By Charles H. F. Davis III, Ph.D.
Review originally published in the Journal of College Student Development
Leigh Patel
Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2021, 192 pages, $24.95 (cloth)
Broadly speaking, No Study Without Struggle rigorously engages the systemic and structural entanglements of oppression and organized resistance within education and its social con- texts. Bringing together historical records, oral histories, and contemporary case examples, Patel beautifully illustrates relationships of power through the analytical lens of settler colonialism. Moreover, the expressed intention of the text is to provide a sense of grounding for the reader about the longstanding symbiosis of study and struggle. As such, Patel provides compelling evidence to demonstrate the connections between higher education as a settler colonial project and the always already confrontations with settler colonial violence. This is noteworthy in that, until recently, the higher education literature has been largely deficient in its engagement with (de)colonization and (de)colonial studies. Yet, as Patel notes, many of the endemic and intractable problems con- fronting contemporary higher education find their roots in the stolen land and stolen labor and the exploitative and extractive nature of colleges and universities, which continue with their modern function as neoliberal enterprises.