Weaving the Black Tapestry: A Decolonising Counter-Storytelling of Black Doctoral Student Experiences in the UK, Analysed with Loom Analysis

The lived experiences of Black doctoral researchers in the UK is an area which remains relatively under-researched in contrast to comparable English-speaking post-colonial nations like the USA and South Africa (Ahmet, 2020). As such, it is an area that could benefit from additional research to help better illuminate the experiences, challenges, and opportunities that may be available to Black doctoral researchers personally and systemically. This led me to undertake this project to give space for Black researchers to tell their stories in their own voice in a way that reaffirms their humanity in a way that is ethical, decolonial, and healing (Maseti, 2018; Pratt et al., 2017). I seek to build upon existing insights pertaining to the perceptions, navigation, and experiences of academia by Black students along with the ways they are impacted emotionally, mentally, and academically (Arday, 2021; 2018b; 2017; Allen, 2020; Johnson and Joseph-Salisbury, 2018; Alexander and Arday, 2015) to identify the key challenges, opportunities, and significant factors that make up the Black doctoral experience. In keeping with these ideas, my overarching Loom Analysis methodology taps into decolonial and ancestral ways of knowing to protect the stories which have so often lost prominence and substance due to being analysed through a colonial lens. A storytelling methodological approach which paved the way for autoethnography, photovoice, and storytelling on the move/walking interviews as being the main methods of analysis. This methodology outlined the principles and methods to undertake my data collection and analysis, in the end weaving together a tapestry of the lived experiences of Black doctoral students in the UK. Using the Loom Analysis methodology, I was able to collect rich historical and creative insight from my participants and then weave their stories together in a final tapestry which allowed their individual story threads and details to be preserved while still forming a bigger picture of the Black doctoral experience in the UK. It preserved the critical aspects of their intersectional characteristics, contextualising their journeys within the landscape of present-day UK Higher Education against the nuances of their cultural, geographic, and familial backgrounds, along with unique personal dimensions such as gender, sexuality, neurodiversity, religion and more. In the end, much of the existing challenges faced by Black doctoral researchers which were outlined in the literature review—such as experiencing racism and isolation, a lack of sense of belonging, impostor syndrome, feeling surveilled, among others—were still present and affected all of my participants to a relatively high degree at every stage of their studies, with additional layers and challenges also became apparent. Yet my participants felt comfortable to share highly vulnerable and painful memories from their journeys—many of which echoed my own story—which also validated the strength of my positionality as a Black doctoral researcher as being a key component of my methodology, that of being a backstrap weaver undertaking Loom Analysis. This transformed the interviews into a process of sharing with communal spirit (Tachine and Nicolazzo, 2022), becoming more reciprocal than extractive. In these exchanges, I observed the power of my chosen methodologies in witnessing the sense of healing and a lifted weight from my participants, even positive transformation in their very demeanour from beginning to end of our time together. Through the autoethnographic process, I was able to find a sense of healing myself when reflecting on my journey alongside my participants, allowing me to recontextualise some of my challenges into more of a shared burden which brought a sense of collective and spiritual healing (Zavala, 2016, p. 2). Taken altogether, despite some commonalities in both the obstacle we face, backgrounds, values, and inspiration, our collective Black experiences were complex and carried a variety of nuances which made each unique (Arday, 2017).

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Ph.D.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

PhD thesis

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Westminster

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Kourouma, Lonceny

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Fraser, J.
• Jenkins, C.
• Anand, D.

• Storytelling
• autoethnography
• photovoice
• walking interviews
• storytelling on the move
• loom analysis
• decoloniality
• higher education
• doctoral studies
• Black students’ experience
• knowledge production
• coloniality

Identifier

oai:westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk:x600z

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk:x600z