Stolen Tools

Dismantling the Master's House

Sohail Jannesari — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article introduces the Stolen Tools journal. It begins by telling the story of how the journal was founded and the literature that we were inspired by. I focus on Audre Lorde's essay 'The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House'. The article then describe how Stolen Tools works, exploring the positives and negatives of our mentoring model, author submission procedure, decolonial ambitions and organising structure. I end by introducing the seven articles that form our first issue, and explain how they fit under the issue's theme: what does anti-racist knowledge look like?

Opening CRediT: A new approach to authorship and attribution within academia

Ricardo Twumasi — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The traditional approach to academic authorship; listing individuals by their level of contribution and putting the most senior author at the end can lack transparency, introduce unfairness, and reinforces traditional power dynamics in academic seniority. This paper proposes we do away with the traditional approach to academic authorship and author order and replace it with a system of contributors or ‘credits’ with clearly acknowledged (often multiple) roles, which provides a more detailed and comprehensive way of recognising the different types of contributions that authors make to a publication. The idea behind including this contributors list inspired by the system used in movie credits. However, merely listing each contributor as an author is overly simplistic and reinforces unequal power dynamics within academia. This paper aims to contribute to the debate surrounding the role of authorship, power and contribution within academic work. And the role that radical journals like Stolen Tools Tools (a journal that aims to give voice to the marginalised and unrepresented) have in decolonising the traditional conventions that we have adopted in academia which support the privileged at the expense of diverse individuals who tend to wield less power. Opening CRediT on papers may be a tool in building a fairer and more transparent approach to authorship by providing more transparency and standardisation in recognition of contributions.

Moving Through Acknowledgement

Mama D Ujuaje — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The ways in which time and space have been constructed within a European imperial lens has created a knowledge system which elevates itself above all other ways of knowing. This elitism has taken effect primarily through repeated acts of violence upon bodies, minds and consciousness across the period named the Anthropocene. As a result, there is a need to resort to the wisdom of our somas, through sensing beyond vision and speech to do the work of liberating us from the hold of the partial and limited forms of colonial knowledge systems. We invite approaches to acknowledgement which can open us to processing the pain held within our minds and bodies. By doing so, we feel it will allow access to a pluriverse - a reality of many worlds co-operating within a single planet - of redemptive knowledges. This will entail acts of reparative justice which have the potential to heal the wounds of a violent and toxic colonial order. Recollections of connection which embody older knowledges and their deeper meanings, might lead the way towards self and collective reclamation. This will be a necessary precursor to any movement in the direction of a persistent and reparative justice. We feel access to this will be realised through profound and meaningful acknowledgements across the worlds which exist beyond the modern idea of a unitary world

Between the classroom and the marketplace

Michelle Udoh — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This paper discusses the value of non-traditional forms of knowledge production, through an exploration of Nigeria’s feminist history and the Abeokuta Women’s Union.

(Re)Building a Community through collective art

Jimena Pardo — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article explores the themes of exile, memory, and how a community can heal through collective art-making. Since 2018 the project Bordando por la memoria- Embroidering Memory has been working on textiles that memorialize the lives of the men, women, and children killed in the Chilean dictatorship. It is a patchwork of personal testimonies and gives historical context to the use of making textiles in Chile as a way of collective resistance. Written from the perspective of a second-generation Chilean it fills the gap of always being the subject and not the expert. It aims to discuss the importance of making art for people collectively whilst speaking to the needs of a group as well as the need to keep memory alive.

‘It’s in the data’: an exploration on how data gaps are worsening addressing health inequalities for Black British people

Beauty Dhlamini — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Data gaps have continued to persist within global health, especially for Black British people. This has largely had dire impacts on their health outcomes and has made it harder to provide interventions that meet their needs. This article assesses the problem of data gaps, the impact of these gaps on our health and most importantly why we need better data practices. Too often, it is thought that there is already enough data for minoritized communities that exists, and the focus should largely be on addressing the racism that persists at an institutional, and structural level. However, I argue that it is not enough to just have homogenised data; we need specific and nuanced data that accurately captures the data on how inequalities impact Black British people so we know how to accurately address them. The homogenisation fails to answer how and why these things keep affecting us especially some ethnic groups more than others, and not how we can stop it from happening altogether. Access to better data would also cut through the veneer of generalisations. My vision for the future of health data is having data that is readily available on all health issues affecting Black people, that will help accurately challenge racism at every level: individual, collective, structural racism and institutional racism. In order to achieve this, I conclude with the hope this article can be a starting point for critique and interrogation of all forms of data for those working within, and across the field because improving the data practices for Black British people and their health inequalities, will consequently improve all our health inequalities.

Who has the capital on knowledge production? Reflections on the sharp white background of academia and anti-racist scholarship

Aida Hassan — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What exactly do we mean by ‘academic’? Often academic institutions are considered the key intellectual sites for knowledge production and exchange, in understanding the realities and facets of human and social life. In the same vein, there is a common claim that academic institutions exist as an “ivory tower” divorced from the real world. However, the claim of the ivory tower does not hold up in reality – academic institutions across the Global North hold considerable power in society, particularly in privileging dominant worldviews and sustaining inequality in society. Equally, the ‘sharp white background’ of academia – whereby White, middle-class, and male scholars hold a prominent position of social and cultural capital in academic institutions – results in epistemic patterns of whiteness in the academic modes of production, such as west-centrism. The challenge of west-centrism and normative whiteness can be seen widely across the social sciences, and in particular fields such as global health, yet the academic discourse is starkly uncritical of European modernity, colonialism and racism. As the knowledge produced in academic institutions reflects a certain power, privilege and dominant ideologies, there is an important question at hand: who has the capital on knowledge production? By drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, I explore and reflect on how academic modes of knowledge production reinforce whiteness and racism within and beyond the university. Confronted with the challenges of normative whiteness in academic modes of knowledge production, this article also questions whether it is possible to go beyond the “master’s tools” and conduct meaningful, anti-racist scholarship as racialised academics.

Two pillars of higher education and the lack of equality between them

Trevor Brooks — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

COVID-19 and the associated changes in patterns and approaches to hybrid and remote work, have highlighted inequalities between workers in many industries. Trevor Brooks from College London’s Audio-Visual Services met with Dr Ricardo Twumasi, Lecturer & Organisational Psychologist from King’s College London to discuss the lack of equality between academia and professional services: The two pillars that support teaching and research within Higher Education. This paper is the recorded conversation between them transcribed using Microsoft words transcription tool.