Colonialism Reiterated: The Racialised Division of Labour in Higher Education and Beyond

Abstract

This article takes up the invitation to imagine a decolonised performance studies by turning its attention to the legal and material conditions, institutions, and practices on which the work of study rests. Drawing on performance studies’ theorisations of the affixive ‘re,’ we define colonialism’s “reiteration” as an unfinished modulation across time and space, rather than a linear or finite trajectory. Aligned with thinkers who address decolonisation as a specifically material project, we thus argue that any attempt to epistemologically “decolonise” performance studies must first confront the reiterations of colonialism that undergird academic labour today. Specifically, we turn to the racialised division of labour—as it is reinforced globally by migration law and border control—as a key site at which colonial histories continue to shape scholarly practice. Moving between three key sites—Kuwait, Singapore, and the United Kingdom—we argue that higher education should be seen not as a neutral register for skill and qualification, but as an industry with a vested interest in disguising racialised hierarchies of migrant labour. On this basis, we end by proposing an activism that attempts to break with the normative, racialised division of labour among university workers.