Diversifying and Decolonising the University

Sara Downton talks to Abimbola Abodunrin about his research into the experiences of women of colour academics in STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering and Maths), as well as marginalised knowledges, and decolonial methodologies. 

NOTES:

Abimbola Abodunrin is a post-doctoral researcher in education with a strong grounding in the sociology of education and a growing track record in qualitative research, teaching, and scholarly engagements. His PhD thesis at the University of Glasgow explored the underrepresentation of women academics of colour in British STEM academia, as a way of contributing to wider efforts to decolonise the academy.

Kolar, K., Ahmed, F. & Chan, L., (2015). Timeline Mapping in Qualitative Interviews: a Study of Resilience with Marginalised Groups. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 14(3), pp. 13 – 32.  

Olmo-Extremera, M., Fernández-Terol, L., & Amber Montes, D. (2024). Visual tools for supporting interviews in qualitative research: new approaches. Qualitative Research Journal, 24(3), 283-298. 

Bravington, A., & King, N. (2019). Putting graphic elicitation into practice: Tools and typologies for the use of participant-led diagrams in qualitative research interviews. Qualitative Research, 19(5), 506-523. 

Baú, V. (2024). Viewing life as a timeline: Digital visual research to retrace people's journeys. Qualitative Research, 24(5), 1302-1311. 

Ku, E. K. (2025). Timelines: visualizing time in narrative research. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 100215. 

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Produced by Chris Lloyd, Catarina Carvalho, and Sara Downton. Music by Rayen © Hear more via Spotify or Instagram. Edited by Chris Lloyd.

This show is in part made possible by an Impact Accelerator Award from the University of Hertfordshire and the Economic and Social Research Council.

In this episode, we listen to Siobhan Bygate talk to Anneke Newman about decolonising education and international development in Islamic West Africa. 

EPISODE NOTES:

Anneke Newman has received an interdisciplinary academic training including an BA in Human Sciences (Oxford), a Masters in Gender and Development (Institute of Development Studies), and a Masters in Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research Methods (University of Sussex) before earning her doctorate at the Department of Anthropology at Sussex in 2016. Before joining Ghent University as a FWO-funded senior postdoctoral fellow in 2022, she worked as a Teaching Fellow at Sussex and a FNRS-funded postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains (LAMC) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Newman's current research is a decolonial analysis of knowledge production and policy-making related to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage. 

• Anneke Newman, Decolonising Education in Islamic West Africa: Secular Erasure, School Preference and Social Inequality

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Produced by Chris Lloyd, Catarina Carvalho, and Sara Downton.

Music by Rayen © Hear more via Spotify or Instagram.

Edited by Chris Lloyd.

This show is in part made possible by an Impact Accelerator Award from the University of Hertfordshire and the Economic and Social Research Council.

In this episode, Catarina Carvalho talks to Ric Crossman about decolonising mathematics. They discuss mathematics, the awarding gap, statistics, assessment and much more.  

EPISODE NOTES:

Ric Crossman is an Associate Professor (Education Track) in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Durham. When not working on decolonisation, he's most likely teaching statistics.

• Decolonising maths at Durham
• Article 1 and article 2 from Nature magazine
• Wendy Castillo and Kamden K. Strunk, How to QuantCrit: Applying Critical Race Theory to Quantitative Data in Education

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Produced by Chris Lloyd, Catarina Carvalho, and Sara Downton. 

Music by Rayen © Hear more via Spotify or Instagram. 

Edited by Allysa Versoza and Chris Lloyd.

This show is in part made possible by an Impact Accelerator Award from the University of Hertfordshire and the Economic and Social Research Council.

In this episode, Sara Downton talks to Katie Heffron about her doctoral work on decolonising in higher education and the action of 'epistemic disobedience'.

EPISODE NOTES:

Katie Heffron is a part-time Postgraduate Researcher (PGR) at the University of York's Department for Education, investigating how university staff build their capability to contribute to decolonising knowledge efforts. Her research focuses on facilitating dialogue with staff to explore colonial legacies within institutional structures and how these shape everyday practices. Separate to her PhD, Katie works part-time as a Capacity and Policy Engagement Manager for York’s Policy Engine.

Katie's webpage: Research: Confronting Coloniality

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Produced by Chris Lloyd, Catarina Carvalho, and Sara Downton. Music by Rayen © Hear more via ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Edited by Allysa Versoza and Chris Lloyd.

This show is in part made possible by an Impact Accelerator Award from the University of Hertfordshire and the Economic and Social Research Council.

In this episode, Catarina Carvalho talks to Professors Ulises A. Mejias and Nick Couldry about their book Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back.

EPISODE NOTES:

• Aníbal Quijano (Foundational Essays on the Coloniality of Power)
• Primitive Accumulation of capital 
• Tierra Común

Professor Ulises A. Mejias is a critical media theorist, recipient of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, and a Fulbright Specialist from 2021 to 2025.

Professor Nick Couldry  is a sociologist of media and culture at the London School of Economics and a Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

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Produced by Chris Lloyd, Catarina Carvalho, and Sara Downton.

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Edited by Allysa Versoza and Chris Lloyd.

In this episode, Chris Lloyd talks to Kit Heyam, Jonathan Ward, Rebecca Jane Morgan, and Eva Cheuk-Yin Li about the new open access book ⁠⁠New and Decolonial Approaches to Gender Nonconformity: Forging A Home For Ourselves (Bloomsbury, 2025). Kit and Jonathan have co-edited the volume, and Rebecca and Eva have chapters within it. We talked about decolonisation and anticolonialism, trans history, gender nonconformity across time and place, cis scholarship, and embodiment (among much else).

 EPISODE NOTES: 

• Heyam, K. (2022.) Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender.
• Liu, W. & Li, E.C.Y. (2025). The geopolitics of queer archives: Contested Chineseness and queer Sinophone affiliations between Hong Kong and Taiwan. Sexualities, 28(3), 1118–1138. 
• Li, E.C.Y. (2023, April 4). Hong Kongers’ mourning for Elizabeth II: Colonial nostalgia and the (impossible) project of decolonisation. The Sociological Review Magazine. 
• Morgan, R.J. (2023). Gender Heretics: Evangelicals, Feminists, adn the Alliance Against Trans Liberation.

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Produced by Chris Lloyd, Catarina Carvalho, and Sara Downton.

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Edited by Allysa Versoza and Chris Lloyd.

In this episode ⁠Pilar Villanueva-Martínez speaks to Mónica Moreno Figueroa about her work on decolonisation, antiracism, and much else. Pilar is a Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Hertfordshire.

EPISODE NOTES: 

Mónica G. Moreno Figueroa is a Black-mestiza, Mexican-British, woman, Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She is also a Fellow in Social Sciences at Downing College, Cambridge.

Her research focusses on the intersectional lived experience of ‘race’ and racism in Mexico and Latin America; antiracism and academic-based impact; feminist theory, intersectionality and racism. She is an expert in qualitative research methods, visual methodologies and thrives in interdisciplinary collaborations. She is now learning all about design thinking for social transformation.

Mónica is currently leading the development of the Global Racisms Institute for Social Transformation (GRIST), established with seed funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

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Edited by Allysa Versoza. Additional editing by Chris Lloyd.

In this episode Chris Lloyd talks to AJ Singh about decolonising our mindbodies, rooting our terms in specific material histories, the entanglement of colonialism, ableism, anti-blackness and so much more.

EPISODE NOTES: 

AJ Singh (they/he) is South Asian and English, Autistic/ADHD and Transmasc. They are a Neuroscientist, Decolonial Practitioner, Keynote Speaker, Coach, Trainer, Writer and Neuro Embodied Yoga teacher. His work focuses on depathologising our relationships with ourselves, decolonising the way we live and dismantling systems of harm. 

You can find more of AJ's work at their website; on Instagram; on LinkedIn; and Beehiv.

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Produced by Chris Lloyd, Catarina Carvalho, and Sara Downton.

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Edited by Chris Lloyd.

In this episode Sara Downton talks to Tsitsi Marima and Melissa Cummings about decolonial and diversifying approaches to teaching tourism, events, and hospitality. They discuss their curriculum and teaching changes within the business school at Hertfordshire. 

EPISODE NOTES: 

Tsitsi Marima is a Senior Lecturer for International Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management. Her research interests are teaching and learning in hospitality, sustainability and technology in hospitality. Current research focuses on consumer responsibilities on food waste.

Melissa Cummings is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead for International Tourism, Management and Events Management at University of Hertfordshire. Her research focuses primarily on the anthropology of tourism, and how tourism impacts culture and community. Her ongoing doctoral research uses visual methodology to uncover the impact of tourism on the indigenous Ainu community in Hokkaido, Japan. 

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Edited by Chris Lloyd.

In this episode Catarina Carvalho and Sara Downton talk to Leon Moosavi about decoloniality, international students, and what he terms the ‘decolonial bandwagon’.

EPISODE NOTES: 

• ‘The Decolonial Bandwagon and the Dangers of Intellectual Decolonisation’
• ‘The Myth of Academic Tolerance: The Stigmatisation of East Asian Students in Western Higher Education’
• The Decolonial Critique network

Dr Leon Moosavi is a sociologist of race and religion. He’s a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at the University of Liverpool. Leon’s research interests fall within three interrelated areas: racism, Orientalism, whiteness, and white privilege; British Muslim converts and Islamophobia; and epistemic decolonisation, decolonising the curriculum, decolonising criminology, the limitations of decolonising projects, and how these initiatives are portrayed in public discourse.

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Edited by Chris Lloyd.