In this post, Siying Wu, Sukanya Krishnamurthy, Sarah Kline, Manasa Gade and Ashrika Sharma – a collective of women of colour PhD students and academic staff in School of GeoSciences – developed ‘counterspaces’ in academia. They developed and hosted a series of talks and meetings that foregrounded care, collaboration, and reflection. These spaces centred their lived experiences as Women of Colour in a predominantly White, colonial academic institution. This post is part of the Student Partnership Agreement 2025 series.
A space for ‘counterspaces’
What does it mean to feel small in a big institution? To navigate a university shaped by whiteness and colonial legacies, where your presence is often overlooked or misunderstood? This is the reality many of us, as Women of Colour PhD students, have carried with us into academic spaces. Yet, when we came together for our first meeting, the excitement and joy we felt filled that space and magnified across the hours we shared. In that space, we voiced the challenges of ‘belonging’ — the tensions of being visible yet unseen, heard yet disregarded — and found something profoundly radical in simply being seen, heard, and cared for by one another. For once, the unspoken was spoken. And we were not alone.
Over the past year, we — a collective of Women of Colour PhD researchers and a mentor in the School of GeoSciences — curated a series of talks and gatherings grounded in our lived experiences, our intersectional identities, and our hopes for more equitable academic futures. Together, we created ‘counterspaces’ — spaces of care and inclusion, where we could show up and be seen fully and unapologetically. These moments of solidarity became spaces of connection, restoration, learning, and resistance — offering what the traditional academic environment often does not.
What we set out to do
With support from the Student Partnership Agreement (SPA) Fund, we were able to develop and host a series of talks and meetings that foregrounded care, collaboration, and reflection. These spaces centred our lived experiences as Women of Colour in a predominantly White, colonial academic institution and created intentional counterspaces where we could connect, rest, and learn together.
Our approach was intentionally creative and embodied: we created a safe space to explore and articulate our experiences in a supportive environment. This allowed us to capture complexities that words alone might not fully express. We shared stories, alongside food, tea, and laughter during our gatherings as a way of caring for each other and fostering a sense of community, recognising that nourishment is both literal and symbolic in building trust and connection. Each meeting offered a mix of structured discussion and open reflections. We explored what it means to navigate institutions shaped by systemic inequality, and we made room for the emotional labour that often goes unacknowledged. Crucially, we learned with and from one another. This wasn’t learning in the conventional academic sense, but something far more relational: a pedagogy grounded in care, mutual respect, and shared vulnerability.
We shared personal stories of exclusion, isolation, and erasure — moments of self-doubt, placelessness, and invisibility within our institution, our departments, and even our own research journeys. These were received not with judgement or detachment, but with presence and affirmation. These moments of exchange, recognition, and resonance taught us what it means to hold space for others while being held ourselves. We were each other’s teachers, witnesses, and co-creators of knowledge.
Reflections: What care taught us
Care as resistance
In these meetings, care became an intentional act of resistance. We rejected the notion that professionalism requires detachment or neutrality. Instead, we embraced care as an ethic; a way of doing and being that challenges the exclusionary norms of academia. These counterspaces didn’t seek to replicate institutional dynamics; they invited us to imagine something different.
Relational pedagogy and co-learning
We learned that pedagogy is not just about curriculum or content — it’s about how we relate to one another. The learning that happened in our gatherings was relational, emergent, and grounded in shared lived experiences. We didn’t arrive as experts; we arrived as learners, open to being changed by each other. This kind of care-centred pedagogy created space for deep listening, collective meaning-making, and solidarity.
Inclusion beyond access
Inclusion, for us, wasn’t about being granted a seat at the table — it was about building a table where our values shaped the space. We practiced forms of inclusion that honoured emotions, silence, contradiction, and the right not to be ‘on’ all the time. These were not just spaces to speak, but to rest, to reflect, to be.
The labour of care
Of course, this work took effort. Care is often invisible labour, particularly in institutions that reward competition and output over relationship and process. We carried not just our own stories, but also the ones shared with us — those entrusted to us. Recognising and honouring this labour is essential if such spaces are to be sustained.
Looking ahead
To sustain and expand these counterspaces and pedagogies of care, we need systematic support that goes beyond words:
- Recognition and resourcing: Time, funding, and institutional support for care work as real work.
- Mentorship that reflects our lived experiences, not just our academic pathways.
- Ongoing, embedded opportunities for collective reflection, rather than one-off interventions.
- Wider cultural change: so that relational and care-centred approaches are seen as legitimate — even essential — to inclusive education.
Final reflections
These spaces of care have become some of the most powerful parts of our academic journeys. They reminded us that inclusion is not something we wait to be granted — it’s something we co-create through relationships, through presence, through care.
In a university culture that often rewards detachment and competition, our talks and meetings offered an alternative: a model of relational learning and radical care. We saw that knowledge is not only produced in lectures or labs — it also lives in conversation, in story-sharing, in listening without needing to fix.
Thanks to the support of the SPA Fund, we were able to carve out a space to explore these questions – not just theoretically, but experientially. The depth of connection and learning that emerged from this work also opened new doors. As a result of the impact of these gatherings and other small grants we received as a collective, we were awarded further funding through the InFrame Cultural Catalyst Fund that allows us to scale our endeavour up to all departments at the University of Edinburgh and to collaborate with the University of Glasgow. We can continue exploring care and inclusion in academic spaces through future events and collaborations.
We now carry with us a deeper understanding: that care can be a critical foundation for justice, community, and collective growth in academia.
Siying Wu (she/her) is a PhD researcher in School of GeoSciences researching geographies of migration and mobilities.
Sukanya Krishnamurthy (she/her) is a Professor and Personal Chair in Geographies of Children and Young People in School of GeoSciences.
Manasa Gade (she/her) is a PhD researcher in School of GeoSciences.
Sarah Kline (she/her) is a PhD researcher in School of GeoSciences.
Ashrika Sharma (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in School of GeoSciences.
