Showcase Series focus on GTA and Staff's perspective

Decolonising the curriculum in academia is a fundamental and necessary part of challenging the hegemonic narratives that privilege the dominance of Western perspectives at the expense of perspectives from the rest of the world. However, what does it actually mean to take a decolonial approach? In practice, how can we use a decolonial approach in a meaningful way? How can we implement change within the university and in our practices going forward?

In this second event of our Decolonising the Curriculum Showcase Series, we are joined by a panel composed of scholars and GTA involved in decolonising activities at KCL. We are happy to host :

Nancy Tarmimi: is a Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London. She was trained as a dentist in the Middle East. She has an MSc in the Science of Dental Public Health from Queen Mary University in the UK and a Ph.D. in Medical Sociology from Brunel University London. She has worked in different settings, including the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and the UK. She is interested in investigating public health issues, mainly tobacco use and mental health. Her Ph.D. work focused on tobacco harm reduction strategies. It was one of the first sociological studies that addressed the perception of electronic cigarette use among users and stop-smoking advisers at the National Health Service in the UK in 2013. She has worked for 4 years on the Global Challenge Research Fund project “Research for Health in Conflict,” which aims to build research and policy capacity in conflict-affected areas, focusing on health, the political economy of health, and complex non-communicable diseases such as mental health and cancer. She is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Her current focus is on decolonising higher education. She has led departmental workshops, a public symposium, and a pilot course on decolonising knowledge and research methods in global health. She is Currently working on building an archive collating resources to help global health educators and researchers decolonise their work. For her publication see https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/nancy-tamimi

Christoffer Guldberg: Christoffer recently received his PhD from KCL and the University of São Paulo’s International Relations Institute. His research focuses on violence, authoritarianism, and creative forms of resistance, particularly in Brazil. Drawing on extensive teaching experience in academia and beyond, he is dedicated to developing and implementing methods and exercises that allow for practical ways of decolonizing the learning situation, including with technology-enhanced active learning. Before starting his PhD, he worked with anti-trafficking policy, human right and democratisation at the IOM and the EU, and as a teacher for vulnerable and marginalised groups in Denmark and Portugal.

Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven: is Lecturer in International Development at King’s College London. Her research is broadly concerned with the role of finance in development, debates about uneven development, dependency and imperialism, and critically assessing the economics field itself, in particular from an anti-colonial perspective. She is the founder and editor of the blog Developing Economics and co-founder and Steering Group Member of Diversifying and Decolonising Economics (D-Econ). She is co-author, with Carolina Alves, Devika Dutt and Surbhi Kesar, of the Polity book Decolonizing Economics (forthcoming, 2024).

Devika Dutt: is a Lecturer in Development Economics in the Department of International Development at King's College, London. Her research is focused on the political economy of foreign exchange intervention, central bank swap agreements, the political economy of development policy (especially as it relates to international financial institutions), and macroeconomic policy in developing economies. She has worked with international policy organisations like the World Health Organization, International Labour Organization, and the International Trade Union Confederation. She is also a member of the Steering Group and a co-Founder of Diversifying and Decolonising Economics (D-Econ).

Mariama Jallow: BA Student

If you want to hear about what has been done on decolonising thus far at KCL? or to hear decolonising means to them? What else needs to be done at our university? And what can staff and GTAs do to engage with decolonial approaches in their research and in the classroom?

We will also meet the SSPP Decolonising the Curriculum Workstream, including Dr Clyde Ancarno (Senior lecturer in applied linguistics, Department of Communication Education Languages) Saskia Hoskins (Department of International Development), and Mireille Kouyo (KCL, African Leadership Centre & Political Sciences University of Pretoria) to hear about the workstream's activities. The panel will be followed by a drinks reception.

Host or Publisher SSPP Decolonising the Curriculum Workstream