Heidi Safia Mirza (born 1958) is a British academic, who is Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

,"Heidi Safia Mirza"
Staff in the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths. Professor Emerita in Equalities Studies at the

UCL Institute of Education IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society (IOE) is the education school of University College London (UCL). It specialises in postgraduate study and research in the field of education and is one of UCL's 11 constituent faculties. Prior to ...

,Heidi Mirza biography
London Festival of Education, 2015. and Visiting Professor in Social Policy at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

(LSE). She has done pioneering research on race, gender and identity in education,

multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...

Islamophobia Islamophobia is the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or a source of terrorism. The scope and precise definition of the term ''Islamophobia'' ...

and gendered violence, and was one of the first black women professors in Britain. She is author and editor of several notable books, including ''Young, Female and Black'' (1992), ''Black British Feminism'' (1997), ''Tackling the Roots of Racism: Lessons for Success'' (2005), ''Race Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail'' (2009), ''Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times'' (2012), and ''Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators'' (2012).

Biography

Early years and education

Heidi Safia Mirza was born in Britain to an

Indo-Caribbean Indo-Caribbeans or Indian-Caribbeans are Indian people in the Caribbean who are descendants of the Jahaji Indian indentured laborers brought by the British, Dutch, and French during the colonial era from the mid-19th century to the early 20th c ...

father and an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n mother, and at the age of four she moved with her parents to

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

.K. P. Sian
"Heidi Mirza"
in Sian, K. P. (ed.), ''Conversations in Postcolonial Thought''. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 27–28. She returned to England in 1973, when she was 16, attending school in

Brixton Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...

, and has written of the shock of encountering racist strife in 1970s England after her relatively sheltered experience of growing up in rural Trinidad and attending a secondary school founded by her grandmother: "You don’t question your right to exist, but that is what happens when you become a racialized 'other.'" In 1977 she went to do Development Studies the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

, where in her first year she met and married her husband; she was pregnant with their daughter when she sat her final exams. She studied for a PhD at

, and her thesis became her first book, ''Young, Female and Black'' (1992), about second-generation Caribbean young women in British comprehensive schools and "the interplay between career choices, aspirations and educational structures", which she has described as "in effect, both an academic and an autobiographical journey".Heidi Safia Mirza and Kate Hoskins
"Love in the cupboard: A conversation about success and sadness when race, gender and class collide in the making of an academic career"
in B. Cole and H. Gunter (eds) ( 2010), ''Changing Lives: Women Inclusion and the PhD'', Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books.

Career

Mirza's academic career has encompassed lecturing and teaching in the US, at

South Bank University London South Bank University (LSBU) is a public university in Elephant and Castle, London. It is based in the London Borough of Southwark, near the South Bank of the River Thames, from which it takes its name. Founded in 1892 as the Borough P ...

for nine years, and at

Middlesex University Middlesex University London (legally Middlesex University and abbreviated MDX) is a public research university in Hendon, northwest London, England. The name of the university is taken from its location within the historic county boundaries ...

(1998), where she became the UK's first Chair in Racial Equality Studies. She is currently Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmiths, Professor Emerita in Equalities Studies at the

, and Visiting Professor in Social Policy at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

(LSE). Mirza has published widely on race, gender, Black British feminisms, multiculturalism, postcolonial theory and educational inequalities, her books including ''Young, Female and Black'' (1992), ''Black British Feminism'' (1997), ''Tackling the Roots of Racism: Lessons for Success'' (2005), ''Race Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail'' (2009), ''Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times'' (2012), and ''Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators'' (2012). She co-authored the

OfSTED The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a Non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of Government of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament of the U ...

school government inspection report ''Educational Inequality: Mapping Race, Class, and Gender''. She advises

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

on diversity, and established the Runnymede Collection at the Black Cultural Archives.

Honours and recognition

In 2014 Mirza won the Media Diversified Eight Women award, which celebrates the achievements of women of colour in the UK. In 2015, in recognition of her achievements, she gave the 50th Anniversary Martin Luther King Lecture with

Doreen Lawrence Doreen Delceita Lawrence, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, OBE (''née'' Graham; born 1952) is a British Jamaican campaigner and the mother of Stephen Lawrence, a black British teenager who was murdered in a racist attack in South East London ...

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grad ...

. In 2020, Mirza featured in the ''Phenomenal Women'' exhibition at London's

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nat ...

celebrating the 35 Black professors at UK universities.

Bibliography

Books

* ''Young, Female and Black'', London: Routledge, 1992. * ''Black British Feminism: A Reader'', London: Routledge, 1997. * ''Race, Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail'', London: Routledge, 2009. * "'A Second Skin': Embodied Intersectionality, Transnationalism and Narratives of Identity and Belonging among Muslim Women in Britain". ''Women’s Studies International Forum'' 36: 5–16, 2013. * With Bhavnani, R., and V. Meetoo, ''Tackling the Roots of Racism, Lessons for Success'', Bristol: Policy Press, 2005. * With Joseph, C. ''Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times: Researching Educational Inequalities'', London: Routledge, 2010. * ''Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators'', IOE Press, 2012. * Co-edited with Jason Arday, ''Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy'', Palgrave MacMillan, 2019.

Selected articles

* With Yasmin Gunaratnam, "'The Branch on which I sit': Heidi Safia Mirza in conversation with Yasmin Gunaratnam", ''Feminist Review'', 108, 2014, pp. 125–133. ISSN 0141-7789. * "'A second skin’: Embodied intersectionality, transnationalism and narratives of identity and belonging among Muslim women in Britain", ''Women's Studies International Forum'', 36, 2013, pp. 5–15. ISSN 0277-5395. * "Plotting a History: Black and postcolonial feminisms in ‘new times’", ''Race Ethnicity and Education'', 12(1), 2009, pp. 1–10. ISSN 1361-3324. * "'The Golden Fleece': The Windrush quest for educational desire". Windrush Stories, British Library, 8 October 2018.Heidi Mirza
"'The Golden Fleece': The Windrush quest for educational desire"
Windrush Stories,

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

, 8 October 2018.

References

External links

* Heidi Safia Mirza and Kate Hoskins
"Love in the cupboard: A conversation about success and sadness when race, gender and class collide in the making of an academic career"
in B. Cole and H. Gunter (eds) (2010), ''Changing Lives: Women Inclusion and the PhD'', Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.
Heidi Mirza interview
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
"Decolonizing Pedagogies by Prof. Heidi Safia Mirza, Goldsmiths College"
keynote address at The European Conference on Education 2014 (ECE2014) in Brighton, England. YouTube video.
"CRASSH Impact: A Black Feminist Conversation – Patricia Williams and Heidi Mirza"
16 June 2017.
@HeidiMirza
– Twitter.
"Spotlight on... Professor Heidi Mirza"
''UCL News'', 13 May 2021. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mirza, Heidi Safia 1958 births Living people Alumni of the University of East Anglia British people of Indo-Trinidadian descent British people of Austrian descent Academics of London South Bank University Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London British women academics