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Workshop: Experiences of Black researchers: engaging with anti-racism in research
Led by: Tolúwalàse Fayese, Hannah Abdalla, Malaika Okundi, Carl Simela, and Ziada Ayorech from the Transmission of Experiences of Racism, Anxiety and DEpression in families (TRADE) Project
In this panel discussion attendees had the opportunity to hear from a diverse team of early career researchers who have been working on the TRADE project. They discussed experiences from the perspective of a team striving to be anti-racist in mental health research.
Three key messages:
- Mainstream mental health research is racist.
- Racism exists in our research teams.
- We must be actively anti-racist to address these issues, and everyone has a part to play in actioning this change.
This workshop was connected to our Voices, Power & Attitudes research challenge: How can we amplify young people’s voices and change societal attitudes in ways that positively impact on mental health?
Further Resources
Check out these pictures from the day!
Photos from Oxford Atelier.
Workshop Live Tweets
You can read a great thread below from Mark who live-tweeted the workshop via @Mental_Elf.
Next up at #emergingminds in Oxford, starting at 11.30: Experiences of Black researchers: engaging with anti-racism in research
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
with
Yasmin Ahmadzadeh, Tolúwalàse Fayese, Hannah Abdalla, Carl Simela, Malaika Okundi, Ziada Ayorech
They'll be speaking about @TRADEproject_UK
This session is about anti-racism in mental health research. A panel member says we are all part of racist systems, we all need to consider our part in this. The panel is introducing themselves. A panel member says mental health research is not outside of racism. #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
One panel member asks 'how do we do all this as individuals working in racists systems'. Another says anti-racist research requires mandatory coproduction. A third says anti-racist research has real-life consequences #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
The first question the panel is asking is: who does your research serve, who does it not serve and which voices need to be brought to the fore? #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
A panel member is discussing the lack of diversity in genetic essential studies. They have mostly been based on healthy white europeans. This makes them less use beyond that for prediction, development of treatment. 96% of this data comes from European people #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone from the room says that when they were research learning difficulties, they had very few participants who weren't white. Wonders about their own efforts in reaching people and recruiting. #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone from the room says 'people aren't hard to reach, it's that we aren't doing enough to reach them'. #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone online is speaking about their own work, remarking that they are having challenges recruiting black boys. A panel member says there are many organisations that work with young black men and boys. Work with them #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
A panel member is now talking about @TRADEproject_UK, with its focus on intergenerational trauma and mental health within racialised communities. It asked specifically about racism and its impact, which attracted difference audiences #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
The panel is now asking 'how does racism manifest in the research workplace?' One example can be stereotyping. Another person raises the lack of diversity in research teams: white researchers research Black communities, never communicate back results and impact #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone raises that many common assessment tools are developed in northern european countries, says that this bakes in discrimination into measurement. Coproducing new measures is the answer, they say #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone from the room brings up the idea of assimilation: the pressure to do things as they have always done within institutions. #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
An attendee from the floor asks how interested in change structures are. Says that in their experience institutions are up for 'change' but badly placed to actually respond to research and calls for change. The structure remains as it was #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone from the floor says they found it embarrassing to go out into communities without preparing for the reality that mental health conditions manifest and are understood differently in different communities. MH definitions have baked in cultural assumptions #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
A panel member says counteracting racist thinking and practice is not easy. We all have to accept we are part of a racist system. It depends on where you're coming from: racism is not a monolith. We must embrace diversity in our anti-racist practice #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
How we present ourselves, how we are responded to, how we have experienced racism, our own history and self-identity – all are individual. Diversity needs to be embraced. Tokenism isn't diversity. There is difficulty walking through the world with a dark skin #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Opposing racist oppression requires embracing complexity and diversity, says the panel member. Even with others who have lived with reality of racism, says the panel member, there are very different experiences, histories, selves #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
'We need to look at who holds power,' says another panel member. 'What's the hierarchy? We need diversity at all levels, of people being valued' #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
A person from the floor says that it's important to call out both witting and and unwitting racism whatever form it takes. Gives example of assumption of a team that an Indian colleague could translate *any* Indian language #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Related to recruitment, a panel member says that you should work out who you need to first get to know and work with for what you want to happen #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone from floor says there's a harmful idea that coproduction is about putting people from different heritages and backgrounds as representatives to explain to institutions and research what life for all people of the same group: 'To speak for all black people' #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
A panel member concurs: it's ridiculous when we expect one person to speak for all people. Says it's a huge pressure to feel like you need to represent your whole lineage, whole cohort, whole culture; though some feel comfortable doing so #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone in room suggests that facts and figures are a good way of challenges racism. A panel member says that's a problem where which facts and what figures about whom are still decided in a racist system. Universities are behind in anti-racist thought #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone raises the fact that we keep raising the same questions about racism and research. Techniques were developed in the 80s for solving some of these problems. Asks: can anti-racism in research be institutionalised? Why do folks keep starting from scratch? #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
The panel raises Kimberle Crenshaw's idea of Intersectionality https://t.co/HPcOFT2O0T #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
Someone on the panel raises the idea of the leaky pipelines in academia, diversity reducing as seniority increases. Diverse recruitment is important. Diversity in teams also important and looking to coproduction. #emergingminds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022
And, with thanks from the panel, that's the end of this session. To hear a little more about the @TRADEproject_UK, here's a good podcast https://t.co/9CuJTFLCb0 #EmergingMinds
— The Mental Elf (@Mental_Elf) October 17, 2022