. My question is premised on the understanding that coloniality outlasts periods of colonial governance and transcends colonial localities through its pervasive logic. I explore how the histories of Oxbridge are intrinsically linked with colonialism and detail the manifestations of coloniality at Oxbridge, like racism, in the present day. My research employs Critical Poetic Inquiry and draws on Black women’s literary trends of breaking from traditional form and prose through storying and poetry writing. Critical Poetic Inquiry is distinct from other forms of qualitative inquiry in that it prioritises justice. Drawing on Black Feminist and Womanist traditions, in a fashion exemplied by Kafayat Okanlawon in her 2019 book This Is Us: Black British Women and Girls, my research and writing become “a lament, a war cry, a chant and a belly laugh” they are “a joyful, painful rupture, a disruption, a deliberate transgression, a ri, and a drum beat... a prayer for all we have lost and for all that we can be” (6). Ultimately, my PhD research is a justice-centred project aimed at celebrating and memorialising the lives and experiences of Black women students of Oxbridge, past and present.","abstract_html":"What would we give to be free again? To live in these spaces unbound by the clasps of our skin. To love and laugh as though our melanin were the very thing that brought us freedom, The thing that taught us to be true and remain within the unbounded nature of Love. What would we give to be free again? Or should we ask, What have we given? My project was inspired by Kwakye and Ogunbiyi’s 2019 publication, Taking Up Space, which occurred at a time when new and significant attention was given to the experiences of Black women at elite universities. Media and publications exploring the experiences of Black women at Oxbridge have since emphasised the process of taking up space, which often entails occupying spaces Black women have been historically discounted from or silenced in. The taking-up-space model generally requires a level of self-sacrifice from Black women. Like trends across elite HEIs, Black women at Oxbridge often feel isolated and forced to consider “what they must ‘give up’ of themselves to belong” (Arday and Mirza, 2018:180). As an alternative to the taking up space model, I theorise Black women’s navigation of Oxbridge as marronage, which involves escaping the logic of slavery and coloniality that are pervasive in UK HEIs. This mode of marronage is necessitated by the racialised and gendered discrimination present with Oxbridge (Bledsoe, 2018). Marronage facilitates the creation of a community through which we can refuse to relinquish any facet of who we are and revolt against coloniality’s epistemic and ontological alienation (Bell, 2018). Instead, we carve out “a space for shared empathy” (Stockfelt, 2018:1017). Different from taking up space, marronage involves taking flight from oppressive environments and forging communities unbounded by the clasp of coloniality. My research highlights that marronage is not the only choice for Black women students at Oxbridge. There is also great power in staying and taking up space since~ “the actual physical [Black] body can interrogate and potentially disrupt the [racialised] status quo” (Cox, 2014:5). Hence, both taking up space and marronage emerge as counter-practices employed by Black women at Oxbridge. My research theorises the marronage counter-practices through which Black women navigate Oxbridge. Exploring Black women's current and historical experiences at Oxbridge, my PhD research project asks How do Black women students respond to the coloniality of Oxbridge? I highlight London as the Foothill of Black women, theorising how marronage operates as a transformative praxis that challenges the dehumanising agenda of slavery and colonial logic (Bledsoe, 2018) present within Oxbridge. I also highlight Potlucks as Marronage, theorising potlucks as acts of culinary and cultural sustenance which seek to meet the needs of Black women students in a way that is neglected by the institutions of Oxbridge. Through potlucks, I theorise how Black women’s eating rituals in Oxbridge operate to create and preserve cultures and identities (see Dacin et al., 2010 and Sperry, 2021). My research explores the experiences of Black women in the elite Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of Oxford and Cambridge. My question is premised on the understanding that coloniality outlasts periods of colonial governance and transcends colonial localities through its pervasive logic. I explore how the histories of Oxbridge are intrinsically linked with colonialism and detail the manifestations of coloniality at Oxbridge, like racism, in the present day. My research employs Critical Poetic Inquiry and draws on Black women’s literary trends of breaking from traditional form and prose through storying and poetry writing. Critical Poetic Inquiry is distinct from other forms of qualitative inquiry in that it prioritises justice. Drawing on Black Feminist and Womanist traditions, in a fashion exemplied by Kafayat Okanlawon in her 2019 book This Is Us: Black British Women and Girls, my research and writing become “a lament, a war cry, a chant and a belly laugh” they are “a joyful, painful rupture, a disruption, a deliberate transgression, a ri, and a drum beat... a prayer for all we have lost and for all that we can be” (6). Ultimately, my PhD research is a justice-centred project aimed at celebrating and memorialising the lives and experiences of Black women students of Oxbridge, past and present.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Folayan, Damilola"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Denmead, Tyler"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-11-26","date_published":"2024-11-26","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:01Z","subjects":["Critical Poetic Inquiry","Decolonisation","Gender","Higher Education","Race","UK","Womanism"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/e11f104d-2828-480c-9d45-1ee8bc162ff1/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["0000000185839945"],"render_values":[{"text":"0000-0001-8583-9945","href":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8583-9945","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.119514","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Denmead, Tyler"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.sponsor","label":"Sponsor","values":["Niyo Group"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Folayan, Damilola"]},{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["0000000185839945"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2024-11-26"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/386185"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Critical Poetic Inquiry","Decolonisation","Gender","Higher Education","Race","UK","Womanism"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/e11f104d-2828-480c-9d45-1ee8bc162ff1/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargodate","label":"Dc Rights Embargodate","values":["2026-07-10"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargotype","label":"Dc Rights Embargotype","values":["embargo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.119514"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/9776c0ab-8fbf-418e-aa05-cef737e379f5/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["What would we give to be free again? To live in these spaces unbound by the clasps of our skin. To love and laugh as though our melanin were the very thing that brought us freedom, The thing that taught us to be true and remain within the unbounded nature of Love. What would we give to be free again? Or should we ask, What have we given? My project was inspired by Kwakye and Ogunbiyi’s 2019 publication, Taking Up Space, which occurred at a time when new and significant attention was given to the experiences of Black women at elite universities. Media and publications exploring the experiences of Black women at Oxbridge have since emphasised the process of taking up space, which often entails occupying spaces Black women have been historically discounted from or silenced in. The taking-up-space model generally requires a level of self-sacrifice from Black women. Like trends across elite HEIs, Black women at Oxbridge often feel isolated and forced to consider “what they must ‘give up’ of themselves to belong” (Arday and Mirza, 2018:180). As an alternative to the taking up space model, I theorise Black women’s navigation of Oxbridge as marronage, which involves escaping the logic of slavery and coloniality that are pervasive in UK HEIs. This mode of marronage is necessitated by the racialised and gendered discrimination present with Oxbridge (Bledsoe, 2018). Marronage facilitates the creation of a community through which we can refuse to relinquish any facet of who we are and revolt against coloniality’s epistemic and ontological alienation (Bell, 2018). Instead, we carve out “a space for shared empathy” (Stockfelt, 2018:1017). Different from taking up space, marronage involves taking flight from oppressive environments and forging communities unbounded by the clasp of coloniality. My research highlights that marronage is not the only choice for Black women students at Oxbridge. There is also great power in staying and taking up space since~ “the actual physical [Black] body can interrogate and potentially disrupt the [racialised] status quo” (Cox, 2014:5). Hence, both taking up space and marronage emerge as counter-practices employed by Black women at Oxbridge. My research theorises the marronage counter-practices through which Black women navigate Oxbridge. Exploring Black women's current and historical experiences at Oxbridge, my PhD research project asks How do Black women students respond to the coloniality of Oxbridge? I highlight London as the Foothill of Black women, theorising how marronage operates as a transformative praxis that challenges the dehumanising agenda of slavery and colonial logic (Bledsoe, 2018) present within Oxbridge. I also highlight Potlucks as Marronage, theorising potlucks as acts of culinary and cultural sustenance which seek to meet the needs of Black women students in a way that is neglected by the institutions of Oxbridge. Through potlucks, I theorise how Black women’s eating rituals in Oxbridge operate to create and preserve cultures and identities (see Dacin et al., 2010 and Sperry, 2021). My research explores the experiences of Black women in the elite Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of Oxford and Cambridge. My question is premised on the understanding that coloniality outlasts periods of colonial governance and transcends colonial localities through its pervasive logic. I explore how the histories of Oxbridge are intrinsically linked with colonialism and detail the manifestations of coloniality at Oxbridge, like racism, in the present day. My research employs Critical Poetic Inquiry and draws on Black women’s literary trends of breaking from traditional form and prose through storying and poetry writing. Critical Poetic Inquiry is distinct from other forms of qualitative inquiry in that it prioritises justice. Drawing on Black Feminist and Womanist traditions, in a fashion exemplied by Kafayat Okanlawon in her 2019 book This Is Us: Black British Women and Girls, my research and writing become “a lament, a war cry, a chant and a belly laugh” they are “a joyful, painful rupture, a disruption, a deliberate transgression, a ri, and a drum beat... a prayer for all we have lost and for all that we can be” (6). Ultimately, my PhD research is a justice-centred project aimed at celebrating and memorialising the lives and experiences of Black women students of Oxbridge, past and present."]},{"key":"dc:format.checksum.md5","label":"Dc Format Checksum Md5","values":["b2ea2447b820ea13232216e4c5677daa","87eda9de84448d1f82354d60eee3eb5f"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Of, but not in: A poetic exploration of how Black women students respond to the coloniality of Oxbridge"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Denmead, Tyler"],"dc:contributor.sponsor":["Niyo Group"],"dc:creator":["Folayan, Damilola"],"dc:creator.authoridentifier":["0000000185839945"],"dc:date.issued":["2024-11-26"],"dc:description.abstract":["What would we give to be free again? To live in these spaces unbound by the clasps of our skin. To love and laugh as though our melanin were the very thing that brought us freedom, The thing that taught us to be true and remain within the unbounded nature of Love. What would we give to be free again? Or should we ask, What have we given? My project was inspired by Kwakye and Ogunbiyi’s 2019 publication, Taking Up Space, which occurred at a time when new and significant attention was given to the experiences of Black women at elite universities. Media and publications exploring the experiences of Black women at Oxbridge have since emphasised the process of taking up space, which often entails occupying spaces Black women have been historically discounted from or silenced in. The taking-up-space model generally requires a level of self-sacrifice from Black women. Like trends across elite HEIs, Black women at Oxbridge often feel isolated and forced to consider “what they must ‘give up’ of themselves to belong” (Arday and Mirza, 2018:180). As an alternative to the taking up space model, I theorise Black women’s navigation of Oxbridge as marronage, which involves escaping the logic of slavery and coloniality that are pervasive in UK HEIs. This mode of marronage is necessitated by the racialised and gendered discrimination present with Oxbridge (Bledsoe, 2018). Marronage facilitates the creation of a community through which we can refuse to relinquish any facet of who we are and revolt against coloniality’s epistemic and ontological alienation (Bell, 2018). Instead, we carve out “a space for shared empathy” (Stockfelt, 2018:1017). Different from taking up space, marronage involves taking flight from oppressive environments and forging communities unbounded by the clasp of coloniality. My research highlights that marronage is not the only choice for Black women students at Oxbridge. There is also great power in staying and taking up space since~ “the actual physical [Black] body can interrogate and potentially disrupt the [racialised] status quo” (Cox, 2014:5). Hence, both taking up space and marronage emerge as counter-practices employed by Black women at Oxbridge. My research theorises the marronage counter-practices through which Black women navigate Oxbridge. Exploring Black women's current and historical experiences at Oxbridge, my PhD research project asks How do Black women students respond to the coloniality of Oxbridge? I highlight London as the Foothill of Black women, theorising how marronage operates as a transformative praxis that challenges the dehumanising agenda of slavery and colonial logic (Bledsoe, 2018) present within Oxbridge. I also highlight Potlucks as Marronage, theorising potlucks as acts of culinary and cultural sustenance which seek to meet the needs of Black women students in a way that is neglected by the institutions of Oxbridge. Through potlucks, I theorise how Black women’s eating rituals in Oxbridge operate to create and preserve cultures and identities (see Dacin et al., 2010 and Sperry, 2021). My research explores the experiences of Black women in the elite Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of Oxford and Cambridge. My question is premised on the understanding that coloniality outlasts periods of colonial governance and transcends colonial localities through its pervasive logic. I explore how the histories of Oxbridge are intrinsically linked with colonialism and detail the manifestations of coloniality at Oxbridge, like racism, in the present day. My research employs Critical Poetic Inquiry and draws on Black women’s literary trends of breaking from traditional form and prose through storying and poetry writing. Critical Poetic Inquiry is distinct from other forms of qualitative inquiry in that it prioritises justice. Drawing on Black Feminist and Womanist traditions, in a fashion exemplied by Kafayat Okanlawon in her 2019 book This Is Us: Black British Women and Girls, my research and writing become “a lament, a war cry, a chant and a belly laugh” they are “a joyful, painful rupture, a disruption, a deliberate transgression, a ri, and a drum beat... a prayer for all we have lost and for all that we can be” (6). Ultimately, my PhD research is a justice-centred project aimed at celebrating and memorialising the lives and experiences of Black women students of Oxbridge, past and present."],"dc:format.checksum.md5":["b2ea2447b820ea13232216e4c5677daa","87eda9de84448d1f82354d60eee3eb5f"],"dc:identifier.doi":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.119514"],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/9776c0ab-8fbf-418e-aa05-cef737e379f5/download"],"dc:publisher.institution":["University of Cambridge"],"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/386185"],"dc:rights":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/e11f104d-2828-480c-9d45-1ee8bc162ff1/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"],"dc:rights.embargodate":["2026-07-10"],"dc:rights.embargotype":["embargo"],"dc:subject":["Critical Poetic Inquiry","Decolonisation","Gender","Higher Education","Race","UK","Womanism"],"dc:title":["Of, but not in: A poetic exploration of how Black women students respond to the coloniality of Oxbridge"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"dc:type.qualificationlevel":["Doctoral"],"dc:type.qualificationname":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:01Z"}