Stolen Tools
I founded the anti-racist health inequalities journal, Stolen Tools. The journal is dedicated to centring the voices of racialised minorities within health inequalities research. The journal aims to provide a creative platform for diverse racialised voices to be emotionally expressive about racism rooted in academia, challenge their self-censorship in research and share knowledge in a way which is understandable by a diverse range of voices: not just academics. We take inspiration from the Audre Lorde quote, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”, by upending traditional journal structures and creating our own tools for sharing knowledge. We will work with authors from the start of their writing journey, recruiting people based on who they are and what they want to say, rather than a completed manuscript.
Creating a mental health guide for Afghan sanctuary seekers
This project created a guide for mental health professionals (psychologists and psychiatrists) working with Afghan sanctuary seekers. It did so by collating and synthesising pre-existing knowledge in the academic literature and Afghan organisations, and hosting a stakeholder consensus meeting on creating a guide. It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and included the Afghan Charities Paiwand, the Afghan Academy and the Association of Afghan Health Professionals on its advisory board and employed a lived experience researcher. You can access the guide here.
Inspiring Ethics
Inspiring Ethics is a group of researchers who want to reshape ethical relations in community-based research and change the bioethical model of university ethics. We are particularly concerned with university and NHS ethical processes around participatory, cross-cultural, survivor, user-led and international research. Beyond academics, we are also people from migrant backgrounds, service users, activists, charity volunteers and more. We run workshops to inspire a new, more ethical way of conducting community research. See the visual notes from our October 2023 workshop opposite (credit: Tamara-Jade Kaz).
