Speaking back through repetitioning: black women’s resistance and empowerment in global university spaces

This paper explores how repetitive language functions as a form of resistance for Black women navigating academic spaces across Ontario, Canada, and England. Drawing on Gilroy's The Black Atlantic (Gilroy, P. 1993. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso), W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness (Du Bois, W. E. B. 1903. The Souls of Black Folk. Knoxville, TN: A.C. McClurg & Co), and Black Feminist Thought (Collins, P. H. 2019. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Durham: Duke University Press), alongside discourse analysis (Johnstone, B., and J. Andrus. 2024. Discourse Analysis. John Wiley & Sons), this study examines how the repetitive patterns in Black women’s language act both as individual expressions of experiences and as communal affirmations of identity. This research underscores how language challenges institutional structures, revealing the creative and nuanced ways Black women resist and reframe oppressive narratives. Using in-person and online conversations with Black women across university roles in Ontario and England this paper shows how thematic dimensions of talk such as vulnerability, self-preservation, resistance and reclamation resonate with repetition as a linguistic practice. The analysis shows that repetition is not merely stylistic: it functions as a tool of collective assertion, critique, and affirmation. Through repetition, contributors forge solidarity, challenge institutional failures, and celebrate Black joy in defiance of systemic constraints. These findings contribute to scholarship on language as resistance and self-definition, and underscore the need for academic institutions to recognise and address the unique experiences of Black women (Rollock, N. 2021. ““I Would Have Become Wallpaper Had Racism Had Its Way”: Black Female Professors, Racial Battle Fatigue, and Strategies for Surviving Higher Education.” Peabody Journal of Education 96 (2): 206–217). By exploring Black women’s experiences in academic spaces, this paper also examines how workplace marginalisation is represented within their narratives, revealing how institutional policing manifests in their everyday interactions. By linking linguistic strategies such as repetition and parallelism with broader institutional critiques, this paper builds on scholarly discussions of how language is not only a response to systemic barriers but also a disruption of them, positioning Black women’s speech as an active site of resistance and transformation (Chance, N. L. 2022. “Resilient Leadership: A Phenomenological Exploration into How Black Women in Higher Education Leadership Navigate Cultural Adversity.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 62 (1): 44–78.; Williams, B. M. 2023. ““It’s Just My Face:” Workplace Policing of Black Professional Women in Higher Education.” Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education 16 (2): 67–89).