PRME announces Research Seed Funding Competition winner

The Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), a United Nations-supported initiative created to inspire responsible management education, research, and thought leadership globally, has announced Dr Blanchard-Emmerson as the Research Seed Funding Competition winner.

Dr Blanchard-Emmerson, a senior lecturer in fashion history and theory at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), won the competition with her proposal “Do #blacklivesmatter in the education of fashion business students?”.

The project aims to decolonise the fashion business curriculum by challenging white patriarchal perspectives in teaching and enable fashion business students to consider the representation of racialised ethnicities in fashion education and the fashion industry, according to UCA.

Funding of the maximum value of one thousand pounds was awarded to Dr Blanchard-Emmerson to orchestrate her research and gather her results.

Dr Blanchard-Emmerson, said in a statement: “Through dialogue, racialised minority students will be able to challenge how they may be stereotyped and under-represented, while white students will be encouraged to question their privilege and provide allyship to colleagues from minority backgrounds.

“For every privileged white student who enters the fashion industry having understood the importance of allyship, one more injustice might be prevented. Every week my students and I find and analyse images and examples from magazines, catwalk shows, look books and films that demonstrate white ideals and that stereotype and racialise other skin colours.

“I hope that racialised minority students benefit from knowing that racism, which is part of their everyday life experience, is taken seriously by the university: their teaching needs, their experiences, and their concerns. Critiquing the structures that construct race helps bring them one step closer to being dismantled.”