So welcome everyone, it's fantastic to have such a good attendance and I invite my fellow panelists to unmute and show themselves over to Jazz. Hi everyone, welcome to this panel as part of the week long Sawas Festival of Ideas. Salam Minglaba to everyone, I think we already have a nice, nicely dispersed global audience joining us for the panel session today. I'm thrilled to join this panel, the topic of our conversation whose knowledge matters. In a world where knowledge is deeply invocated in and subject to relations of power, inequality and exclusion, we are hoping today to open up a critical space for reflection, engagement and exchange about structures, systems, processes that kind of help sustain these hierarchies of knowledge, right? And our panelists will talk about their experiences with this transnationally, nationally, but also locally and also the work that they're involved in in trying to overcome this challenge. You'll see where an all women panel and my colleagues range from the UK, Myanmar and Ethiopia. So we're kind of trying to embody the spirit of decolonizing knowledge in the composition of our panel and kind of starts that conversation going. I think there are just a couple of housekeeping things to let everyone know about, which is that we, there is a packed schedule this week for the Sawas Festival of Ideas, you'll be pleased to know. So we do have to vacate this particular Zoom room at 2.45 at the very latest, ready to set up for Neelam Hussein's keynote lecture. I would encourage everyone to connect with each other on the chat using the chat function, but if you have questions for the panelists, if you could confine that to the Q&A, which you'll find at the bottom of your screen in the row of various things, so participants Q&A and chat. The format for the panel, I'll introduce everyone, but we have Professor Emma Crue who is, well everyone actually here is a colleague of mine and I think I'd go so far as to say that friends from the Global Research Network and Parliament some people. Professor Emma Crue is director of GRNPP and also professor in the Department of Anthropology at Sawas. Miya Thethitza is director of the Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation in Myanmar and Suit Heilig Selassie received a grant under the Aegis of GRNPP about empowering youth in Ethiopia's kind of peace and political processes. Each panelist will talk for about 10 to 15 minutes. Please look forward to a very lively, thoughtful, engaged session. We all know each other very well and we disagree with each other on many things, so it will be very lively and I really encourage everyone to get involved with all of us and I thank you. One small personal note from myself of apology, we have workmen in the house so there may be some various nagging noise going on, so please forgive me in advance for that. So without further ado, I think we'll follow, Emma will start, followed by Miya Theth, followed by Suit. So Emma, over to you. Thank you so much Jazz and thank you also to Amina for organising this incredible festival and for inviting us onto this panel, at which I'm going to kick off by talking about knowledge, hierarchies of knowledge. And I first started thinking about this when I was working in international development, so I'm an anthropologist by training, but I'm also an activist in practice and when I was combining these two hats in international development, I noticed that knowledge in the world of technology development, as an example, is evaluated by the source of its production, not by whether or not it's deemed useful, not therefore by its utility. So to give an example, inventions by mostly male engineers from Europe were labelled modern technology and automatically useful apparently, but those that were invented by female rural energy users that I was working with were labelled traditional culture and had to be evaluated before it was decided whether or not they were useful or not. To give us more specific example, I witnessed a male engineer who I worked with photographing a hood that was put over a stove, a cooking stove, to channel polluting smoke out of the house and he referred to this as traditional, he said, oh look here's some traditional indigenous knowledge, even though when I talked to the person who designed it, it was a cook, a woman who was using the stove herself, she actually only designed it a few weeks earlier. He repackaged this invention, this hood, and he produced it in a different material and once it passed through what I came to see as the kind of magical ritualised processes of a project, it then became modern technology, so in the kind of funding application, it was now transformed into modern technology, almost exactly the same invention and it was now ready to be distributed to poor people. Technological appropriation is rife in my experience and anthropologists have been writing about this for decades, but politically I've come to realise you sometimes have to keep repeating the same findings if they're not making a strong enough mark on people and there's a political economy of course to this, so the international development and aid industry still rests on the need for aid agencies to allocate a large amount of their aid, they think, to their own national experts, on the assumption that they have some kind of superior knowledge and there's a sort of automatic process to this rather than an evaluation of the specific knowledge and so these hierarchies of knowledge are gendered, racialised and produced by class and as we all know, this is then part of the dialectical process of the reproduction of those very inequalities alongside new ones, it was true 30 years ago, it remains true today and in our neocolonial world this is no small matter, these hierarchies of knowledge cost lives because lives are lost if money is wasted effectively. If we're serious about Black Lives Matter and the related movements that challenge white supremacy then I think subverting how we think about knowledge has to be part of decolonising, this is not icing, this is really core so my final point really is about international research funding, similar patterns happen in international research funding that occur in development projects, they are also premised on the false assumption that European scholars have superior expertise so international development research when it involves European or in our case UK scholars researching in other people's countries in Africa, Asia, Middle East and South Central America apparently need to now do things like develop the capacity of researchers in their sites of inquiry, it's an assumption rather than something that can be explored in practice. Five years ago I wanted to prove that these assumptions in international research were wrong and damaging, it's important obviously to generate evidence that undermines these racist assumptions so I ran a project in Bangladesh and Ethiopia and I designed it with Ruth Fox from Hansard Society but because of the way research funding is organised it was really really too difficult to do this in a highly equitable way, I mean effectively Ruth and I designed this project and we commissioned our colleagues in Bangladesh and Ethiopia to do their research and however much we encourage them to really come up with their own ideas we still had too much influence on the design, they didn't have genuine freedom to pursue what John Dewey calls their animating questions in their inquiries, it was frustrating. So in 2017 I started a new programme called Deepening Democracy and this time it was more genuinely planned with colleagues from the UK but also India, Ethiopia and Myanmar and one of the principal architects was Mirtet Titsar who's also on this panel and Mirtet and I made some sacred pledges to each other which we hold each other to in that proposal and that was to really create opportunities for scholars in Myanmar and in Ethiopia not just in this case to give grants to older men in the capitals in Yangon and in Addis Ababa but also to give grants and where relevant were requested mentoring and training etc to younger women, to people from ethnic minorities and to people in very inaccessible universities and NGOs in the two countries and it was really hard work and the hard work was mostly done by Mirtet and her colleagues but we did manage to alert thousands of people in both countries to this opportunity. My point here is that part of this was about training for sure but what was interesting was that it was training and fundraising, it was training and getting access to this funding that was really empowering. So I want to just end by sharing a short film about what happened when we gave these grants to scholars in these two countries so that you can see a little bit about what they did. The most significant finding of this research for me is that if you give scholars in places like Myanmar and Ethiopia a chance to do their own research they can produce a standing result because talent is equally distributed around the world so why wouldn't they? The outside world is closing in and Kalashnikovs cannot really help us but I found a new weapon and I want to give my people a voice. I found the camera more powerful than Kalashnikov. I trained as a social anthropologist in the late 1980s and then I worked in development and then jumped to studying parliament. I realised that people having a really close look behind the scenes is actually really good for parliament, that kind of scrutiny is very good for democracy. For the last five years I've been running international research coalitions at SOAS in the anthropology department. I became really conscious of how important scrutiny of political institutions and political processes is. One of the really significant projects is run by an incredible team who we met at a conference. Oli Salari, Oli Bui and Tesfahun Hailu became friends and put in an application for a proposal based on their research about the mercy in Ethiopia. The mercy are an extremely marginalised group of people who are subjected to land grabs and harassment and this coalition between an anthropologist and theatre studies lecturer and a pastoralist filmmaker and now playwright is the most innovative example of research I've ever encountered. All too often you get artists and filmmakers kind of asked to disseminate findings right at the end of the project but the beauty of this one is that they're working in collaboration from the very start of the application throughout the process of the research. We began to realise that our grantees were beginning to have significant impact so we designed a new programme which was about reducing inequalities in public engagement and we collected together the artists and the scholars who had been working in our programme for a huge arts festival. It was the first of its kind in Myanmar and what was politically significant was that they raised the issue of the rights of ethnic minorities in Myanmar including the Rohingya which is an extremely sensitive topic in the country. One of the programmes that we funded is run by Mercy Mulugeta and it's called BRIDGE and it's incredibly timely it's a very innovative programme about creating a web-based platform for politicians and citizens to discuss and they do it entirely online so the significance of this platform is that it's moderated in a way to really encourage people to focus on content but to do so in a way that allows the conversation to move forward and doesn't get stuck just in insults. SOAS really supports us in our ambition to give opportunities to scholars in Africa Asia and Latin America to do their own research. They're not used to doing this so it's well worth giving advice and support but also what's very interesting about giving national researchers an opportunity to study their own political systems is that they have a really deep understanding of the local issues so they don't make assumptions that democracy means the same thing that it means to us for example in the UK they come up with vernacular ideas about how democracy needs to develop in their specific place. On that note with me looking a little bit locked down crazy I'm going to pass it back to Jens. Okay we had a slightly political interlude there. That came from Jens. That was a nice gentle segue. Thanks so much Emma. I propose that actually we move straight to me at Beth and then to Sue it so actually instead of each of the panellists kind of fielding their own individual questions we can put them all together and bring them into into conversation if everyone if everyone would find that helpful. So Mia Thed as I said is director of the Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation and as Emma mentioned in the film we've just seen she was also pivotal in a project called reducing inequalities in public engagement in Myanmar which I was very honored to support her on as with the rest of the team on GR and PP. I think if I'm if I'm not completely mistaken that Mia Thed's going to talk about how the state kind of shapes discourses and creates national identity and the you know the suppression of other other knowledges and other identities impaled in doing that. So Mia Thed would you like to unmute yourself and turn your video on? I cannot turn my video on. Dhani who is our wonderful tech support. Oh there we have. Perfect. Yeah thank you. Mia Thed. Hello everyone. Good afternoon. Good morning. Yeah so thank you very much Emma for organizing this important panel which in fact is about the reflections and evaluation of the knowledge system based on our own experience. It is very important to understand our existing knowledge and the knowledge system how knowledge was and has been created distributed consumed and applying it in order to deal with different issues of social war. The work I see is an effort to bring justice to the existing knowledge system which I see is very fundamental to bring peace and sustainable development to all the people on the world. So I will let me share my power point in order to make more descriptive. So actually it is not very long that I myself learn about how our existing knowledge and the process that we gain knowledge and application of that knowledge could have and are having significant impact on our attitudes and behavior towards other people and this could in term produce and total negative consequences for other people and the society as a whole. The instance that bring me the message was my distorted knowledge about Rohingyas. Not until 2015 September when I visited three Rohingya villages in northern and central part of Rakhine state I knew Rohingyas as illegal migrants from Bangladesh creating such stories with the purpose of seeking asylum in western developed countries through in-depth conversations focused group discussions and in person observation in three Rohingya villages. I learned that they have been living there for a long time generations by generations maybe for over hundreds of years. They have similar livelihoods like other people in our rural areas. They do farming fishing and laborers in the farmland. They are like other people in our countryside very friendly to do the guests and we're very happy to receive guests. But one significant thing unlike majority of the people in Myanmar is that they have been suffering and tall experience of long-term institutionalized discriminations by state and non-state actors at different levels and different scale of different scale from citizenship rights at country level to travel and mobility restrictions at state and township level to restrictions of marriages housing and household registrations at household level and physical and psychological violence at individual level. But I didn't know that at all before that trip people in my research team didn't know either. Also my family didn't know that they even though my father told me one time that that people called Rohingya once existed in Myanmar and that he have been caught off frequently that there is a radio program run Myanmar state in their languages like other programs in other several other ethnic languages. But he didn't he didn't know about their long-term and tall sufferings by institutionalized discriminations. Actually many people didn't know that and didn't talk about them at all. Why? Since the time I've I tried to find out more about the knowledge discussions and knowledge gaps that we are having in our society. So I put a knowledge reflection session in some of the research philosophy trainings that I gave. The knowledge reflection sessions is an exercise in which the trainees are to identify one fact about Myanmar that they knew before which they recently found out as wrong or having incompleteness. What people identify frequently are oh I thought for a long time that Myanmar only have eight ethnic groups or I thought that the new and pa'u are also shans and or I I thought that moon only speak Myanmar even though they have their own language or I thought Muslims are very cruel and bad and they plotted to take Myanmar or I took that the Buddhism in in Myanmar is all the best in the world and so on. So why we have such misperception even about our country our society our own people our kacha yeah I did I did not think our country alone is an exception. The political theory of knowledge is very helpful to understand the problem. A man is different experts I would like to highlight hence why last presentation of the relationship of reciprocal legitimation between knowledge and power. What that means is that power legitimize knowledge and by vice versa. Let me or collaborate the concept by giving examples. The common examples that knowledge legitimize power is the universities and think tanks advocacy and supply of data as evidences in support of certain government proposed policies and programs. The example of power legitimize knowledge is such as the state's decisions on school's curriculum what is to be learned and to be taught at schools or what kind of research are going to be done or fan by state. I would argue that our incomplete or distorted knowledge about our own country is largely attributable to legitimization of knowledge by power that is Myanmar state and the different authoritarian regimes particularly as decision on what is to be learned and to be taught at schools and universities. The Myanmar state and our different regimes since the first parliamentary government led by UNU to Nehwin's one-party socialist authoritarian regime to military haunter to today's and early led government practice national identity building agenda. The state's frames that the Burma Buddhists as the culture of the largest ethnic groups in the country and expect minorities to assimilate rather than developing an overarching share identity. With the purpose of building national identity according to Nick Schisman, the Tyandah truth regime, Tyandah means national race, the Tyandah truth regime in order to justify authoritarian state building constructed by the two military haunter one led by General Nehwin who seized power through a military coup in 1962 and another through the coup in 1988 significantly contributes in building and instilling discriminatory concepts on which the primacy of the Burma Buddhists identity was enforced. The Tyandah truth regime depicted that all national races who were split during colonial rule were brought together in a unity during Nehwin socialist era. The Tyandah truth regime was reinforced after 1988 democratic mass revolutions where the military state debated a country called Myanmar as a single political community comprised of all national races united in a struggle against the common external and internal enemies. However the apparent support for Burma rather than other national races were contradicted in practice as the two military authoritarian regimes violently added using military and state bureaucratic forces against those members of national races who did not act in accordance with their constructed truth regime. The Tyandah truth regime was utilized to build the citizenship regime of 1982 which limited the membership of Myanmar's political community to the rock organized national races thereby excluding Rohingyas. So what we taught about Myanmar history and ethnic relations and karchas at schools under state determination of national identity building. It is the Burma who builds the first, the second, and the third and the fourth Myanmar states. It is mainly Burmas who led the revolutions against British imperialism that all national races were together with Burma in this revolutions. It was General Alsens who organized the fourth Myanmar state together with other ethnic leaders. However there were insurgents sprang up based on ideological and racial differences. The insurgents however were eventually defeated by the government and so on. This is how we, this is what we this is what we learn through the public educations. How can we build true federal democracies with all those shits of knowledge instilled by schools under the exclusive national identity building of Myanmar state. We also have to pay attention to the societal actors in addition to state actors when we consider the power when we consider the power legitimize the knowledge. This means it is the powerful groups in the society who decide what literatures art forms and flames are to be made are to be made public or not to be public. One of the clear examples happened recently. This was the rejection of reciting poems about Rohingyas by some of the influential Burma poets during the poem reciting ceremonies of Diamond Jubilee of the University of Yangon. This is very shameful. In short it is the knowledge legitimized by power in terms of state as well as societal institutions met us in Myanmar creating very exclusionary forms of knowledge that creates prolonged and communal conflicts in Myanmar. So how can inclusive knowledge be created? Please ask questions during Q&A session. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks Miafette so much. I think actually Emma posted posted in the chat you know we I introduced this panel by talking about hierarchies of knowledge but Miafette's actually introduced another element which is about exclusionary knowledges but also ignorance as well you know and how the forces of history and politics kind of cohere to create these truth regimes that make inclusive knowledge institutionally impossible and actually lead to quite traumatic experiences and conflict. So maybe that's something that we can we can kind of pick up on and discuss during the Q&A session. We've got two two questions posed in the Q&A so far so I do encourage everyone to post your questions there and we'll come to them at the at the end of the presentations. Now we move over to Suet Haile Selassie Podesse from Ethiopia who received funding and support from ourselves at the Global Research Network on Parliaments and People to pursue a project an interdisciplinary project on integrating Ethiopia's youth into democratic and peace processes and I think Suet's going to give us another perspective so we've kind of you know Emma has introduced us to the to the transnational perspective about you know hierarchies of knowledge and Miafette has brought us into context of Myanmar so these kind of national tensions and regimes of truth and exclusion I think Suet is going to focus more on the experiences you know of effectively being a Black woman trying to trying to create an inhabit space to talk about you know issues that affect her and everyone else's lives and how that's affected socially and culturally. So Suet if you could unmute yourself and show yourself. The floor is yours thank you so much. Thanks Jess. Thank you so much for having me and this is an area that I actually love to talk about informally and it's a pleasure to have the formal space to to discuss this topic. Whose knowledge matters? Who has voice to articulate or narrate their experience? The conversation matters because she who has voice sets the agenda gets a seat at the table and makes the decisions or at the very least influences those that do. As Suet said power reinforces knowledge and vice versa and that by definition having knowledge could could be construed as power and while working on the research project that I'm going to talk about a little bit I got a chance to reflect on whose knowledge matters when talking about politics in Ethiopia. The nuances that separate the lived experience of everyday politics from the grander realm of political decision-making and governance. The differences between being political or a politician and an active citizen if there is any difference at all. The different layers of identities that privilege some and exclude others from knowledge production that sets the political agenda. As I speak I may navigate my reflections within different contexts and many there are many standpoints that I've occupied throughout this process and I hope you'll be patient on with me on that. Our project Embracing Descent Youth Political Participation in Peacebuilding is a result of an interesting professional collaboration that resulted from a disagreement. During the validation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on youth peace and security I got into a heated debate with one of the authors on how youth and descent should be framed in the progress report. I was one of the youth representatives from Africa and being from a country that had just come out of the longest state of emergency in its history a state of emergency that was declared due to youth protests I had a few things to say on the matter. My research partner on the other hand who's the author that I got into the disagreement with was originally from Turkey then living in the United States had also his own perspectives and the rest as we say is history. Our study focuses on positive resilience the capabilities and the leadership of young people in urban centers of Ethiopia to build peace and practice peaceful descent and and there are some young people like that in Ethiopia despite the dominant narratives currently keeping in mind the complexities in Ethiopian politics in general and youth political participation in particular the research took a grounded approach we didn't want to bring any of our biases and knowledge into how we saw our research participants or our results and we use reflexivity in our audiovisual production as well as our interaction with participants using a participatory action research methodology and youth agency was at the center of it and let me tell you this was really hard to convince as being valid or even feasible for a lot of my colleagues here in Ethiopia and a lot of the experts in politics that we talked to for advice and we observed certain things one of our one of our observations was on the politics of silence and how that might affect the knowledge production process even if we spoke remarked an interviewee who was once a political activist we would not be listened to there is generally limited tolerance for public dissent in politics where I come from in fact there's even limited tolerance for public dissent anywhere in the sociopolitical arena including sending up to your parents when they're doing something dumb and expressing that it is dumb in public will get you into a whole lot of trouble I'm just trying to give you context um in in in the context where hierarchy especially age-based hierarchy uh are strictly adhered to there's little room for dissent however there's considerable dissent in silence itself um Joan Abinick called this uh uh referred to this as deference as a survival strategy when critiquing Ethiopian political participation post the 2005 uh elections that was contest contested and resulted in massive protests second thing that we observed was the gender dimension of exclusion even within youth movements the feminization of fear and non-violence which may be common face commonplace in in our political discourses was well expressed by one former online youth activists who was imprisoned by the former Ethiopian administration he said you have voice when you're violent in this country in the context where controversy and violence speaks non-violent youth are rendered voiceless the voices of young people are not just marginalized they're actively excluded overlooked and silenced and ignored and added to this the gender dynamics in which power is expressed young women's voices are relatively scarce and muted in comparison to their mere cohort young men are dominant in politics you see them everywhere on the streets on the job market in insurgent movements and perpetrators as perpetrators of crime globally and Ethiopia is even more prominent as young women's voices are rendered uh to the background um but they both face the same social socioeconomic and political problems even maybe more starkly faced by young women and one of the main findings of our research is that young women in Ethiopia have voice and they exercise their tactical agency for peace and maybe not in more mainstream ways um we really wanted to highlight that political participation for young people is not a standalone issue because there are other multiplicities of exclusion and marginalization uh when studying the lived experience of young people it's very important for me to emphasize using the intersectional lens because political inclusion and exclusion from the perspective of young people is always interacting with economic and social exclusion compounded with culture and historical contexts um when when talking about lived experience uh it reminds me of uh we asked our participants to draw or describe how what they visualize when they think about peace and a visually impaired man young man described what he thinks when he thinks about peace and he said that it's the shade the feeling of shade of a big tree in the center of town where they used to walk uh uh where we used to take shelter on a hot day he's referring to a town in the town uh called Gondar in Ethiopia in northern Ethiopia where he's originally from and the tree is a fig tree that is found in the center of town that's called Janta Calwarka another participant talked about a daisy an Ethiopian daisy an Ethiopian yellow daisy set in the nozzle of an ak-47 resting upside against a wall this participant was originally from Arbamint in the southern region and her uncle was part of the military so this was um her memory her recollection of what peace used to look like but the daisy was her very own touch even experiences of self safety and security within similar contexts can very considerably due to lived experience of violence um one participant told us I do not know much about guns until recently now I can tell you what kind of bullets is being shot in my neighborhood I do not feel safe in the city even with old police I do not feel safe she said um I if I feel safe in the church at least in church you're not alone this is a participant who's a resident of Doridawa another city in Ethiopia another girl who's originally from the Gambela region who once lived in Gondar remarked because of the shooting in church that she experienced a while back I will no longer run to church if there's conflict my friends were shot in church in the young people's resilience agency and leadership is evident throughout Ethiopia one is through institutions in 2005 after the contested election there was a a a load that was put in place that basically inhibited the civil society sector but some youth led organization found some youth led organizations found a way to indirectly influence policy and practice through strategic engagement uh this youth led organization survived the 2005 CSO law one of the few to survive um throughout the challenge for funding and inhibitions around the attribute the resilience to quiet advocacy working with and not confronting the government a strategy that came with experience and very aggressively challenging civil society organization when it started but grew through their learning and passed on their knowledge through those that came after so whose knowledge matters and here's it's important to address that we had challenges working collaboratively with my research partner while one of the main objectives of the research was to implement a youth led youth centered research project identities and perception played a considerable role in successfully engaging in certain spaces and contexts certain spaces were more accessible to me than they were to him and vice versa depending on the context that we we were operating in um to conclude it but I would like to conclude by remarking that with the opening up of civic space in 2008 and perhaps because of the continuous setbacks since in Ethiopia it's important to redefine young people's political engagement while it may seem to be an immature or maybe premature recommendation young people may be the most important social category for a peaceful political transition process while there's an abundant abundance of media attention on violent youth actors and actions we we dismiss the ways in which millions of young Ethiopian people remain peaceful and dedicate their lives to steer political change and serve their communities through peaceful means despite the complex realities of Ethiopia the Ethiopian political space it's important to highlight the different intersecting realities of youth including the lived experiences of exclusion and marginalization they face as well as the nonviolent ways they choose to engage in everyday politics in our field work we observed what we dubbed considerable civic appetite in universities and informal as well as formal settings and youth spaces given safe spaces young people in Ethiopia are ready to engage thank you thanks Suit um somebody um while you were talking um posted in the chat how we've how we've moved from you know these there are these multiple layers involved right in um in decolonizing knowledge so from Emma's kind of focus on foreign influence to the effects focus on on um national elites and now I think you've bought a really valuable third kind of layer to the conversation um which is about lived experience and kind of you know the internalization of socio-cultural um expectations um and how they act to to silence uh people and their knowledge um but also how actually science can also I think you said you know because it can be a productive form of descent as well you know and how to how to balance those two um I'd like to invite the panelists to all unmute themselves and bring themselves back on video if I may we've got some great questions lined up for you guys so far um so Suit and Mia Fett if you'd like to unmute yourself I think brilliant thank you so much all of you it's a it's a reminder of why I've enjoyed working with all of you so much and the kinds of you know the kind of thoughtful encounters um that we've kind of co-produced right um throughout throughout the GRNPP kind of endeavor if I can call it that um we have about 45 minutes because we do have to be off at 245 for the for the keynote so what I propose is um I think all the panelists can actually see the questions but if I take them in in turn and if I can although I think some of them are actually directed towards specific panelists you know I invite the others to also um weigh in as well so Riyadh thank you very much um you had a question for Emma which was the which was have you encountered language barriers in navigating your projects for example in disseminating knowledge in local languages communicating with local people and I think actually that's something that the other panelists can also can also answer because yeah definitely language is probably one of the most important issues that we talked about uh continually throughout the project so our big problem um sitting in SOAS is our inability to speak um the languages of Myanmar or Ethiopia if they only had one language each then maybe we could have struggled to try and learn some however between the two countries you have more than 150 languages I mean there's an incredible proliferation of languages and if you work in in the dominant language you then are automatically excluding people um so it's not even as simple as say of trying to translate for example all our materials into Amharic and Burmese say for example uh because um that would just privilege certain people within each of those countries so it I would love it if um Sibet and Mitthet uh would would say something about language in their particular context but um the only final thing I wanted to say was that for me it does connect with intellectual property rights because our point was we had no claim over the research data of any of the people we were working with whether they were running a partner organization as Mitthet is uh or or they were um uh running a research project like Suit so since they were in time they had full full ownership of their own research findings it didn't matter in a way what language they published in so it was really important to us that people should have the liberty to publish in any language. Our agenda was about was about trying in a way to challenge the hierarchies of knowledge and the way that funding is distributed and to give people total control over their own research so it was really important that they should have total control of their and ownership over their property their research data and um could choose which audiences they wanted to communicate to in whichever language they wished. Mitthet do you want to do you want to say something to that? Um just um I mean for the sorry uh for the I'm reading the question so uh uh you mean the follow-up uh to uh Emma's or my other question? Yes yeah about about the about language and the role of language in disseminating knowledge and kind of knowledge sharing. Yeah actually um um the language do met us in um in I would say uh creating uh inclusion or exclusion knowledge right? So um actually uh even uh in Emma um even um uh even though sometimes we do most of the time we realize that even when we realize the the one we use the whenever we use the language of majority Burma people uh this is uh actually exclusions of many ethnic people uh who um who have um who who have a language barriers in Bahamese language right? So uh language uh do a lot of uh met us in inclusion or exclusion knowledge right? But still uh language is um also important for communicating among mankind between us. We need a language that we can communicate all of us. So we have to create language that we can communicate all of us. Yes of sometimes um in uh the the language of the international language such as uh English is one of them but uh how we can uh try efforts of creating uh uh arts forms or other uh descriptions things you know other than language you know cartoons paintings dance you know um we can we can use many you know arts forms we uh to communicate uh among human humans beings so that uh we can create uh inclusive ways of knowledge. Yeah thank you. You've created one of the questions that I had lined up me at third for for all of you which was about um you know thinking about language um you know wanting back to Ria's question and the way that Emma answered it you know you think about actual language as opposed to well how about how how about thinking creatively about not language per se but what language does which is that helps us communicate with each other and build relationships with each other right um so you you completely preempted my question about you know what other ways um are there um to build and and pursue more inclusive knowledge and and relationships. Stuart would you like to comment on this? Yeah um language is a complex topic in Ethiopia so um I might not entirely take it literally as as you've suggested Jess um so my my research partner was an English speaker and I spoke one of the national language one of the local languages um Hark which in itself could be exclusionary and what we did in the interviews it was pretty simple to have those exchanges but I what we did in the focus groups is we I I disinvited my research partner and told him he's not welcome that's one of the the ways to preempt that exclusion for others so that they don't have to speak strictly that so that the young people don't have to speak strictly in English um but then we found another hiccup because of the participants from from the Gambela region uh only spoke English not speak in Hark um so uh it was interesting to have that mixed language um interaction in the focus groups which basically just gave leeway for people to to speak in the language of their heart and for me as the researcher to observe and understand and try to relate as much as possible and to ask questions in such a way that they don't really need to answer in words but actually draw um which which was to do drawings and I have some very interesting drawings as answers to uh some of the questions uh that we raised uh to the visualization and the drawing processes um so maybe not having dry q and a processes but actually uh allowing for other forms of creativity and other forms of responses to emerge in whatever language that um the participants the participant feels comfortable with uh would come up with very interesting uh I mean that the visually impaired man I had to sit next to and say we're doing this exercise um what do you visualize when you think about peace and this man is telling me to draw a tree and I'm a horrible drawer but a tree and describing it to me that conversation would not have been feasible if it wasn't using that particular methodology if it was a dry q and a process and I thought that was really interesting thank you thank you so much everyone um thanks re-add for the for the question which I think we the panelists have managed to kind of open up and take in directions um beyond perhaps what you were expecting um there are a couple of questions um one from Kevin who says why do we view the same way in Malaysia you know they've they've become more aware that this has become heightened during the COVID uh crisis um yes that I know um you will likely have a lot to say about that um but perhaps you just want to want to briefly talk to Kevin's point uh yeah uh actually uh honestly speaking I I don't know uh about um how uh Rohingyas uh viewed in Malaysia uh but I will say that Rohingyas actually have been suffered discriminations uh I mean in Yama not by the majority uh none Rohingya may not by uh not only by majority uh Burma and um other you know people who consider or who are consider as a national reasons uh in even in Yama Rohingyas are discriminated even by Muslims uh in Yama uh Rohingyas I mean the Muslims who consider themselves as Bami's Muslims call Rohingyas here in Yama as a Korokula and uh they discriminated uh them so uh I will say that this is the the what I think is this is the social boundary between uh uh between us between between the people in Yama society social boundary building so uh this is actually uh what I mean is the othering to each other so I think the Rohingyas in Malaysia uh being uh discriminated or uh viewed as the same way as in Yama because of those social boundary building buildings making um making them as other yeah here in Yama Rohingyas are being viewed as uh uh making uh view as uh uh fear some others from the western gate so from for none Rohingya Muslim in Yama the majority people majority non-Muslim people in Yama including those who are non-Buddhist Yama uh take that take take Muslim as a fear some and disgusting others and for Rohingyas as a fear some and disgusting others from the western gates and and now they are also considered as a you know uh extremist so this is actually the social the long-term social boundary makings this is also uh reinforced by states identity national identity building thank you thanks me actually um forward if if you're interested Keven and anyone else so one of the JRMPP projects um that was funded looked at the kind of the making and the changing trajectory and identity and status of the Rohingya so you're welcome to go on on the jrmpp.org I think our website now is because we we overhauled it this summer and search for Nazir and you'll come across the the details of this project which I think speaks to something that Mia Fett is touching on which is you know and Keven you you also have touched on which is actually um to open up uh space for comparative research and inquiry right into the treatment of of the Rohingya of of all dispossessed peoples you know and seeing how how they compare so I think that's a that's a fertile ground um an anonymous uh somebody who's chosen to remain anonymous uh that has posed a question um I think so this this really speaks to the the idea of the internalization of kind of family and social and cultural values um for it and he says I come from a minority ethnic group myself and find that often I am silencing myself and holding back from conversations because I've internalized my family and cultures expectations regarding women and girls so the question I don't think we'll have all the answers is how can we hope to change these values at the family level so that actually parents become a source of empowerment for their children to speak up um and to demand inclusiveness for themselves no pressure panelists on overcoming the gender and qualities this is actually a personal question yeah um because it's about learning and learning things that you've internalized throughout and and where you have voice and where you don't which you in turn um hand over to your children or those that you influence uh shushing someone in in in um spiritual spaces because you're not supposed to interrupt the patriarchal leader of the whichever that is um this is this is about being conscious of of of what it is that you've been silenced and have internalized in terms of silence throughout your life and actually challenging yourself to unlearn them and in turn not to pass it on to to the next generation and and and as a mother I completely hear your um your concern because I uh I have felt like a complete um outsider like um an imposter um doing this research on youth political participation where I have been one of those quiet silent youth throughout uh I don't know if I in Africa I'm still a young person so um it's it's been very challenging to claim that voice to say that I have opinions on political matters and it's it has been about unlearning and challenging myself to challenge others that have in turn tried to silence me and also the things that I've done to silence myself and it's it's an ongoing process because um if you if you go into if you're in social media spaces you see a lot of women that are saying I don't know much about politics but but we do know a lot about politics we're struggling for equality and to overcome oppression on our day to day just to claim our seats on the table and within our family um so I don't I don't agree with with that assertion that I don't know much about politics or that I don't have voice in certain spaces and that's just inequalities reinforcing themselves to ensure that a large majority remains silent and I think voice is really important in claiming that voice in itself is feminist action which I am all for so I think um just just keep reflecting and and and challenging yourself to overcome what you have internalized throughout your life is what I would say which I am still doing so won't say that I've overcome it. Thanks. Yes Emma. Yeah um so it that it's always such a relief when somebody else says they feel an imposter or something similar because you know it makes something oh few so you know even if so if so it feels like that then it's okay for me to feel like that too so I think I think actually the question in itself is is a very powerful question because by asking it and getting us all to talk about this more openly um that you know that that in itself has a tremendous value so don't you find that the discussion of it is important but also having allies where you know there's this amazing anthropologist called um Marilyn Strathen who wrote a very short little note about the the crisis of confidence she sometimes has when she's writing and I again I just think okay this is a shared experience this isn't just me um but I do I am very conscious of the fact that even though I've got this tremendous privilege I feel these moments of doubt so what's it like when you're getting all these you know messages political messages from every direction um that your knowledge is not as valued and that's why I really really mind about this um and and I suppose the only thing I would challenge you about Sue it is you made it sound like it's all up to you but I think it's it we know we need to think about how we can show solidarity to each other it's a collective enterprise isn't it to challenge these things um am I am I answering it yes yeah absolutely let's get this conversation going okay um I don't want you to think that I'm being overly polite to to to you and and Rich and and yourself about but um in the experience that I've had doing this research where I was constantly being questioned and to speak on this issue um I think the way that that that this program was structured in giving me legitimacy and the power to say this is what I want to study um has been an enabler so in in in that sense you've been my allies um in enabling that and enabling me to to keep pushing back um so yes definitely agree with you that you need allies and you need uh people around you that are conscious but also think that there's a profound personal process in in unlearning and and challenging yourself to challenge others um and whether or not you belong in that space uh so I don't think it's a mutually exclusive kind of situation am I to answer your question I think you do need support externally but it's also a very profound and transformative internal process to question unlearn and and and and develop that voice uh um to speak out on issues that you've been told that you can speak out on um so you know we're both right yeah basically yeah we probably are um can I just one more thing jazz because it's also relates to the way that me at that and I have been working because um I think one has to look at this kind of thing from different directions because sometimes both me at that you and so at you have pointed out that me or Rich or whoever it is actually don't really need to be in the room and you know I think lots of humans including me have a kind of tendency to be slightly controlled freaks um but actually that can be very undermining of people and sometimes actually uh you have challenged us to see where we're not needed so I guess we can take some credit for being attentive to what you're saying but nonetheless you have still had to remind us both of you I think is that not true that sometimes you've had to point out where actually our involvement is really not not so useful and that's been really really useful that you're you you've felt able to say that uh actually uh um I I found um yes uh there I mean there there might be some occasions uh I mean you're not useful but uh in a I mean I mean actually this is what I'm saying is not trying to be polite to you know um um but when I find out uh they're generally the whole process and um what I think is um what we use I mean what are what are the things from you that is useful for us is um um I would say um the you know trust confidence and um listening to um to us I mean give I mean giving uh time to listen to us um yeah so and then um give us um the full autonomy uh to implement the project you know not only implement to design the projects you know uh together you know uh I mean it's uh actually uh designing of the projects is actually weaving our knowledge so it is actually it's it's very uh you know uh creative you know um so so um I think uh in those points you know uh designing a project or programs with uh through uh brainstorming sessions you know uh listening to each other uh giving time to each other is uh really matters uh to to be include to make uh inclusive ways of walking and um yeah so I just those those are the points I think uh we all are useful to each other yeah yeah that's really interesting hearing you all speak um brings to mind very strongly this sense of of the need when you're talking about knowledge hierarchies knowledge exclusions it um you know along multiple levels and layers is that actually it's about strong relationships is what I feel you're all kind of you know talking about talking about establishing strong relationships and actually those relationships where you know um for for everyone who who's listening you know we have we can have as as a team within gr and pp but also with me at fed and so we can have quite difficult and tense like conversations sometimes and we have had over the last two and a half years of working together but actually there are you kind of navigate um difficult terrain and establish trust so that it's possible for example as as to it did do uh during an event goodness almost a year ago um you know saying actually gr and pp you guys need to get out of the room we here are a cohort of ethiopian scholars and we want to figure this out on our own we'll let you know when you can come back um similarly when I've worked closely with me at FET on a project you know I I put on this very bureaucratic hat sometimes and kind of said to me it's that the project isn't you know isn't delivering what we promised by the time we promised it and me at FET would just kind of go ease off jazz I know what I'm doing I'm the one in Myanmar she didn't say this in such terms but you know you're you're kind of the far and you don't really know what's going on actually these processes are far more difficult you know and she explained about needing um to establish relationships of trust and with people in Myanmar to advance the reducing the qualities and public engagement project actually actually worked on um so relationship seems to me you know this kind of pivotal core to to everything including creating more inclusive knowledge um can I give an example Jess sorry I know you want to get to the questions but I think this is what I found very interesting is that is that um Sue talked about how her project came out of a disagreement so I find it very interesting thinking about when are disagreements constructive and when are they destructive and the way it works with me at TET uh so far inshallah is that it you always have a sense of movement so the other day I went to to Myanmar just before the lockdown and me at TET wanted to create a new project so I said okay me at TET what do you want to do and she said well this is my analysis a bit like today that kind of analysis um because all our work in Myanmar has basically been based on me at TET's analysis me at TET and her colleagues so she said this is what I want to do so I went away and thought about it overnight and then I went back the next day I said so me at TET have I understood you is this what you want to do and she she looked at me very patiently very politely and said no you haven't understood at all here let me explain again but actually the way she explained again did incorporate something about what I said because she took on board that that you know let's say I've made a reference to the SDGs or something that would help the potential funder to understand what she was saying so in fact what I think is really interesting about collaboration is if you always have that sense of movement in the face of disagreement that's that's the kind of work I find exciting yeah but we mustn't ignore our question as well no no thank you though as I think everyone can tell we can we we could probably do this all day couldn't we quite frankly um I'm I apologize I know we mentioned this we have workmen in the house we hear lots of banging I apologize hopefully it doesn't uh doesn't affect your uh your participation enjoyment of the session Paul Taylor has started by saying it's a bit of a leading question that they want to ask um I'm interested to know what the panelists think about the language we use to describe our nation's historic eras of governance um and how they bias our interpretations I'm thinking about words like regime authoritarian yonta democratic civilian you know the labels we kind of attach to different historical political times um once an era has a label we become blind to issues um that are characteristic of you know other labels for example so if we you know identify I think he's saying you know a state is democratic does that make us blind to its authoritarian aspects and then less able to enforce a critical lens um about national truth and how it's constructed is that something anyone wants to uh wants to pick up on you know how how the use of labels and naming effectively um creates um I guess hierarchies of knowledge and excludes other forms of analysis from from taking shape it depends on who we is when when he's talking about we uh I I don't think when you're living in an authoritarian government that calls itself democratic that you actually believe that it's democratic you might not use those words to describe the situation um as autocratic or democratic but you definitely know that you're being oppressed and that is your lived reality um so it depends on who we is that that sort of um almost uh a constructed way of representing a certain context does not necessarily mean that the people living in that context are not aware of their state of oppression I I don't know if I'm answering the the question or not but that's my personal opinion yeah I you'll you make me think I think um because Emma and I are both anthropologists um can you hear me? I can't actually hear myself think um we're anthropologists I think this is a really interesting question right because it's about the fact that there are these kind of multiplicity or truths out there so I actually find the idea of labeling quite interesting because I think it opens up onto uh onto the many perspectives and the many lived experiences um that together kind of you know form form an understanding yeah Emma yeah I mean I I think it's a really it's a really great question because um there are lots of claims that are made by different groups of people I agree with Sue you need to pay very close attention to who's making the claim but they're all kinds of claims I mean I guess we used to claim we were a civilized nation um you know and when Mahatma Gandhi visited London he was asked you know what do you think of civilization and he said well I think it would be a very good idea you know so he understood that this was just a claim um there are many ways in which we were and continue to be incredibly uncivilized um and you know when MPs say they're representing people it's a claim um when when anyone says that their knowledge is truth it's a claim actually knowledge is always contested it's not to say that we shouldn't struggle towards the most plausible accounts for things but yes I think democracy it's why we called our project uh deepening democracy because I think we would say that that any state that says it's got democracy is is again a claim it's which democracy can you point to and say it works perfectly there is none so I think it's I think thinking about the political strategy of making claims um and and deconstructing them looking at them very critically is an important part of scrutinizing politics that's an interesting point though but if we do have time I feel we may not would be interested to come back to perhaps in this discussion or another one um because the claims to who is democratic and who is democratizing or who is in the throes of democratic transition for example you know a lot of that is framed by by the development world by the institutions that give funding um so for example you know the global challenges research fund you know signifies that you've got to actually make a proposal a research proposal that benefits a country um that's an OECD receiving country right so it's already bracketing off parts of the world as less democratic than us in the west and I do because as you can tell like I'm quite British but I have a you know dual identity um so it could be something that we can we can come back to we have about um 15 minutes not sure I want to thank everyone who's who's asked a asked a question so far and hopefully we have answered answered them um may kind I think we've kind of already talked about this whose knowledge matters is equally important as power legitimizing knowledge so how do we remedy remedy it how can we remedy when those who legitimize the knowledge actually themselves having sufficient knowledge again this is this is the power to decide what is knowledge isn't it which I unless anyone wants to kind of weigh in I think it's about that yeah the insufficient knowledge of those who are of the most powerful who legitimize knowledge how we can find remedy actually is very challenging for us for many times but I think it is none other than the freedom of expressions that um that lets those are powerful actually not only those who make the political decisions but also the the people the the people in the society the majority powerful people uh they they really need to learn about um how those um people the the the minorities the the these advantage people have been suffering and have been discriminated you know so uh through the so freedom of expression is the I think the foundations for us to let what the people have been uh uh suffer you know have been uh wish by the violence by the state and the majority people so at that we have to we have to be careful uh not to blame those people in the uh societies who don't see uh those people who are suffering uh because uh the people actually uh I mean I mean they their knowledge have been also uh constructed um by this system this uh this authoritarian uh systems actually for us a long time actually since I will say the the um monarchy monarchy monarchy eras right so uh we I mean our point of view to see uh the issues uh in the country uh not only uh Rohingyas but also the our country histories our countries uh ethnic people is quite uh from the point of view of uh uh the majorities you know I mean so um we have uh a good lens to use a different lens to use those issues so uh instead of blaming them we have to find uh ways to enlighten them using um uh you know arts you know um uh music and but in all we do uh the freedom of expression is is the fundamental things that we need yeah thanks me effort um actually and then somebody else um I think Elliot Rooney who's who's kind of riffing off off your point me about power legitimizing knowledge and what you've just said about kind of delegitimizing regressive knowledge through freedom of expression and finding alternative modalities of communicating yeah with people creating inclusive knowledge actually Elliot wants to take the conversation in a different direction ago well actually what should be the role um of northern based um knowledge centers um in helping with this and really is the role of northern northern based knowledge centers one that actually reinforces the power relationship between moving and southern knowledge based centers um yeah really um I would I would say uh I would I mean partly I will give credits to the northern the do the do the knowledge coming from the the from the north or the west um and I would also have to give a reminder for the for those who bring knowledge at the other form yeah so first I will give I will give the credits to the knowledge who who brings knowledge from the north or the west so um actually uh I would say um I I I think I would give credits to the freedom of expressions and this and um this um the the the establish uh learning you know freedom of learning since the I think um quite uh from the Renaissance yes there will be ups and downs of of course uh but uh this this traditions of uh freedom of learning is quite established in the western countries yeah so this give us uh uh you know uh lands to see different point of views for example I will give you one example in the effect just one because time is yeah so uh when we look at when we look at the Rakhine state example when we look at our borders we Myanmar people see uh as uh the western border in the northern of the northern Rakhine state as the the gate you know uh between us and then the most muslims war and then this leading to the discriminations and violence to this group of people that who they want uh them to call to be called as Rohingyas right yeah so but uh there was 10 um uh thinkings uh I recently uh study they they they view they give me the lands uh of this Rakhine states which extends uh today's Bangla dishes areas so and and the Rakhine state actually is quite detached from uh the Aewari valley Myanmar so it is actually is quite more attached to the uh today's Bangla dishes than uh areas uh I mean in the what is it is called in the 14th or 15th century as a Banga you know Banga or and Chittagong area so the Arakani I'm going to have to ask you to kind of yeah that areas right so with this kind of view I I I got a lens of how this uh uh what we see as the uh today as the muslim war and the Rakhine state is how culturally connected so this is the benefits coming from the coming from the lands of the the northern part you know for me for me yeah of course so what would you say in response because we yesterday the four of us kind of got together and and talked about what everyone would be saying and and um well if we tried to go do you into into saying something um critical about gRNPP and your experience with gRNPP and you said you know to be fair gRNPP don't don't count you know it's you're not pretending and you you were very clear you know Emma myself um and the rest of the gRNPP don't pretend to have any kind of frontal knowledge about Ethiopia we don't know the language etc and you were like the real problem with with northern knowledge census if that's what we're calling are those who think they're actually experts she was like you you guys are fine because do you want to elaborate on that when I say elaborate you've got about a minute and a bit yeah um I think the most refreshing thing about having this experience with you uh has been that you completely acknowledged that you know nothing about a whole lot about my country and I acknowledge that I also know my own perspective from my own standpoint and don't claim to know the whole thing but um it's when it comes to this question it's about what role are you playing as a northern knowledge center um in taking in southern academics um are you replicating the kind of knowledge-generating mechanisms uh that you yourself would generate so that you could have data collectors for example uh down south or are you actually enabling learning in the development of uh intellectuals that can actually create another enabling space for local knowledge to take shape and to be articulated um adequately um is it is it you know that there's that mean with the with the knowledge centers being a replicator for exactly identical type of people coming out the other end um or are we actually enabling critical thinking and I found that your team has has enabled at least a space for that to take place for critical thinking to take place for independent thinking to take place which I thought was really refreshing and I'm not saying there was no hierarchy there was subconscious hierarchies that were happening either through my own biases or through your own experiences but we were critical enough to stop and say wait a minute um and I have had these conversations with especially with Emma where she says I'm not saying this because I'm a white woman from the UK I'm saying this because and and and I've and you know it's it's also about being conscious of these relationships and how these affect the knowledge creation process and um with my relationship with my research partner who is an international level expert um on youth um it's been the same where I have continuously pushed back and he's pushed back as well um in who has who who has a perspective on the matter and whether or not we have the space to hear each other actually develop something out of it and I think even from the proposal writing process of this collaboration it's been very interesting in in claiming and reclaiming that power um to be an equal participant in this process and it's and and and that need to reclaim and continuously question is because there are internalized biases on how these processes are supposed to take place if that's making sense to you at all it makes perfect sense to me um it's I think it's almost a question of knowing what you don't know and being brave enough if that's the word um to say I don't know and actually to start a conversation um and a critical friendship with people who do know and who themselves understand that their knowledge is partial as well and their perspective is partial you know so the way that you and Alialty are kind of kind of work together you know in in that collaborative creating that collaborative spirit and practice um that you bring bring to the project we aren't going to get through all the questions that may be because I talk too much uh can I say one very quick thing about our website because on our website um www.grmpp.org we've written a policy brief if you go to the output library which is about partnerships and if anybody would go on our website um and make comments it says in the policy brief about it's really about how can European universities be better partners in international research coalitions and we would love your comments your very very critical brutal comments because we'd like to improve that policy brief as a way of trying to influence other UK universities to aspire because you never get there for the reasons that become obvious but to at least aspire to be better partners um in international research coalitions and actually that's a that's a good juncture at which um for me to thank everyone who um has posed questions we I hope the panelists um have been able to answer answer them to your satisfaction or even to your dissatisfaction which you know dissatisfaction actually can produce quite quite kind of creative critical thinking spaces right and my deepest apologies to people who've posed some really interesting questions um one of which um is rhetorical but it's something that actually we need to think about which is you know how does decolonisation of knowledge work given that here we are just to take one example I think says discussing the flight of a hinge in abstract academic English you know so that that again that's I'm um I'm loath to end this session saying that we've got any answers and actually I think that kind of critical question is really important because it shows that the conversation can't stop here you know Emma me upset so it thanks you so much for these insights and for actually just you know even kind of opening the window and helping I think even me understand that there are so many levels and scales and layers involved in thinking about whose knowledge matters you know because we've got to think about what knowledge is and positionalities and perspectives and the hierarchies involved you know language communication the kinds of conversations and relationships that we try to have but we you know we silence ourselves from having and how all of this plays in to to fermenting kind of you know dominant discourses and how you know that the if there is an answer and I don't even propose to pretend there is one is that maybe one of the way forwards is to form critical friendships and learn how to be better allies with each other um so we're each speaking our own truths but doing so you know in tandem and by listening to everyone else's truths at the same time and trying to trying to strategize do be better um I'm afraid I can't give you any kind of last comments uh we've hit 245 thank you so much to everyone who's participated um please go on to www.grnpp.org if you'd like to learn more about the global research network and engage with research like SUETS and MIAFETS and other peoples on a range of topics relating to relationship between politic politicians parliamentarians and people um where you know our partners our collaborators our friends our colleagues we're all dealing with knowledge and and whose knowledge matters in in some some form or the other through their research project with that thank you very much thank you Emma thank you MIAFETS thank you SUETS it's lovely to speak with you as always I feel like we've just had a nice chat um and uh I hope all the participants have have enjoyed this space and I um invite you to stay on this Zoom space I think in the Zoom room for the uh keynote lecture that's um following as part of the SOAS Festival of Ideas so thank you very much thank you thanks um sorry and thank you to Danny who's just been superb at making sure that this all ran really smoothly and thank me to Stephanie who's been organizing flat out the SOAS Festival of Ideas thank you thank you Stephanie thank you Danny