Community organising for the anti-racist university: Collective Anti-Racist Efforts (CARE) and Citizens UK

Reflecting the resurgence of anti-racist activism in the higher education sector globally, this paper presents a first-hand account of an anti-racist activist organising endeavour in the United Kingdom (UK) university sector which took place over the course of 2021 and 2022. In it, we will introduce and contextualise the initiative, which was a purposefully designed, bottom-up leadership and community organising training designed to address local conditions of institutional racism at one academic institution in England, and increase the university’s capacity for anti-racist knowledge and practice, reflecting issues faced more widely within the sector. The paper is written by project leads and participants, and includes three members of university staff, one doctoral researcher, one external community organiser, and one former member of staff who was employed at the university during the project; all participants of the training were informed that the paper was being written, and they were invited to read it and/or comment if they wished. [...]