BAATN Gathering
Black Researchers’ Forum
This is a forum for Black doctoral students doing Masters, PhD or DPsych programmes and post-doctoral professionals
Monthly â‹… Online
Outline
The Black Researchers’ Forum hosts process groups and guest speakers on alternative Sundays each month. This is a Closed Public Event for members and the general public who are of African, Asian or Caribbean heritage.
Upcoming Guest Speaker: dR dionne Taylor
Sunday 19th May 2024
Dr Dionne will do a  talk about three of the projects she has coordinated which utilise CBPAR and Intersectional lens:
1. Black University Student Mental Health using peer to peer support. 21-22
2. Black Studies and Youth and Community Summer School 2022
3. Black Women ‘Undoing Sexual Shame’ 2023
Dr Dionne Taylor is an Associate Professor at Birmingham City University. Dionne teaches across Sociology and Black studies and is the MA Black Studies Course leader. Dionne’s PhD was entitled-‘I Wanna Love You’: An exploration into the lived experiences of young Black British women’s interpretation and engagement with representations of Black womanhood. Dionne is REC SAT Member and co-chair of the Student Lived Experience Working group, using expertise to facilitate actions to reduce disparities and inequalities in HE. She recently, co-Convened-a conference in Nov 2023 Black Women ‘Undoing Sexual Shame’ in conjunction with Black Ballad and Birmingham City University.
Next process group
Sunday 30th June 2024
Process Groups: ‘Free To Be You’ support group and reflective space
Every other month within the Black Researcher Forum we will be holding a supportive reflective space to offer support for members doing their PhD and Masters level of research. Generally doing a PhD / Masters is considered a very lonely journey, but this doesn’t have to be the case! We are now reaching a critical mass of more Black and Brown people embarking on PhD/ Masters research on ‘Black Issues’.
This is an opportunity to come together and become a resource to and for each other, build community with each other and be a supportive mirror to contextualise the racialised experience of doing research within institutions struggling to de-colonize their practise. We will offer a space to think together and expand the frame to think critically about researching Black and Brown issues. We all hold wisdom and together we have power. Please join us and don’t be alone, we need each other!
Facilitators
GATHERING STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Read the Statement of Purpose for all our gatherings.
Venue
Online meeting via Zoom. Zoom is free to download and use. For more information about Zoom click here.
Time
Sundays – 11:00am – 1:00pm
dates:
10 September 2023 – Guest speaker: Dr. Faten Khazaei
15 October 2023
12 November 2023 – Guest speaker: Professor Claudia Bernard
17 December 2023
7 January 2024
25 February 2024
19 May 2024 – Guest speaker: Dr Dionne Taylor
30 June 2024
4 August 2024
Previous GUEST SPEAKERS
Sunday 12th November 2023
Guest speaker: Professor Claudia Bernard
Presentation: Intersectional Approaches to Research
What can we learn from intersectionality as an analytical concept for developing research that is sensitive to perspectives and lived experiences based on, for example, disability, race, age, gender, sexuality, and class? Drawing on two case studies, I will show how intersectionality can be used as an interpretive lens to analyse and theorise data and to explore the interplay of race, gender, and class and other forms of oppression, to better conceptualise and understand experiences that are complex and multi-layered. An intersectional approach allows us to ask new questions about marginalised voices and experiences, and to critically engage with the everyday experiences of those belonging to marginalised groups.
About Professor Claudia Bernard
Claudia Bernard is Professor of Social Work at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research interests lie in the areas of social work with children and families, gender-based violence, critical race theory, equalities and social justice. She has written widely on these topics, including a book entitled Constructing Lived Experiences: Representations of Black Mothers in Child Sexual Abuse Discourses (2nd edition, Routledge, 2017), and an edited collection with Perlita Harris, entitled Safeguarding Black Children: Good Practice in Child Protection (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016). Her most recent book Intersectionality for Social Workers: Theory and Practice was published by Routledge in 2022.
Sunday 10th September 2023
Guest Speaker: Dr Faten Khazaei
Presentation: Doing migrations studies as a migrant: a personal account
Attentive to the relation between knowledge and power, feminists argued that, in their attempts to produce objective and neutral knowledge, scholars have in fact produced knowledge that is situated in a position they are unaware of. Thus, taking the risk of reproducing power structures in the process of knowledge production. When it comes to the field of migration studies, some scholars have argued that these insights can also become handy to achieve reflexivity within this field. However, rare are explicit demonstrations and detailed analyses of the positionality of the racialised researchers and its impact on research in migration studies. In this talk, I make transparent my own personal experience and its impact on my research practice in order to offer a concrete demonstration of what such an engagement can look like.
About Dr Faten Khazaei, Assistant Professor in Sociology and Criminology
Dr Faten is an interdisciplinary scholar by training, and works at the intersection of gender studies, critical race studies, but also sociology of migration, institutions and violence. She is interested in racialisation of social problems and her empirical approach encompasses qualitative research methods, including multi-sited ethnography and expert interviews. Dr Faten’s research interests include:
• Racialisation of social problems
• Postcolonial, subaltern and decolonial theory and politics
• Feminist theory and politics
• Intersectionality and politics of difference
• Critical race studies
• Ethnography of public institutions
Sunday 16th July 2023
Guest speaker: Dr Delroy Hall
Presentation: “Seeing more than can be seen”
Being a reflective practitioner/student creates energy and dynamism when studying a topic of interest. Taking time to think , explore, find courage, and dare to go into uncharted territories are necessary ingredients to scratch beneath the surface of life.
About Dr Delroy Hall, Counsellor, Coach and Trainer
With over three decades of experience, Dr Delroy Hall is a trained counsellor, wellbeing practitioner, trainer, and independent scholar. Delroy has given lectures and academic papers nationally and internationally. He has extensive keynote speaker experience and has lectured at Harvard University and Boston College Massachusetts, USA. Â
Delroy has coordinated mental health projects and is currently working with Birmingham Community Health Care Trust (BCHC) facilitating the Inclusive Leadership component on their ‘Inspire Leadership Programme. He is also coordinator for a Black Male Suicide Prevention programme under the auspices Sheffield Health and Social Care (SCHC).
Since April 2020, Delroy has hosted live wellbeing sessions on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. These teaching sessions cover a broad range of human issues.
Delroy, with over thirty years’ experience of ordained ministry, now serves as the Chaplain for Sheffield United Football Club. Also, as a former four hundred metre hurdler, ranked No 2 in Great Britain in 1979 in the under 20 age group, Delroy still keeps fit and is presently training for various aqua bike events in the UK.
Sunday 26th March 2023
Guest speaker: Dr Ebony Reid
Presentation: ‘Trap Life’: The psychosocial underpinnings of street crime in inner-city London
The subject of Dr Ebony’s presentation is ‘Trap Life’: The psychosocial underpinnings of street crime in inner-city London. She will be drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with men ‘on road’, to show how socio-economic structures interact with psychological features to shape specific pathways into different kinds of criminal identity (or ‘trapper typology’). She will argue for the greater use of psychosocial perspectives to understand urban criminality and street violence with a view to centring existential terror and wounding in the ways that these phenomena are understood.
Sunday 26th February 2023
Guest speaker: Dr Tony Talburt
Presentation: Getting Started and Staying on Track with your PhD
This presentation is partly based on personal reflections of my own PhD journey, as well as experiences working with postgraduate students. The aim is to provide or suggest a few ‘survival’ strategies for success. These range from the initial idea stage, relations with supervisors, through to the writing up stage and examination.
Dr Tony Talburt (PhD., M.A., B.A., Cert. Ed.) is course lead and senior lecturer in Black Studies at Birmingham City University. His research interests are in the areas of African diaspora political history, African diaspora political economy, and Black British history. Tony has worked in education for more than thirty years in secondary, further education and higher education institutions in Jamaica, Ghana, and the UK.
He worked at the University of Birmingham as programme co-ordinator and lecturer in African and Caribbean Studies, and lectured at the Open University, teaching international development. He was also senior lecturer in the Centre for African and International Studies, University of Cape Coast, for seven years. He is the author of seven books and several academic papers. Some of his books include Rum, Rivalry and Resistance: Fighting for the Caribbean Spirit (2010), Andrew Watson: The World’s First Black Football Superstar (2017), Realigning and Repositioning Africa: Confronting Challenges and Charting its own Courses in the 21 st Century (2022). He has worked with scores of postgraduate students in Ghana and the UK and continues to be guided by, and committed to, an Afri-centric teaching and research focus.
Cost
£15 to Psychological Therapist Members and Student Therapist Members
£20 for Non-members.
(Click here to become a member)
Booking Conditions
- Bookings can be made any time up until 15 minutes before the event.
- Only the next two upcoming dates will be open for registration at any one time.
- If you have difficulty booking, email the events administrator
- If an event is full, email the events administrator to go on the waiting list. If a place becomes available before 5 pm on the day before the event, priority will be given to those at the top of the waiting list.
Full payment will need to be made to guarantee a place.
What delegates have said:
“I thought it was an informative, encouraging and liberating space.”
“I think this forum is an excellent resource for those interested in gaining access to high quality researchers who are leaders in the field of Black studies.”
“This was my first attendance at the black researchers forum, Ann Phoenix gave a talk about important aspects of research methodology that is still resonating with me. Thanks for organising, I’m looking forward to attending more sessions.” Yvette
“I really enjoyed this forum and the unity and support I felt.”
“A very good forum for current and future doctoral condidates.”
“An important resource for students conducting post- graduate research. Moreover, the opportunity to have access to a first class researcher who has and in/depth knowledge and understanding of black existence was a must attend for me.”
“The presentation was excellent. The researcher knew her subject and delivered complicated theoretical concepts in a no nonsense easily digestible way.”