My sibling talked about promotion when the dog died. A sore throat and fatigue followed a couple of days later by a positive covid test and my thoughts wander to the corrective lens of the precautionary principle, wonder how any negative externalities have been created (Heying and Bret Weinstein p242 A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century).
My phone is still being repaired, waiting for a new battery that hopefully will resolve the problem. Can phone batteries be recycled? If so where? Looking it up I wonder if what I thought were salt fields we in fact lithium fields. Where the open mines in Australia that I’ve seen lithium mines?
Kemo kindly messaged me wondering where I’ve been as did Muhammed, the phone a missed connection in our communication. An email too asking why I hadn’t responded to an invitation to interview. All accessed via the home computer, rescheduled for a date later in the week. Meanwhile no response from another job. The personal is political, the NHS being left behind by so called outsourcing companies. I wonder if they know or if it’s a political policy.
No wonder at the shortage and not just Nurses, the vacancies shout louder. Effects of Brexit? What or whom is lost, how are these valued people ethically replaced? What is the role of inclusion that so far seems to be missing in policy beyond a tick box exercise. When even asking gets no response
Where is the prototype, evaluation of results, prototype again? Instead I see re enacting of the same.
International Nurses learning to negotiate the barriers, like their forbears I’m assured not taken from red list countries but are we sure? People like to travel and I see the adverts for Nursing in America or in the Middle East, NHS an acute shortage on top of a chronic shortage of Nurses, a global shortage. What just another resource to exploit? Trained Nurses so Kerala continues to train and we import? Why are white men disproportionately over represented in the better paid jobs?
How can we repair, rebuild after having had a 87% global impact on invasion? Now perhaps the time to look at Ladder4Action : “We aspire to a world where those who create and share knowledge are supported and empowered to create real-world change. To nurture a fairer, more equitable world, we will eliminate the theory-action gap and make knowledge creation and sharing more practical, ethical and inclusive”
(link https://ladders4action.org/about/)
I wonder what those doing decolonisation work make of all this, meaning different things to different people, not a reading list but more actions rather than words. Wonder if there will be a representation at a conference I signed up to.
I went to a webinar with Dr Addy Adelaine, an international social worker and methodological expert on inclusive research and accountability listened to a familiar story of trauma, this time with the UKRI. Chrisomo Kalinga talks about how there has been a lack of consideration of support for black academics to thrive after the knee jerk reaction of many universities after the death of George Floyd and this seems to be born out in Dr Addy’s experience.
An international expert who found it impossible to find work here (UK), who despite having a PhD in NGO accountability, experience in disaster management found her concerns were not taken seriously here. Questioning along with 100 others the merits of using 4.3 million to protect people with not one black person posing the research questions despite the global majority suffering more adversity.
390 days taken to respond to a racist issue, 12 open letters where previously there was an average 24 day response. Racist troupes trotted out like concerns around being “less intelligent”, “Angry”, “Aggressive”.
Hear link about diversity from Natalie Cozier (https://techtransferipforum.com/the-long-road-to-diversity-with-natalie-cozier/ )
A friend gave me an article to read, it talked about how universities have a tick box scheme where they are happy to call out academic’s like Dr Sewell but fail to interrogate the human rights abuses of those providing their funding.
Perhaps co incidentally on our trip to London we were asked to sign a petition asking our politicians to intervene in Chinese human rights abuses, concerns raised about people who are doing a particular type of Tai Chi, practiced for generations locked up and organs used for transplantation.
We need a safe guards review looking at inclusion risks, identify breaches legally and unethical practices. Demand inclusion in policy development.
I’m thinking back to a YouTube video I shared on Twitter about white fragility and I’m brought back to that question how does that function? It upholds the status quo whilst providing a tick box that we see. We see it. Now what? That internalised superiority and investment in the racial order (which we know was made up to uphold those with power, we’ve even seen it morph as those who were not white are now white), the power of segregation how might these be challenged for us all to thrive?
Dr Addy spoke about how when working in different countries she is seen as white, now she comes to the UK and is seen as black, her very id variable and subjective. A human treated without humanity by those with greater power. We were given consent to talk about this guest speaker, from Race Reflections, who’s membership is once again open. She asked us to think about whose voices count.
This question reminded me of a book I read a passage described how even when Northern feminists visited the Global South their voices drowned out those people who knew more about the difficulties they were facing, sought to set an agenda that wasn’t theirs to set.
Last week Muhammed was teaching me how to say a greeting in Mandinka (as I’m writing it, I’m questioning if that’s right). He is a patient teacher and learner and fluent in 4 languages, we share photos of where we live. compare our rabbits. I struggled to pick up the pronunciation, thwarted in my practice by not having my phone. It made me reflect on how racism is lazy and unquestioning, how assumptions are made, how the best talent is easily missed. He loves teaching and it made me wonder about opportunities for both of us, either of us. Made me wonder about vaccination status and what would happen when the tourists come. What next
Made me think about someone I met who was scarred for life after the way they’d been treated at work. Will the subaltern be heard?
I’m surprised about yet another short term contract and fear for the harm done behind it yet again. But then they made it clear they were uninterested in learning not just about the money.
I’ve just received an email from the QNI I wrote to them in March telling them about my blog. I had previously asked them for help as to a way forward but they too expected me to continue working without governance and working for free with advice for how to get in deeper. Self sabotage again? Or calling out the harm? Perhaps just everyone so busy that my voice was lost?
I had a mammogram this week (link to more info if you want it: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/breast-screening-mammogram/). We laughed at how uncomfortable it is and how it must have been designed by a man, it was OK but I see the point and as I answered the questions it got me wondering about the people I’d met and how many of them had access to mammograms, reminded me of the follow up that they didn’t get without access to an ongoing address. Perhaps it’s easier now that you can access your surgery online. Though of course they didn’t have a phone.