About me

Susanne Becker

  • Sociologist of Social Inequalities and Professor of Social Sciences


  • Many years of teaching and research experience at universities and research institutions


  • Certified Social Justice & Diversity Trainer

 

  • Further training in documentary filmmaking, psychodrama methods, theatre of the oppressed


  • Working class academic

Personal

Growing up in an area of the city which was often labelled as a deprived area made me aware of the fact that social inequalities exist in society at a very early stage in life. My experiences as a care-leaver and a first-generation academic gave me a real sense of how resources and opportunities are distributed unequally in our society. On top of being excluded from resources, marginalised people are often shamed for who they are. Consequently, intersectional anti-classism work is an issue very close to my heart.

Academia

By doing a degree in sociology, I was given the opportunity to connect my early observations of social inequalities to academic concepts and theories of social structure and oppression. It gave me an academic language for the social realities I had witnessed and experienced. My commitment to critically engaging with dominant discourses is also reflected in my view on migration, global inequalities and linguistic diversity, which is strongly influenced by postcolonial feminist theories. All of my academic endeavours are always informed by my identity as a critical sociologist interested in power structures and anti-oppression.

Social Justice Education

Qualifying as a Social Justice & Diversity Trainer helped me to approach issues surrounding discrimination in a way that goes beyond my personal involvement with those topics and, at the same time, surpasses the idea of treating anti-discrimination as an intellectual exercise. Additionally, I was reminded about the intersectional entanglements of discrimination, which led to a stronger focus on intersectional perspectives in my own work. Many of the exercises and methods I apply in my workshops and teaching originate from my training as a Social Justice and Diversity Educator and from art-based anti-oppression work.
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