Shona Hunter
Shona Hunter
I am a multidiciplinary scholar working at the intersections of arts, culture and policy.
Grappling through intersectionalities of power and emotion across institutions, communities and groups in our contemporary global coloniality.
Connecting through a radical relationally oriented feminist decolonial approach.
I specialise in collaborating to create and hold space for developing conversations and practices which challenge normative institutionalised systems of power. I undertake this work via WhiteSpaces which I founded in 2009 and in my various other independent and institutional roles.
I am currently working on multiple interconnected projects:
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A book project about rising to the social, cultural and governmental challenges of our current global colonial wreckage in the global colonial North entitled 'Global Colonial White: liberal democratic failure, the rise of illiberalism and the decolonizing impulse'.
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A creative non fiction writing project on Whiteness as suspended agency entitled 'White States of Mind'.
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An experimental essay film which builds out of the thematics considered in Disobedient Bodies (Hunter and Halász, 2025).
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A public arts and conversation project rooted in the affective life of Birmingham and Sandwell which builds out of my work on the role of pessimist affect as a mode of care in community life.
Arts & Culture
Installations
Disobedient Bodies: Disobedience in Five Acts with Katalin Halász (Exhibited Absolute Disorder Exhibition, Suwon Cultural Centre, Seoul, South Korea, June 2025).
You are Invited with Katalin Halász (Exhibited Pratt Institute, New York, June 2023; Stellenbosch University, South Africa, October, 2023; University of Xalapa, Mexico, June 2024).
Curation
2020 # Black History Interruptions with Javeria Shah (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama)
Future.Identity.Power: Reframing Equality and Justice. With guests: Jay Bernard, Lacy M. Johnson, Sharmila Sen, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan. Headliner - Leeds International Festival of Ideas 2020.05.05. (Postponed indefinitely due to Covid-19)
2019 # Black History Interruptions with Javeria Shah (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama)
Disorienting Race: Relationally Choreographing Resistance. Rosebowl Leeds. 29.05.2019. Film available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV8lvlP-UjA&t=1s
Tidalectic Encounters. performance and public lecture by Christine Checinska. White Cloth Gallery, Leeds. 09.11.2015.
Public Poetry reading Dorothea Smartt (Ship Shape, Peepal Tree Press) and Jane Liddell-King (Faces in the Void: Czech Survivors of the Holocaust, Shaun Tyas) with Black Cat Promotions. The Old Red Lion, Leeds. 09.07.2009.
Exhibitions & Event Contribution & Development
Breaking With Humanity, Castle Cinema, Hackney (panel chair) 19.04.2024.
The Arrivants: A Solo Exhibition by Christine Checinska & The Front Room, Inna Joburg: A Solo Exhibition by Michael Mcmillan. FADA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa. July/August.2016 Invited contributor to accompanying program Intimate archives // Autobiographical acts: Personal Surfacings as expressed through material cultures. 04.-05.08.2016
Hypersampling, Identities, Jozi Style. FADA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa. August/September. 21.09.2015 - 06.10.2015. Invited contributor to accompanying program: including Re-fashioning Masculinities: Identity, Difference, Resistance, Encounter.
PAST IMPERFECT // FUTURE PRESENT FADA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa 24.03.2015-15.05.2015. Invited contributor to accompanying program Archival Addresses: Photographies, Practices, Positionalities, & publication 18-20.03.2015
By The Rivers of Birminam; A Retrospective Exhibition by Vanley Burke. FADA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa. (Chair and organising contributor for accompanying public program.) 24.07.2014 – 15.08.2014.
Organisational Leadership
Compass Live Arts (Trustee, 2020 – 2024)
Panels, Podcasts & Comment
In conversation with Tribe Arts on Decolonising the Civic: Redefine, reclaim, relegate Tribe Arts. Civilising Civilisation: Who Defined the Civic? 06.10.2021.
‘White Walls’ script reading, Speak Woman Speak, (Online) Invited Panellist, 21 May.
In conversation for the Shakespeare’s Globe Podcast: Such Stuff (Season 6, Episode 3) How Whiteness Dominates Education. 26.08.2020.
In conversation with Javeria Shah on # Black History Interruptions 2020 for the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama Podcast: Discover Central (Season 2, Episode 1). 18.10.2020
In conversation with Martin Dickson on Future.Identity.Power: Reframing Equality and Justice for the Leeds International Festival of Ideas LIFICAST 2020 (Episode 7). 21.02.2020.
Panel discussion for West Yorkshire Playhouse on ‘Society’s treatment of Empowered Women in the 21st Century’ in reponse to the Out of Joint Production of Jane Wenham’s ‘The Witch of Walkern’ 23.11.2015.
In the media
International news
Double page spread on Handbook of Critical Whiteness Studies in the Culture Section of Swedish national news The Expressen ‘Whiteness Studies in Free Fall’. 02.05.2022
Interview for Pakistani Indus News on the question of: Is the UK a Model of Racial Equality? In the wake of the publication of the UK Government Report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. (Scope: Episode 364) 01.04.2021
Interview for France inter on the extreme right at the heart of the Brexit campaign (Zoom de la redaction. 22.06.2016)
Interview for Research Fortnight on the matter of Whitewash why are universities still so white? 24.06. 2015.
The City Press South Africa, 2013 on the British Academy Institutionalising Whiteness Project, at the WhiteWash conference.
Podcasts & interviews
Right Rising Podcast from the Research Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right (Season 2, Episode 11) New Book Spotlight – Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness. Episode recording and transcript https://rightrising.fireside.fm/episode36
In conversation with Christi van der Westhuizen on Rethinking Critical Whiteness Studies for Beckett Talks Podcast (Episode 17).
https://player.captivate.fm/episode/487ddab0-60f1-459e-9f63-012d6224a87d
Public Education
‘Doing good in blackface: a consuming story’ with Swiss black feminist activist and political theorist Noémi Michel (2021) (co-convened with Gaspard Rey).
The Fire That Time: Transnational Black Radicalism and the Sir George Williams Occupation with Canadian academic activists Ronald Cummings and Nalini Mohabir (2021) (co-convened with Gaspard Rey).
2020 Decolonising Education (Episode 7) The Challenge of Whiteness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN9BygmEgss&t=12s
2015 Extradition and the War on Terror. Roundtable discussion with Professor Jeanne Theorharris. Sponsored and co-organised with Brooklyn College of the City University of New York & No Separate Justice (http://noseparate-justice.org). (Leeds Humanities Research Institute, 26 January).
2014 Extradition: the question of Citizenship in the War on Terror. Sponsored and co-organised with JUST West Yorkshire/Free Talha Ahsan Campaign, University of Bradford Union. (7 March, Bradford University Union).
2012 Working the Spaces of Power (Janet Newman, 2012) public seminar/book launch. Session Chair. Birkbeck College. 06 June.
2012 Working the Spaces of Power (Janet Newman, 2012) public seminar/book launch. Session Chair. Birkbeck College. 06 June.
2012 Leeds Café Psychologique: ‘White is White right?: Changing, multicultural contexts’. Seven Arts, Chapel Allerton, Leeds. 24 April.
Independent Advisory Appointments
National Standards Assessment Panel for Rape Crisis England and Wales (Member, 2020-2022, non-remunerated position)
BBC Board News Editorial Committee, Diversity & Inclusion Project. (Advisor, 2019-20) (paid consultancy)
Lloyds Bank, Commercial Banking, Inclusion and Diversity (Advisor, 2020)
(paid consultancy)
Writing
Books
Power, Politics, Emotions: Impossible Governance? (Routledge, 2015)
The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness with Christi van der Westhuizen (Routledge, 2021)
Chapters
The Global Colonial Politics of Liberal Democratic Citizenship Eds. Andreouli, E., Figgou, L. and Kadianaki, I. (Routledge, 2026)
Feminist Perspectives Eds. Alcock, P., Haux, T., McCall, V. and May, M. (Blackwell, 2022, 6th edn; 2016; 5th edn; 2012, 4th edn.)
Viral Whiteness: 21st Century Global Colonialities with Christi van der Westhuizen (Routledge, 2021)
The role of multicultural fantasies in the enactment of the state: The English NHS as an affective formation Eds. Jupp, E., Pykett, J. and Smith, F. M. (Routledge, 2017)
Feminist psychosocial approaches to relationality, recognition and denial Ed. Ozbilgin, M. F. (Edward Elgar, 2009)
Subversive attachments? Gendered, raced and professional realignments in the ‘new’ NHS’ Eds. Barnes, M. and Prior, D. (Policy Press, 2009)
Reproducing and resisting whiteness in organisations, policies and places (Elaine Swan and Dianne Grimes, 2010)
The Politics of Equality: Professionals, States and Activists (with Elaine Swan, 2007)
Relationality, Affect and the Wound of Race: A Conversation on an Artistic Intervention into Global Colonial Whiteness. (With Katalin Halász, 2025)
Decolonizing white care: Relational reckoning with the violence of [white] power (2021)
Review of Social Policy: A Critical and Intersectional Analysis, Williams F. in Critical Social Policy, online first. DOI: 10.1177/02610183221078282 (2022)
Cisgenderism’s move beyond anxious defence a response to: Gender’s wider stakes: Lay attitudes to legal gender reform by Elizabeth Peel and Hannah Newman. Feminists@Law an open access journal of feminist legal scholarship, 10(2). (2020) https://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/feministsatlaw
Being called to ‘By the rivers of Birminam: the relational choreography of white looking. Critical Arts: South-North Media and Cultural Studies. 29(S1): 43-57. Special Issue on ‘Archival addresses: photographies, practices, positionalities’. (2015)
New Territories in Critical Whiteness Studies. (with Abbas, M., Burgin, S., Decker, J., 2013)
Ordering Differentiation: Reconfiguring Governance as Relational Politics. Journal of Psycho-Social Studies 6 (1). (2012)
What a white shame: Race, Gender and White Shame in the Relational Economy of Primary Health Care Organisations in England. (2010)
Social Politics 17, (4): 450-476. Special Issue on ‘Reproducing and resisting whiteness in organisations, policies and places’.
Living documents: feminist psychosocial approaches to the relational politics of policy documentation. (2008)
Hunter, S. and Swan, E. (2007) ‘The Politics of Equality: Professionals, States and Activists,’ Equal Opportunities International 26, (5) :377-386. ‘Special Issue on The Politics of Equality: Professionals, States and Activists’.
Hunter, S. and Swan, E. (2007) ‘Oscillating Politics and Shifting agencies: Equalities and diversity work and actor-network theory,’ Equal Opportunities International 26, (5): 402-419. Special Issue on The Politics of Equality: Professionals, States and Activists.
Professional Insights Interview: Angela Mason on trips to Skegness, Maoists and briefings with the minister: a life in equalities work co-authored with Elaine Swan. 2007. Equal Opportunities International 26, (5): 482-496. Special Issue on The Politics of Equality: Professionals, States and Activists.
Working for Equality and Diversity and Adult and Community Learning: Leadership, Representation and Racialised ‘Outsiders’ ‘Within’. Policy Futures in Education, 4, (1): 114-127. Special Issue on ‘Doing Diversity Work’. (2006)
Negotiating Professional and Social Voices in Research Principles and Practice. Journal of Social Work Practice, 19, (2): 149-162. (2005)
A Critical Analysis of Approaches to the Concept of Social Identity in Social Policy. Critical Social Policy, 23, (3): 322-344. (2003)
Hunter, S., Swan, E. and Grimes, S. (2010) ‘Reproducing and resisting whiteness in organisations, policies and places’ Social Politics 17, (4): 407-422. Special Issue on Reproducing and resisting whiteness in organisations, policies and places.
Burgin, S. and Hunter, S. (2012) ‘Postgraduates in the White Spaces Research Network’, Graduate Journal of Social Science, 9(1).
Academic Journals
Research Reports, Policy and Professional
‘How can schools begin to face up to systemic racism?’ for Schools Week January, 31, 2022 https://schoolsweek.co.uk/how-can-schools-begin-to-face-up-to-systemic-racism/
‘White Spaces Research Network Expands’, Leeds University Reporter, November edition. 2010
‘White Spaces Research Network summary’, for World Universities Network Newsletter, Summer edition. 2009
‘White Spaces International Interdisciplinary Conference report’, for Policy World: the Newsletter of the UK Social Policy Association, Summer edition. 2009
(2006) ‘Educational Leadership for Diversity: The politics of patience and impatience’, Centre for Excellence in Leadership Working Paper Series Lancaster: Lancaster University Management School/DfES Standards Unit.
(2005) ‘An Introduction to the Field of Adult and Community Learning,’ Centre for Excellence in Leadership Working Paper Series, Lancaster: Lancaster University Management School/DfES Standards Unit.
(2005) ‘Adult and Community Learning: Subjugated Knowledges and the Possibilities for Diversity’, Centre for Excellence in Leadership Working Paper Series, Lancaster: Lancaster University Management School/DfES Standards Unit.
Fry, G., Hunter, S., Law, I., Osler, A., Swann, S., Tzanelli, R.
Williams, F. (2008) Education in the UK, Working Paper Two, Ethnic Difference in Education and Diverging Prospects for Urban Youth in an Enlarged Europe, University of Leeds.
Law, I., Hunter, S., Osler, A., Swann, S., Tzanelli, R. and Williams, F. (2008) Ethnic Relations in the UK, Working Paper Three, Ethnic Difference in Education and Diverging Prospects for Urban Youth in an Enlarged Europe, , University of Leeds.
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Leach T., Swan, E. and Turner, L. (2006) ‘Integrating Diversity: Gender, ‘Race’ and Leadership in the Learning and Skills Sector, Final report, Centre for Excellence in Leadership, November, 2006.
Integrating Diversity in Adult and Community Learning: Democracy, Diversity and the Politics of Patience and Impatience’. CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 12, Lancaster University Management School. 2006.
(2006) ‘The Relationship between researching ‘race’ and gender and developing diversity policy’. CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 13, Lancaster University Management School.
Hunter, S. and Swan, E. (2006) ‘Networking in Equality and Diversity? The Non-human and diversity work in the learning and skills sector’. CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 14, Lancaster University Management School.
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Swan, E and Turner, L. (2006). ‘The Language of Diversity'. CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 15, Lancaster University Management School.
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Swan, E and Turner, L. (2006). 'Doing Diversity: Knowledges, Strategies and Expertise'. CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 16, Lancaster University Management School.
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Swan, E and Turner, L. (2006). 'Who Does Diversity? Responsibility and Representation'. CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 17, Lancaster University Management School.
2. Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Swan, E and Turner, L. (2006). 'Diversity, Performance and the "new equality regimes"'. CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 19, Lancaster University Management School.
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Swan, E and Turner, L. (2006). 'Diversity and Racism'. CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 18, Lancaster University Management School.
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Swan, E and Turner, L. (2006).
'Diversity and Leadership: Reconceptualising Leadership for Equality and Diversity', Integrating Diversity Team’, CEL Diversity Team Working Paper 21, Lancaster University Management School.
Foster Review into Further Education Contributor to Centre for Excellence in Leadership briefing to Sir Andrew Foster’s Review into the Future Role and Purpose of Further Education (November 2005).
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Leach T., Swan, E. and Turner, L. ‘Integrating Diversity: Gender, ‘Race’ and Leadership in the Learning and Skills Sector, Interim Report 3, March 2005.
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Leach T., Swan, E. and Turner, L. ‘Integrating Diversity: Gender, ‘Race’ and Leadership in the Learning and Skills Sector, Interim Report 2, October 2005.
Ahmed, S., Hunter, S., Kilic, S., Leach T., Swan, E. and Turner, L. ‘Integrating Diversity: Gender, ‘Race’ and Leadership in the Learning and Skills Sector, Interim Report 1, September 2004.
‘A Statistical Review of the Gender Distribution of the School of Social Sciences Research Fund 1995-2000’, University of Birmingham, May 2001.
Maltby, T., Littlechild, R., La Fontaine, J., Hunter, S. and Brannelly, P. (eds) (2002) Active Ageing: Myth or Reality? Proceedings of the British Society of Gerontology 31st Annual Conference, Birmingham: University of Birmingham.
Talks & Lectures (selected)
Hunter, S. ‘Decolonising from within global colonial Whiteness’, to Pushkin House Programme ‘What does it mean to decolonise?’ Pushkin House, London, 08 September. 2023
Hunter, S. ‘Critical Studies of Whiteness for global medicine’, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, pesented to the LSHTM Decolonisation Group,17 May. 2023
Hunter, S. ‘Whiteness as an expression of global coloniality’. Contribution to launch event for Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness, (Eds Hunter and van der Westhuizen, 2021). Hosted by ReCentGlobe at Leipzig University, Germany, 10 January.
Hunter, S. ‘The Power of Whiteness as a Mythology of the Good’ Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, 24 February.
Recording available here https://vimeo.com/547428640 (2020)
Hunter S. ‘The fundamental violence of safe space’ Network of Women and Hallam Race Network, 27 November. (2020)
Hunter, S. ‘Voluntourism & White Saviourism’ Contributed to ‘A Conversation: Discussing the Dangers of Voluntourism and How to Avoid It’ Organised by Bristol & Goldsmith’s Student Refugee Action. Recording available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&feature=youtu.be&v=wTbDCibdO4I
(2020)
Hunter, S. ‘How can white people talk about Race?’ Rawthmells Conversations, Royal Society for the Arts, London, 8 March. (2019)
Hunter, S. ‘Choreographing the fragments: resisting white irresponsibility’ Performing Race 2018, Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, University of London, 30 November. (2018)
Hunter, S. Expert contributor on the question of ‘An age of uncertainty? Migration, Austerity and Inequalities in the UK’, Public debate hosted by the Department of International Development at the University of East Anglia, Great Yarmouth Town Hall, Great Yarmouth, 5 September. (2017)
Gray, B., Sindi, T., Tshabalala, N., and Hunter, S. ‘Keywords’: Building the anti-racist university’ public debate jointly hosted by VIAD and STAND, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, 01 August. (2016)
Hunter, S. Keynote address ‘The Ascendency of Neoliberal Whiteness and Other Governing Fantasies’ Presented to Citizenship and Inclusion within the Nordic Welfare States, Roskilde University, Denmark, 15 June. (2016)
Hunter, S. Keynote address ‘Challenging state suicide and other neoliberal fantasies’, Presented at Political Economy and Emotion: Into the Heart of the State, Space and Power, University of Liverpool, Bluecoat Centre, Liverpool, 11 April. (2016)
Hunter, S. ‘Governing subjects, repression and equality, brown bag research seminars’, Gauteng City-Region Observatory, South Africa, 14 May. (2015)
Academic Positions
Leeds Beckett University, UK, School of Education (Reader (Associate Professor Research) 2018-present).
The University of Johannesburg, South Africa, Centre for Visual Identities in Arts and Design, Faculty of Fine Arts and Design (Visiting Associate Professor 2016-2019, Visiting Researcher, 2014-16).
The University of Leeds, UK, School of Sociology and Social Policy (Associate Professor, 2015-17, Lecturer, 2011-15, RCUK Academic Fellow, New Machinery of Governance, 2006-15)
Conférence Universitaire de Suisse Occidentale, Switzerland (Visiting Professor in Political Science, May, 2014)
University of Mannheim, Germany, English Literature and Cultural Studies (Visiting Lecturer, June 2012)
University of Cape Town, South Africa, Wikids, Department of Sociology (Visiting Fellow, May, 2011)
Rhodes University, South Africa, South Africa & Discovery Centre for Health Journalism (Visiting Fellow, May 2011)
University of Sydney, Australia, Department of Sociology and Social Policy (Visiting Fellow, October- November 2010)
Lancaster University, UK, Institute for Women’s Studies/Management School (Research Associate 2004-06)
The University of Birmingham, UK, School of Social Sciences (Associate lecturer, 1999-2003)
Challenging global systems of power, domination and oppression through the local practice of relationship