Centre for Minorities Research Podcast
By University of St Andrews CMR Podcast
For more information visit us at cmr.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk
Centre for Minorities Research PodcastJun 02, 2022
A Conversation on Chinese-Jamaican Life Experiences.
In this podcast, Yichi and her research interlocutor Shannon Chen-See Nehemiah discuss Shannon’s life experiences growing up as a fourth-generation Chinese Jamaican and an active poet and artist. They ruminate upon the commonality of minority experiences, which relate to being different from others and learning to embrace that difference. Their friendship also blooms through connections with the Chinese identity—a journey of forming relationships by encountering and going beyond people’s sameness and differences. Shannon also reads her poem about the minority experience and discusses its creation.
Visit Shannon’s website, where you can also find the poem read on the episode: https://www.watchensee.xyz/art-poetry
Studying the Black Experience in Fascist Italy
Tilly Lyons, a PhD student in Italian and History, gives a brief overview of the history of Africans in Italy between 1922 and 1945. In this episode, she contextualises the discursive landscape in which they found themselves in a colonial time when anti-Black propaganda was rife and discusses two case studies from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs archives in Rome.
Primary Sources:
‘Anna and Aden Bin Mohamed’, Ministero Africa Italiana vol. I 1857-1939, Posizione 35/9, Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri.
‘Osman Rorá’, Ministero Africa Italiana vol. I 1857-1939, Posizione 35/9, Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri.
Lidio Cipriani, Per un censimento delle genti di colore residenti in Italia, Ministero Africa Italiana Gabinetto Archivio Segreto 1925 – 1942, busta 70, Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri.
Secondary Sources:
Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval, (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2019).
Margherita Sarfatti & Brian Sullivan, My Fault: Mussolini As I Knew Him, Enigma Books, 2013.
Alberto Sbacchi, ‘Italy and the Treatment of the Ethiopian Aristocracy, 1937-1940’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies 10(2) (1977), 209-241.
Ethnic concentration effects on the partnership, employment, and housing patterns of ethnic minorities in the UK
Parth Pandya, a PhD student in Demography, discusses their first PhD chapter looking at the effects of ethnic concentration on the partnership, employment, and housing patterns of ethnic minorities in the UK with a special focus on the key takeaways on the state of ethnic minority individuals in the Census 2021 results which were recently released. In this episode, Parth breaks down the spatial patterns of ethnic minority individuals in the UK, outlines key theories of ethnic minority behaviour and patterns in demographic and geographic research, discusses their findings and ends on a critical discussion of the methodological challenges in demographic research.
References*
*These are some key readings to get you going but this is not an exhaustive list and there are many more works that I referenced in my research.
Brynin, M. and Güveli, A., (2012). Understanding the ethnic pay gap in Britain. Work, Employment and Society, 26(4), pp.574-587.
Catney, G., Lloyd, C.D., Ellis, M., Wright, R., Finney, N., Jivraj, S. and Manley, D., (2023). Ethnic diversification and neighbourhood mixing: A rapid response analysis of the 2021 Census of England and Wales. The Geographical Journal, 189(1), pp.63-77.
Finney, N. and Harries, B., (2015). Which ethnic groups are hardest hit by the ‘housing crisis’. Ethnic identity and inequalities in Britain: The dynamics of diversity, pp.141-160.
Hamnett, C. and Butler, T., (2010). The changing ethnic structure of housing tenures in London, 1991—2001. Urban Studies, 47(1), pp.55-74.
Hannemann, T. and Kulu, H., (2015). Union formation and dissolution among immigrants and their descendants in the United Kingdom. Demographic Research, 33, pp.273-312.
Kulu, H., Milewski, N., Hannemann, T., & Mikolai, J. (2019). A decade of life-course research on fertility of immigrants and their descendants in Europe. Demographic Research, 40, 1345–1374.
Li, Y. and Heath, A., (2020). Persisting disadvantages: a study of labour market dynamics of ethnic unemployment and earnings in the UK (2009–2015). Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46(5), pp.857-878.
Mikolai, J., & Kulu, H. (2022a). Heterogeneity or disadvantage in partnership, childbearing, and employment trajectories of the descendants of immigrants in the United Kingdom? A multi-channel sequence analysis of longitudinal data. MigrantLife Working Paper 12.
Mikolai, J. and Kulu, H. (2022b). Partnership and fertility trajectories of immigrants and descendants in the United Kingdom: A multilevel multistate event history approach. Population Studies, pp. 1–20.
Shankley, W. and Finney, N., (2020). Ethnic minorities and housing in Britain. In Ethnicity, Race and Inequality in the UK, p.149.
Thomas, M.J. and Mulder, C.H., (2016). Partnership patterns and homeownership: a cross-country comparison of Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Housing Studies, 31(8), pp.935-963.
Waters, M., Tran, V., Kasinitz, P. and Mollenkopf, J., (2010). Segmented assimilation revisited: types of acculturation and socioeconomic mobility in young adulthood. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(7), pp. 1168-1193.
Zuccotti, C.V. and Platt, L., (2017). Does neighbourhood ethnic concentration in early life affect subsequent labour market outcomes? A study across ethnic groups in England and Wales. Population, Space and Place, 23(6), p.e2041.
Environmental Justice and Persons with Disabilities in Nigeria
Racheal Inegbedion, a graduate from the masters of Science in Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews, discusses her policy report dissertation centred in the issue of environmental justice, specifically concerning individuals with disabilities in Nigeria and its broader global implications.
Minority Languages and their Reception in Germany
Aimée Capraro, an undergraduate student of German at the University of St Andrews, discusses the place of minority languages in Germany with a special focus on the linguistic varieties spoken by people of Turkish descent in urban areas in Germany and social attitudes towards them. In this episode, she breaks these varieties down from a linguistic standpoint before examining their cultural and political significance.
References:
Tanager, ‘Learning to be German: immigration and language in Berlin’, in The Sociolinguistic Economy of Berlin, ed. by Theresa Heyd, Ferdinand von Mengden and Britta Schneider (Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2019), pp. 73-93.
Bunk, Oliver and Maria Pohle, ‘ “Unter Freunden redet man anders”: The register awareness of Kiezdeutsch speakers’, in The Sociolinguistic Economy of Berlin, ed. by Theresa Heyd, Ferdinand von Mengden and Britta Schneider (Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter Mouten, 2019), pp. 97-124.
Androutsopoulos, Jannis K, ‘Ethnolekte in der Mediengesellschaft. Stilisierung und Sprachideologie’ in Performance, Fiktion und Metasprachdiskurs, in Standard, Variation und Sprachwandel in germanischen Sprachen (Tübingen: Narr, 2007), pp. 113-155.
Madsen, Lian Malai and Bente Ailin Svendsen, ‘Stylized voices of ethnicity and social division’, in Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century. Linguistic Practices across Urban Spaces (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 207-230.
Cindark, Ibrahim and Inken Keim, ‘Deutsch-türkischer Mischcode in einer Migrantinnengruppe: Form von “Jugendsprache” oder soziolektales Charakteristikum?’, in Jugendprachen – Spiegel der Zeit. Internationale Fachkonferenz 2001 an der Bergischen Universität Wuppertal (Frankfurt am Main/Berlin/Bergn/Bruxelles/New York/Oxford/Wien: Lang, 2003), pp. 377-393.
Balci, Tahir, ‘Die Wochenmarktsprache in der Türkei und in Deutschland’, Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 0 (2020), 243-256.
Reconnecting Heritage: Repatriation and Museums
This CMR episode is in collaboration with Two Friends Talk History podcast, hosted and produced by Zofia Guertin, a PhD Candidate in the School of Classics. In this episode Zofia interviews Dr Barbara Winter to discuss how indigenous artefacts have traditionally been collected and displayed in western Canada. This discussion touches on the arguments historically used to keep acquired material culture outside of minority communities (by colonial powers) and in large museum collections. To challenge these historic narratives made by cultural heritage caretakers, we explore how repatriation reconnects individuals and communities to pre-colonial pasts and helps build confidence for future generations.
*Dr Barbara Winter worked at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, for over thirty years as the curator for the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at the university. She worked in the Canadian Museum of History in Quebec, and the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, Northwest Territory.
*Zofia is also a freelance illustrator and public archaeologist, having worked in museums and on excavations in Greece, Spain, and Italy. Besides her podcast, she writes blogs on Ancient History and creates art and free-access educational materials about the ancient world.
Diversity in Green Film: A conversation with St Andrews Green Film Festival
In this episode, Erica Ostlander, an undergraduate at the University of St Andrews studying film studies and sustainable development, discusses the importance of upholding diversity in Hollywood, particularly in the realm of environmental cinema. Working as Co-director of the St Andrews Green Film Festival alongside Tristan Sharman, an undergraduate geography student at St Andrews, they are able to discuss how film festivals can be an important resource for POC filmmakers and how festivals like GFF have a responsibility to curate a diverse filmography. Erica also speaks on her personal experience scouting for films in Puerto Rico and the obstacles that can be brought on when attempting to bring local films to a global screen.
Captain Jeffrey Hudson: Court Dwarf, Wonder, Entertainer, Courtier, Captain of Horse and Caroline England’s Greatest Man
In this episode, listen to St. Andrews History PhD student, Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart, as they tell the forgotten life story of the Greatest Man from the Smallest County in all of England, Jeffrey Hudson. As a young boy of only 1 1/2 foot tall, at the age of 7 his life changed forever when Charles I friend, the Duke of Buckingham, had him become his household dwarf before showing him at a royal banquet, which saw him given a new position as court dwarf and wonder (someone celebrated for looking physically different but not considered a monster) in Queen Henrietta Maria’s royal household. What followed was a life of great privilege but also great sorrow, as Hudson found himself over his life defined as everything from court dwarf, entertainer, warrior, Civil War Captain of Horse, Ottoman slave, Catholic Prisoner, Elderly Pauper to Murderer.
Diversifying English and Higher Education
In this episode Anisha Minocha and Nishita Koushik, both undergraduates in English at the University of St Andrews, will be discussing their own experiences and challenges with the structure of higher education. Stressing the importance of diversifying and decolonising the curriculum, and what steps are being done by students to improve this.
Growing Flowers in the Desert: A Conversation with the Lemon Tree Trust
Growing Flowers in the Desert: A Conversation with the Lemon Tree Trust will reveal how one packet of seeds can bring hope to even the most desolate of situations. In this podcast, Rachael Jefferies, a Master of Arts (Honours) student in French and German, at the University of St Andrews, explores the power of gardening with Jennie Spears from the Lemon Tree Trust. Discover stories of displaced individuals and see how the act of gardening becomes a common language of dignity between people and a bridge to build community.
Is inclusivity an academic skill?
In this episode Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, a PhD Candidate in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews talks to Lara Jost, a PhD Candidate in Philosophy who also manages Philosophy's academic skills workshops for undergraduate students. Anushrut and Lara discuss the potential uses of the Academic Skills Projects workshops to make the discipline of Philosophy more inclusive, as well as the challenges facing it. The podcast seeks to elucidate on local practices that those concerned with equality, diversity, and inclusiveness within the University could support. Further, it offers a grassroots level perspective on how and why disciplines become restrictive in their approach.
Pinkwashing and queer grassroot activism in Palestine/Israel
In this episode Manar Kawasmi, a PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews talks to Haneen Maikey, a Palestinian feminist queer activist and organiser. Haneen is the co-founder and former director of al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, which is a Palestinian LGBT+ grassroots activist organisation. Manar and Haneen discuss the context in which al-Qaws was established and its main goals in countering colonialism, homophobia, and patriarchy. They also talk about pinkwashing and how it exposes the relationship between these three forces. For al-Qaws, countering pinkwashing works as a main queer activist strategy to counter settler-colonialism in the context of Palestine/Israel. They further discuss queer politics and the importance of anti-colonial analysis to queer liberation movements, and the benefits of digital online work for expanding grassroots queer activist networks.
Diversifying a Discipline: The Expanding German Studies Network
In this episode, we discover the Expanding German Studies network with one of its founders, Dr Tom Smith, a Lecturer in German Studies at the School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews, and Gwendoline Choi, a German Studies Masters student. Expanding German Studies (EGS) is a collaborative resource, blog and collective, focussing on promoting teaching that reflects the diversity of German-speaking culture. EGS aims to better represent German Studies’ multitude of voices and to connect existing diversity work between different universities in the UK.
The life of Behrooz Boochani: a study of refugee identity in “No Friends but the Mountains”
In our fifth episode Parisa Saghafian, a recent graduate student from the University of St. Andrews in the Erasmus Mundus Masters of Crossways in Cultural Narratives, reflects on the life of Behrouz Boochani and his memoir “No Friends but the Mountains”, exploring his Kurdish and refugee identity.
Bibliography used for the podcast:
Boochani, Behrooz `No friends but the mountains: Writing from Manus prison` translated by Omid Tofighian, pub by Picador Publications, 2018.
Burnett, Karl `Feeling like an outsider: a case study of refugee identity in the Czech Republic`, Research Paper No. 251 in New issues in refugee research, UNHCR, 2013.
Ek, Richard. `Giorgio Agamban and the spatiality of the camp: an introduction`. pub by Human Geography. Dec 2006.
Gould, Ruby, J `Placing the Stateless Refugee: a philosophy of statelessness, nationality, and rights`. pub by Bucknell University Press, 2019
Knudsen, Ar J. ‘Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development`, pub by University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016
Service provider reports `Eroding our identity as a generous nation: Community views on Australia’s treatment of people seeking asylum`. pub by Refugee Council of Australia, Dec 2015.
Gender sensitivity in Languages
In our fourth episode, Federica Consiglio, an undergraduate in German and Comparative Literature at the University of St. Andrews, analyses different points of view on the issue of including greater gender sensitivity in languages, both in their everyday use and in their grammatical structure. Looking at possible practical solutions that have recently been explored by linguists and their relevant critiques in Italian and German, encouraging greater awareness on the subject, solutions and most importantly, to understand the need of a cultural change, together with a linguistic one.
A conversation with Laura Moncada: Women and girls issues in Venezuela
Our third episode features Laura Jane Henderson, a Scottish second-year International Relations and Spanish undergraduate student at the University of St. Andrews, and Laura Moncada, an incoming NYU Abu Dhabi student from Venezuela. They discuss the work Moncada is undertaking to improve the lives of women and girls, as well as the issues women face in South America.
The life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf
In our second episode, Sam Osborn, a third-year PhD student in German Studies (SoML) at the University of St Andrews, explores the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf through her memoir and diary. Charlotte was a transgender woman who lived in the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the socialist German Democratic Republic.
A conversation with Dr Ankur Datta: Displacement among Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmiri
In the inaugural episode, Camila Marinelli, a second-year PhD student in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, is joined by Dr Ankur Datta, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the South Asian University. Taking the lead from the term 'displacement', Camila and Ankur discuss their work with indigenous students in Brazilian universities and Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir, India, respectively. They talk about mental health and conflict and the moralities of conducting ethnographic research on and about minorities.