Being a BAME Researcher with Victoria Omotoso

In this special episode I talk to Victoria Omotoso, PGR in Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, about being a BAME researcher in Higher Education and the world today. During the podcast we reference:

• AdvanceHE Equality in Higher Education Statistical Report 2019
• An article from the American Psychological Association about Unmasking Racial Microaggressions
• Noughts+Crosses, a BBC adaptation of the novel by Malories Blackman and I was wrong, Malorie Blackman was not the first black woman writer for Doctor Who – she was the first black writer in the show’s 50+ year history

Music credit: Happy Boy Theme Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Episode Transcript

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Hello and welcome to R, D and The Inbetweens.

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I'm your host, Kelly Preece, and every fortnight I talk to a different guest about researchers development and everything in between.

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Hello and welcome to this special episode of Researchers Development and the Inbetweens

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I recognise it's slightly strange to have a special episode of a podcast when your one episode into the series,

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but I wanted to provide a response to the events going on across the world and particularly in America and the death of George Floyd.

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One of the things I want to do with this podcast is provide a platform to discuss the real lived experiences of our researchers.

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And it would seem remiss to let this opportunity go by to talk about the experience of being a BAME researcher in higher education.

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I'm delighted to be joined by one of our PGR, Victoria Omotoso

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to discuss being a BAME researcher in higher education and generally in the world today.

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I want to point out that I have not edited this conversation.

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And the reason for that is I don't want to use my privileged perspective to change or alter Victoria's voice.

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So, Victoria, are you happy to introduce yourself? Yes. Hi, Kelly.

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Thanks for having me. So my name is Victoria. Omotoso. I am a PhD Theology candidate and just recently submitted. Congratulations.

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Thank you. I'm currently

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at the University of Exeter. Yes, my research kind of looks into the Jesus films and yeah,

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it touches a lot actually on ethnicity in films and how Hollywood has whitewashed a lot of stuff.

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So yes. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

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And the so to start with is really, really big an open question, which is just about what is it like to be a.

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BAME researcher in higher education. What's the environment like for you?

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What's the experience? Yeah, definitely being a BAME researcher.

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I think one of the main things you kind of come out from is that, you know, that there is there is an underlying thread, right.

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Of kind of inequality and discrimination. And a lot of that comes with stereotyping as well.

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And it does kind of lead you when you do occupy these white spaces.

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Makes you so much more conscious, actually, of the colour of your skin. And even though that shouldn't be a thing and, you know, in this modern age.

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But you do feel that especially in, you know, we enter a room and you are the only,

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you know, BAME researcher, you know, whether it be at a conference many times.

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Many of times I've entered conferences. I'm the only the only BAME researcher there.

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Or, you know, seminars. And sometimes when you.

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You know, Ia lot of the times when we're talking about things, you know, in the humanities,

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for example, you know, we're talking about, you know, histories and stuff like that.

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And you're always conscious of how people can respond.

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If I speak out, they're just going to label me as an angry black woman.

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Or are they going to, you know, just say, oh, she's just another person that's just trying to make a point.

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So all those things just come into play and you're constantly just aware on how you have to navigate yourself through these,

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you know, through the walls of of H-E really. And.

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You know, there's always a sense of. Trying to over perform.

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That's a big thing that always just comes up because I think we all. No matter what race you are, we all experience imposter syndrome.

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Right? You know, we all have that. We all have that thing.

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But it's somehow always heightened because you feel that I need to prove.

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To the white people that I'm good enough. Oh, gee, I'm like, you have to almost.

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Kind of prove that as a point. That, yeah, I, too, can engage in, you know, intelligent conversation, because, to be honest,

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I have experienced, you know, some people that, you know, would just kind of pass me by.

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But when I open my mouth. They'll be like, wow, I, I have no idea.

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You know, you were educated like that. Oh, seriously.

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You know. And and it's just again, it's just this kind of this underlying kind of like I said,

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this underlying thread that so, you know, just building up stereotypes that.

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You know need to be broken down. Really, for people to be able to actually break through those walls.

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And look, I will acknowledge that  personally, I acknowledge that I'm privileged to be able to study.

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You know, in institutions. Everyone that's able to study in HE is a privilege.

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Absolutely. Exactly. And but, you know, I am also aware that.

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The colour of my skin, may, sometimes acts as a barrier for me.

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And, you know, I think. It comes to a point of trying to just dismantle those.

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Structures that have been set in place, but they can't be done by BAME researchers alone.

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Absolutely.

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And I think for me, some of the things that I found really striking in the past few years are not necessarily some of the instances of racism,

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which, you know, we we we will talk about kind of some of those in a bit, but some of the more structural things and the more subtle things.

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So, for instance AdvanceHE did an equality report a couple of years and it said that

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So you UK professors by ethnic group. Ninety one point two percent of professors in the U.K. are white and Nought.

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Six are black. Less than one percent. Less than one percent.

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And the you know, and we know that there is a black attainment gap.

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We know that at both a level and at degree level.

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And we see, you know, there's some. I'll share in the show notes, some of these statistics.

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An