Seun Twins

Sandra Mogeni

Department: Land Law

Summer Ahmed

Department: Land Law

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: I wanted to give more of a voice to underrepresented academics and researchers within the land law curriculum, and understand the barriers to them becoming prevalent influences in the field. I also hoped to engage with other interns and discuss key problems in this area, and brainstorm ways to overcome them.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: My main goal was to come up with suggestions for how to “decolonise and diversify” the land law curriculum. I achieved this through writing a report on my findings of the key problems in the area and evaluating and improving current suggestions for reform. I used a wide range of academic and non-academic sources in the report, to broadly encompass as many views as possible.

Luke Randhawa

Abdulkabir Adenopo

Department: Biosciences

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: I want Durham to feel more welcoming to black students since it is an excellent university and tragically underrepresented.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: I wanted to highlight issues within sciences and its colonial history and bring to light research on topics that aren't given enough light because they may not be discussing topics that we think affects us.

Take a listen to Abdulkabir's introduction to Decolonisation here:

Gina Vong

Department: Biosciences

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: I was interested in the issue of decolonisation, particularly within the sciences. Science attempts to be objective / unbiased and thus its reliance on colonialism (though prevalent) is less obvious. In other words, science has done a good job of hiding the colonialism that currently fuels its progress. I was interested in exploring this, along with how to improve scientific structures / processes.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: I wanted to give the department a strong start to their decolonisation journey. This involved establishing a baseline of existing attitudes and understanding around decolonisation by running surveys with both the students and staff. These surveys also gave visibility to the decolonisation issue, starting a discourse within the department. I additionally facilitated discussion by organising working group meetings, as well as curate a set of notes and resources for future interns.

Harini Pradeep

Department: Maths

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: I became an intern for the Decolonising the Curriculum project because I wanted to make a contribution towards making the STEM field more welcoming for POC students; hopefully things will be better for future students because of the work us interns are doing. I had some ideas on how to improve the curriculum, like including more examples of non-European Mathematicians in lectures to disprove the misconception that all scientific and mathematical discoveries were made in the West.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: I wanted to make the STEM field more accepting of marginalised students and to tell more people about what decolonisation is. A project that I am working on to do this is making a presentation that I could give to maths students to talk about why decolonisation is important and to also encourage discussions about decolonisation to get more people talking about it.

Pearl Tshimbalanga

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: I wanted to become an intern to progress the process of decolonisation within my department. The psychology department has been quite slow in its process of decolonisation and even it's understanding of how it could be done effectively. therefore, I wanted to provide some direction and the most impactful strategies to begin to work on decolonising the structures which have enforced a lot of racism and diversifying the teaching approaches of professors.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: I hoped to diversify the curriculum and how it is taught. In the future hopefully, Durham will teach ethnocentric or transcultural psychological models but for now, I was able to run two focus groups with 4 professors discussing decolonisation at Durham. these interviews unveiled the barriers to decolonisation and their roles in this decolonising movement; from this research, I created a report detailing all this information and what the university needs to do next to support professors and decolonising work in the future.

Pearl organised talks about Decolonising Psychology in Epiphany term 2021 under the supervision of Maja Kutlaca. Along with Flora Loh and Rachel Sharp, the first three decolonisation interns in Psychology are developing a booklet, a survey, and a focus group about decolonising their field of study. We look forward to learning more specifics about their projects—which they hope will inspire and be useful to future departmental interns—soon.

https://durhamuniversity.sharepoint.com/teams/PsychologyHub/SitePages/Decolonising-Psychology.aspx

Jane Manning

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: I am motivated to enact positive change, whether it be for the students this year or the curriculum itself at Durham. I recognize the impact of discrimination and systemic disadvantages that people face, both within our country and around the world. It is very important to me to understand the ways in which this happens and raise awareness among those who have privilege within the system, as understanding the problem is the first step towards making meaningful progress.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: I surveyed the students taking a masters in data science. I found the key issue was a lack of understanding of decolonisation and resistance to any decolonisation efforts in data science specifically. My main project was to create resources that changed that perception, so there would be support for new decolonisation efforts. This included a weekly newsletter and an interactive quiz that aimed to clear up misconceptions and talk about the steps one can take to aid the effort.

Billie Shearman

Subject: Chemistry

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: I wanted to be a part of this amazing project with such a creative group of people because I have so much dedication to learning more about decolonising and inspiring others to become motivated about it too. This is such an important project which extends way beyond our university lives and I wanted to help make a project for my department, which would educate and inspire fellow students.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: My goal was and still is the help raise other people up and learn through a different lens than the usual Western one. I also think it's so important to spread passion, hence our project was a new module 'The History of Chemistry'. It is a 4 lecture course that covers ancient to modern chemistry, taking examples from different civilisations and cultures and understanding why and how chemistry developed differently.

Claire de Kourte

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: Colonialism has destroyed civilisations, cultures and systems of knowledge. Consequently colonialism has devastated the lives of billions of people around the world. Decolonising academic institutions is a step towards bettering the lives of humans worldwide and I want to help bolster the movement.

What did you accomplish in your role?: While I was a decolonising the curriculum intern, my main project was writing a handbook to inform mathematics professors on why decolonisation mathematics is important how they can engage with decolonising mathematics. In addition to this, I hosted workshops to aid staff in decolonising the curriculum and presented alongside professor Emmanuel Ogundimu at the annual Head of Departments of Mathematical Sciences conference, disseminating the information that myself and the other interns had accumulated.

Emilie Tenbroek

Department: History

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: In my experience at Durham, discussion of topics related to colonialism, racism, and decolonising learning and knowledge have been restricted to only those modules directly concerned with adjacent issues, rather than explored everywhere it may be applicable. I feel there is a gap between those students interested in these topics who seek out relevant teaching, and those who might complete their degree selecting such modules that they never encounter these ideas. I wanted to work with the project in the hopes of broadening decolonising work across all teaching and learning, giving every student the opportunity to engage with it.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: I hoped to produce a resource that might serve as a starting point for students in history for decolonising their language, with practical things to think about in their work and learning. First encountering discussions around decolonising can be overwhelming, as debates are ongoing in many research areas and may differ between them. I aimed with my resource to provide students with a structure around what questions to ask themselves, what topics to investigate in their research, and an introduction to the sorts of issues encountered in decolonising work to enable them to implement these practices for themselves.

Joe Walker

Department: Theology and Religion

Course: Theology and Philosophy

I wanted to become a decolonisation intern to foremost challenge my department to rethink how they approached academia and educating undergraduates! Secondly, I wanted to improve the experience of students in the department, to let them know that concerns they had on diversity, both academically and practically, were being heard and raised with the department. Finally, I wanted to challenge myself and any pre-existing assumptions I held. To learn more about decolonisation, including what it means and practically how to carry it out.

I hoped to accomplish a shift in thinking in my department. However small the shift was, I wanted a change from their standard approach to one that at the very least factored in decolonisation. Finally, decolonisation can seem like a huge, complicated and multi-faceted task that can be impossible to achieve. I wanted to reduce that image to something achievable both for myself and the department as a whole.

Nkechi Managwu

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: For me, decolonisation begins with the understanding that, as an inevitable result of Europe’s colonial and imperial past, institutions which have been created (including universities and the curriculum) perpetuate racialised, gendered, sexual, and religious divisions. It is through this understanding that such habits can be dismantled, allowing for all members of the education system, and thus, wider society, to be supported – it is not only the ‘victor’s’ story that should be told. This, combined with my identity as a person of colour, led me to want to have an impact in my department's involvement in the university's wider decolonisation effort, helping different perspectives be heard.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: As part of my Decolonisation internship at Durham University’s History Department, I reflected on my views on the importance of having a diverse bank of resources in today’s day and age as we become increasingly aware of how crucial different views and understandings of events can be in a learning, and personal, environment.

As a result of this, I put together a resource list to allow students to access a wider range of resources which they might otherwise not be aware of to help in their studies and individual interests. Moreover, this document was created to give lecturers and module convenors a chance to perhaps explore a wider array of resources to those they commonly use as they structure seminars, lectures, and their own research. Students and educators alike will hopefully be able to gain new insight into different histories through a range of channels, immersing themselves in a novel, inclusive perspective.

Daniel Caves-San José

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: I wanted to become a decolonisation intern because I was frustrated by some of the gaps in what knowledge was focused on (and the way this knowledge was taught) in a few of the modules I was enrolled in. I also wanted to be a part of a larger community of interns to collaborate and share what we had learnt throughout our time as interns, which led to me making the decolonisation internship framework for other departments to use.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: Being a decolonisation intern with the School of Government and International Affairs, I was able to collate many key post-colonial Latin American articles that are only available in Spanish, to allow academics and future interns to have a database of key articles to translate. I also translated an article myself, which will hopefully be published in a Latin American journal soon!

Seyi Omonitan

Department: Business

My name is Seyi, I am a second-year Economics and Politics student and the current Decolonising the Curriculm faculty intern for the Business School with a strong interest in African political history and development economics.

Poh Hoh Shan

Why did you want to become a decolonisation intern?: While I had previous experience with a non-governmental organisation, focusing on finding policy issues related to discrimination in education, engaging in decolonisation has further enhanced my understanding of my place in the world. This is particularly meaningful to me because I am a product of colonisation. I am an international student from a former British colony studying at a British university, with English as my first language. I believe that Decolonising the Curriculum is not a mere checkbox exercise, but rather an ongoing journey that I wanted to be a part of.

What would you like to accomplish in your role?: I hoped to contribute and learn about the process of decolonisation in relation to the Business School. Decolonisation is often faced with the charge of politicisation. While I personally do not believe that to be a problem in itself, I did wonder what roles institutions like business schools (not typically associated with decolonisation work) could have. As part of that, I work with my colleagues to establish an internal Decolonising the Curriculum (DtC) toolkit and resource bank for Business School staff. The goal of this was to enable all members of the Business School to better understand what DtC means, and how they could apply it to their work.