University of California Santa Cruz Ethical Elisions
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ ETHICAL ELISIONS: UNSETTLING THE RACIAL-COLONIAL ENTANGLEMENTS OF U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in EDUCATION with emphases in FEMINIST STUDIES and CRITICAL RACE AND ETHNIC STUDIES by Sheeva M. Sabati June 2019 The dissertation of Sheeva M. Sabati is approved: Professor Ronald David Glass, Chair Professor Neda Atanasoski Professor Cindy Cruz Professor Nick Mitchell Lori Kletzer Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © Sheeva M. Sabati 2019 Portions of Chapter 2 include reprints of the following previously published material: Sabati, S. (2018). Upholding “Colonial Unknowing” Through the IRB: Reframing Institutional Research Ethics. Qualitative Inquiry, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800418787214 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... iv Introduction. (un)Naming the Racial-Colonial Entanglements of Higher Education ......... 1 Ethical Elisions: A Conceptual Approach ...................................................................... 6 Genealogical Threads: Situating this Dissertation ....................................................... 13 Studying “the University”: Methodological Challenges ............................................. 21 Onto-Epistemologies of Human and Land .................................................................. 37 Democracy as Ethicality: Creating a National Vision of U.S. Public Universities ......... 49 Chapter 1. Manifest Destiny as the Ethical University: Settler Colonial Imaginaries and the Formation of the University of California .................................................................. 62 California Colonialisms ................................................................................................ 69 Elisions of Violence: California State Formation .......................................................... 75 Coalescing Settler Colonial Imaginaries: California’s Public Research University ....... 80 Coloniality of the West: The Emergent Social Sciences and U.S. Imperialisms ........ 104 Chapter 2. Research Ethics as the Ethical University: Upholding Colonial Unknowing Through the IRB ............................................................................................................ 114 The IRB: Misalignments with the Social and Behavioral Sciences ............................. 118 Narrating Violence as Exceptional ............................................................................ 129 Upholding ‘Colonial Unknowing’ through the IRB .................................................... 135 Chapter 3. Acknowledging Racial-Colonial Histories as the Ethical University: The Limits of Retrospective Gestures ............................................................................................. 140 Universities Studying Slavery: A National Call .......................................................... 143 (Re)Investments in Racial-Colonial Violence .............................................................. 155 Admissions Benefits and the Question of Reparations ............................................. 167 Afterword: Towards an Anti-Colonial Praxis Within, Against and Beyond the University ....................................................................................................................... 187 What are we to do with the University? .................................................................... 191 Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 196 Table 1. Summary of Research Conducted ............................................................... 196 Table 2. Universities in Universities Studying Slavery (USS) Consortia ...................... 199 Table 3. Universities not in USS Consortia ................................................................ 203 Table 4. Schema of University Responses ................................................................. 205 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 206 i Abstract This dissertation tracks the production of narratives that frame U.S. universities as ethical institutions. It argues that such narratives –in popular imaginaries and scholarly discourse– rely on elisions of the racial-colonial entanglements of higher education. In linguistics, elision refers to the deletion or omission of sound, explaining historical shifts in a language deemed ordinary to “native” speakers. Conceptually then, each chapter of Ethical Elisions considers the erasures of racial-colonial violence that actively produce commonsense ideas of universities as ethical institutions. To develop this inquiry, this study examines “the university” at various analytical scales and historical periods: the formation of a world-renowned public Land Grant university system, the University of California, in the mid/late 19th century (Chapter 1); the institutionalization of research ethics itself in the 1970s and its 2018 federal policy revisions (Chapter 2); as well as contemporary campus initiatives to address the racial-colonial histories of specific colleges and universities (Chapter 3). Specifically, Manifest Destiny as the Ethical University: The Coloniality of the UC analyzes speeches and essays of founding UC Berkeley leaders and faculty, which envision knowledge production as a rational mechanism to extend U.S. imperialism into the Pacific. This chapter argues that claims to Manifest Destiny legitimized the development of the state’s nascent system of public higher education, relying on the accelerated context of racialized violence in the fledgling state of California. The second chapter, Research Ethics as the Ethical University: Upholding ‘Colonial ii Unknowing’ through the IRB takes as its object of study the origin stories surrounding the institutionalization of research ethics policy. It argues that institutional review boards (IRBs) are narrated as a response to cases of exceptional racialized violence, most notably the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, within an otherwise neutral history of research and as such, participate in the active unknowing of the racial-colonial entanglements of research. Acknowledging Racial-Colonial Histories as the Ethical University: The Limits of Retrospective Gestures surveys the forms of institutional acknowledgment of campus colonial histories, considering how historical violences are (un)named or narrated through these processes, and how universities recuperate themselves through forms of acknowledgment. The Afterword considers the limits of knowledge production to rupture frames of liberal justice and touches on the affective dimensions of engaging in a decolonial praxis within, against, and beyond the university. Methodologically, this work draws from anti-colonial feminisms, settler colonial studies, as well as critical ethnic studies scholars who situate how knowledge production and universities themselves are not merely complicit, but formative in cohering processes of racialized capitalism in the United States. This dissertation also contributes to scholarship within the emergent field of Critical University Studies by moving against liberal imaginaries that recuperate (public) higher education as inherently good or ethical. iii Acknowledgements I hold immense gratitude for the love, friendships and intellectual community that have sustained me throughout graduate school and that have made this work possible. I recognize and honor the unceded territories of the Uypi and Awaswas people, stewarded by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, where I have studied and lived for these past years and that is claimed by name as Santa Cruz. To my committee members, Ron Glass, Cindy Cruz, Neda Atanasoski, and Nick Mitchell, you have each played a pivotal part in my thinking and scholarly development. Cindy, you were the first to encourage me to think of myself as a writer and to imagine a dissertation that would extend the bounds of what is legible in our field. Thank you for encouraging me to consider how the designation of that which is “alternative” and “critical” speaks to that which is centered in education research, and to take this question seriously. Nick, your sharp analytical insight offered me language to articulate my work when I was struggling to conceptualize my project, and continues to both expand and focus my thinking. I am grateful to have learned from you how you inhabit your political commitments through your teaching and scholarship; thank you for being my teacher. Neda, you have been formative in shaping my trajectory through your encouragement to stay with and engage expansive questions. Thank you for your consistent and generous mentorship, for the always insightful conversations that enlivened and inspired me to persist with this iv work. Ron, I hold a deep respect for your tireless commitments to scholarship and activism, and appreciate both your mentorship and the important projects you brought me into. Thank you for pushing me to sharpen my thinking, for engaging me as your colleague, and for your patient mentorship. I feel grateful to have an advisor who I consider to be part of my family.