Betty Knight 's Linkedin Analytics

Academic Statement (Specialist Area): My academic research and creative practice are grounded in an interdisciplinary exploration of racial identity, representation, and marginalization, with a particular focus on the Black female experience in the diaspora. As a Black African woman poet and scholar, my work interrogates the intersections of race, gender, and literature, examining how colonial narratives continue to inform contemporary portrayals of Blackness—particularly within popular fiction. A central aspect of my research is a critical study of Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, where I analyse how racial representation and tropes of Blackness are constructed, consumed, and contested. Through this lens, I explore broader questions of authorship, authenticity, and the cultural implications of white-authored narratives about Africa and African identity. My practice-based research is intimately connected to my lived experience. As a poet, I engage with the autobiographical as both a method and a mode of survival—using language to navigate and articulate the complexities of being a Black woman in predominantly white British spaces. My time as an English teacher in Hampshire, where I encountered both racial isolation and systemic discrimination, continues to inform my scholarly lens and poetic voice. The University of Winchester remains my intellectual and spiritual home, where I strive to create space for critical engagement with decolonial thought, radical self-expression, and the transformative power of narrative reclamation.