“I Didn't Come to Play”

Abstract

Pasifika women in the academy face many of the same challenges as other racialised women working in universities. At the intersection of race and gender, we experience the white and masculine imprints of higher education. These imprints lead to Pasifika women experiencing excess labour, infantilization, hyper-surveillance, stranger making, expectations of intelligibility, and desirable diversity. In spite of this daily onslaught Pasifika, women continue to work and engage in higher education and the question needs to be asked: Why? This chapter explores these experiences and more importantly the motivations of Pasifika women to continue to engage with higher education in spite of the systemic exclusion they face.