 Hello, hello everyone. We will start in just a minute. Excellent. Welcome to those of you online. Welcome to those of you in the room as well. Bienvenue, Konnichiwa, and Haitai, as we say in Okinawa. Before we begin, I would like to thank everyone who has worked on this session, especially our co-hosts, the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, along with the Science Summit Organizers, team members from ELSI at Tokyo Tech, and team members from OIST. My name is Heather Young. I'm the very proud Vice President of Communications and Public Relations at OIST, the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, and I'm also a co-chair of the Science Summit for Japan. Today, we are very fortunate to have with us, especially appointed Assistant Professor Kalina Hinantigale. Can you say it? Hinantigale. Hinantigale. Director of Communications and Lecture at the Tokyo Institute of Technologies, ELSI, the Earth Life Science Institute. I'm now in Kalina from his work as a driving force in the Japan Psycon Forum and as an innovative communicator with ELSI. And I have to tell you that from the first time I met Kalina, I was so impressed by his passion and his experience. Plus, he's so generous with sharing that experience and knowledge. Today, we are very fortunate to have with us, Kalina, and one of his colleagues. This session is entitled Decolonizing Science and Moving Towards Inclusive Science. I'm very interested to learn more about this topic, and I'm sure you are too. So today is a hybrid session. We are very grateful to have folks with us in person here in New York and online. Welcome to all of you. So, near or far from whatever time zone you're joining us. I hope you will enjoy this presentation and discussion. I hope you will learn a little and be inspired to please remember at the end to fill out the feedback form in the summit program. Kalina, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you for the wonderful introduction and putting everything together. And hi to everyone in the room and hi to everyone online from wherever you're joining. So, let me share my screen. And so, before we start, I'll give you a very brief introduction on how this session is going to be and what we are covering and so on. This is actually the Decolonize Science is a topic that not just myself but a bunch of us are working on and not just from and from all the disciplines of science because it's affecting science, academia, science education and science outreach as well. And so today, we will I'll give a talk more like over the top on focusing on some of the issues we have and some of the areas we should look into and how can we sort of move things forward. And then later on, we will have. Hi, I'm Jozo from the University of Amsterdam and she's also the equity officer for Dutch at the moment, and I will have a discussion on on bringing a bit more personal experience into some of the topics that I'll be covering in the in the lecture. So the session itself object is I really want to focus a bit more on why are we doing this and what actually the purpose of a session like this. And one of the main goals and objectives in everyone who's working on decolonizing is actually awareness. That's the number one the key, because it's still pretty much of a ongoing mostly discussion rather than actions. So awareness is really, really key and I have I will get into that later. So you can see at some point it's quite difficult to even convince on this is actually happening. And, and then you need to move into dialogue like have conversations as much as possible and it could be your colleagues here, or it could be policy makers if you really want to make a conversation. And then try to work on collaborations like, for example, how town and I are collaborating on certain things. And, and then we need actions like actions but actions can be like grassroots level, which are like social movements done by scientists or science or at policy level. And because changing certain things, especially imagine trying to change a curriculum. And so you need really need policy makers involved in these topics. So, these sort of like the four objectives we have in from this session. And, and, although we are in, I mean this session is about two and a half hours but the efforts and the conversation will go beyond this so I'm happy if anyone listening in joining in want to join our efforts coming up in the future. And, and we'll have our contact just on the website and we will find a way to get in touch with us. Okay, so, before we before even begin to sort of go into science part it's kind of let me, I'm sure you have an idea of what it's going to be something. But let me just touch base very briefly to refresh everyone's mind. So colonialism is more, more of a political act where one party seeds power over another. And, and I, and I should I read it in the beginning that I am originally from Sri Lanka and living in Japan. And with this kind of personal leaders will get into during the discussion but I think context might give you a bit more and interestingly I happen to work. The three countries which colonized Sri Lanka which is I work with in Netherlands and Portugal and England, and which is one fun way to look at my career as well. And so, historically, you know, the colonization has resulted in a large economy gains for the colonize itself and a lot of these countries are still very much experienced that built and the profit and so on that gained during the colonization period. And on the other hand, for, for the colonized, but such a loss in terms of economic and even cultural historical, even religion and, and this to recover from from some of these takes years and years and even in Sri Lanka is still experienced some of this after that. And so what is so since we have an idea about colonization, what is sort of like decolonization. This is where when you haven't heard many countries celebrate like independence day, you know, getting freedom. And this is sort of like decolonizing when, when this one country or party like a region with growing from the former colony and leaving it independent. However, it's if, like for example, if we look into even Sri Lanka, how the independence given it, it's quite funny that that expectation of carrying all the things as it's supposed to be is quite high, but it doesn't really happen in the same way. It's such a many countries collapsed as soon as the independent took years to even to get the political society going. And, and then we nowadays, like last couple of decades, we talk discuss a lot about post colonization. And, and interestingly, there's so many different versions and meanings and definitions for what is post colonialism. And it in my personal like reading all this scholarly papers and books. It almost seems a lot of the time the post colonialism has diluted within like globalization because we love like pretty much the world moving to being localized with the last like 50 years. And, and but this is mostly to you know build economies and so on. And, but being from a colonized country, I can, I would like to say that we are still in the post-colonialism period, we are still really suffering from and trying to figure out things. So, I would say from the day whoever like whichever the region of the country received the freedom, and even now you're still experienced the post colonialism. And so it's not something that we are done with it, and you're still going through it. So, it's when you when, when, when we actually think about what are the sort of like, good things, I mean I hear this argument, a lot of the times, all you like, especially if you. If you look into some of the treaty that was signed with getting freedom and independence. There's a lot of discussions of fortune and resources and and skills given to the country. I can get like really good example is countries like Sri Lanka India ended up with great reflects and like some of the businesses like for example, T and T became huge businesses Sri Lanka. And so, technically the argument that we hear all the time and also written in publishing many of the western publication is this photo given by the colonizer. So that you can actually prosper. And, but in fact, it's, it's not really the same way that this reversal of fortune works. For example, India has actually negative for for a period of time when after the given likes time on the colonization time and to recover up to receive freedom. And most of the colonized were rather poor. When they were colonized in the period following that, and these fortress or other things that left over didn't really work in the same way that the colonizer actually connect claim to. And one of the real, really nice example I would like to give is that Ceylon tea is world famous anywhere you go any country you can buy tea. But if you look into the number of companies who are making it slow team and the companies that are based in Sri Lanka is really small. And a lot of these companies are based from different many other countries. And so large part of the profit goes in outside of the country and we don't really get that that much of profit, even though tea is one of the biggest export in Sri Lanka. So, some of the things that the effects of post colonialism is that we see in this colonized countries, especially is elitism. So, it's interesting how we look at so called elite like a society in think of western white, like a region or society, but you can like in many of the countries who are colonized that there are people who work with the western cultures. And they were given ranks and this is how the class system actually started. And for example, my great grandparents have English. And they were sort of like, I mean that luckily died down and I have a Sri Lankan name, but these sort of give the ranking given the names given and all these sort of started this class system. And you can still see how these are used locally to get certain things done to have some power over certain groups and and to be a decision maker. And in fact this this goes, I mean I didn't recognize this when I was a school student in Sri Lanka. I happened to be, I would say, for the top school in Sri Lanka, which is called Royal College. And ironically, but it some of these colleges like schools in Sri Lanka which are top and build during the British times like going on for 100 years. And it's just that name carries like Harvard name carries huge weight, but it becomes you become an elite and you can actually use it to get things done. And even if you're really bad at it doesn't matter. So, and these we don't really I mean I didn't recognize this as a child studying. And then hierarchy system is also plays a huge, huge power and huge issue, especially some certain countries in Asia color has like we always see historically white color as a bit more over the top and, and something bit more larger than us, but even within the country within this country there are different skin colors. I mean, I'm brown but I don't really represent exactly the color of Sri Lanka because everyone is so many different shades and my father is much more lighter. And, and then you also like the paler the pair you are much good looking or much better and more opportunities to get a job and which actually comes into play. If you if you go around some of this, at least in South Asian country like white and green, so on, you know, and plenty of days. So these are systems like skin color and age and when when if I bring this back to academia and age is a huge part in in academia, especially in our cultures. Because it's sort of we for more than like, more like about hundreds and hundreds of years, age has come to play through this class system hierarchical system. And there's a huge gap between a student and a professor in many of the Asian countries. And it's relevant to many other like region as well. And, and then we go into globalization between within like last 50 years. And interestingly, this education systems like globalization is mostly about like economic, you know, economical changes but this applies to also education. So these countries have to develop their curriculums and try to, you know, start their school system. And, but we must also imagine, you know, how would a country run their own country suddenly when the independence is given. And are we taking that same curriculum and carrying on carrying on obviously to change it. And so a lot of the time the curriculum ended up moving forward and curriculum kept changing according to how globalization change. So we I mean I have more knowledge as a child I had more knowledge about western science and western things that what's going on in Asia and what's going on in the country because we had more content in our curriculum outside of the country. And so these are like I only pointed out three but there's many other post colonialism effects that you can see even in daily life. So I slowly want to move into how this is applicable in science academia. So I, there are quite a lot of things that we can discuss probably turn and I can discuss with more of these, what is colonization in science. And so just during this my my talk point out the six points, and we will go into some of these in detail. So we have seen I mean lately in recent years that's been like some really exciting space missions and larger plans to build in structures. So, interestingly, how these large funded research project are built. First of all, it's also, we need to keep in mind that a lot of these projects are written by scientists, not really social scientists or policymakers or even, you know, grass root level. People who are from different countries. And there we, we, especially when we set up like ground based, let's say let's say say astronomy, and you need ground based telescope which take a lot of you need real estate. And the demand for local resources in terms of like land and policy changes, low taxes, and, and then the human capacity bill is these demands are really, really high. And, but we that the argument is always, but we are doing it for the science. We are not doing it for anything else everyone is in the science together achieving the scientific advancement. I love hearing this, oh my God. And I think we tend to forget that scientific advancement should be done, which is really good. But it should be done in a way that it's a benefit for all parties, not just one party. And then, then we see a lot of the time, global agendas, there's always frameworks and models and, and if you if you sort of some of these frameworks and global agendas, you sort of raised them back. Many of the larger, really famous agendas, especially in science or even you find change. It's originated in Western countries. And it's quite difficult for global south or developing countries to sort of match up to these frameworks, because they're built thinking about Western resources and more money and more resources, and like achieving those objectives for framework. And it's very difficult to fit these frameworks. SATs is a really good example to get into a US, unless you need to do it, right, any, anyone in anywhere in the world. And, but the education systems are so different. And it's quite, it's, it's quite, and also really expensive to do some of these tests. And so we, when we, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have frameworks or models, we do need them, but we need to have build them in a way that are open enough to change and add up. And one of the good examples actually you and STG is there, there's no real, if you look into STG is they're very open and very broad. There's no specific like very, you need to do like 123 in order to achieve both four. So it's very much of open and broad. And if you check how education, the STG on education achieved in US and then in Sri Lanka, it's completely different. And you, there's no two countries doing the same in to achieve the same. So that's a really good example how we can actually do things that are more inclusive. And, and then, colonization in science, in science curricula is, is really it's at a very sad state, because we are so much of studying Western science right now. And it's been like that from the day one. And, and we did the other thing is to support the science curriculum. We also build a lot of resources we get project funded we get like things funded and create like online activities offline activities even like hands on things. And they're all created towards this western science. And there are few countries who are making a difference in the science curriculum like for example New Zealand and Australia, who are trying to quite successful in adding Aboriginal science into the curriculum. And I, in fact, a third yesterday there was a really wonderful session at UN, where this scholar from New Zealand mentioned that New Zealand will be able to change the science curriculum by 2025. So which is really good to hear changing curriculum is really difficult. And to add in the local element like regional science discoveries is quite important as well. And then the other, another aspect of colonization colonization in science is data, you know, data, especially think of science areas of science where you have examples like marine bio, geological and geology where you somebody need to go to a place to collect samples or do some studies. And there's been so many issues in this area for longest period, and, and including like from day from years of colonization up to now when it's going to continue for longer period where countries with this more power can go to another country and collect data and do whatever they want. And sometimes we have seen, seen this instances where you have local policies set up, but there's the visiting party doesn't really follow those local policies. And the simple, very simple answer for this up or not answer like argument for this always been oh it's very difficult to find local policies or local policies are in the local language so we don't really understand. And when we are following the scientists we are following we know what we are doing. So it's always funny to see a scientist like science academia you say we know what we are doing. And, but it's different you're in another country and somebody else's land and we need to respect. And, and this goes from like both policy and ethics. And, because these are a lot of policy, policy issues and work but also very much of ethical issues like. So, there, there, there are instances. So, one of the good things happen during the pandemic is that people were not able to travel. So how do you actually get data. And this goes to many other fields. And one of the quite famous general in us in this region. They have photographers all over. So, and it wasn't really. And these photojournalists couldn't travel during the pandemic so how do you get put us, you have to hire local photographers. And so suddenly, so many photographers from African nation actually came together and they were, they were busy they were getting work. They were getting published in some of the big American newspapers and magazines. And then on the other hand in science. These ongoing expeditions ongoing data collections and sample collections would not continue so you have you were forced to collaborate locally and work with locals and this happened in countries like even in Sri Lanka and even in Mexico and Argentina and so many countries like local scientists have to play a bigger role and collaborating. And one of my colleagues actually working on following our own scientific papers published from this data collaborations because that's also interesting how much of local scientists are actually in the published papers, because that has been a huge problem as well. And, okay, so, and then moving forward about jobs. So, we, of course, when somebody wants to move to another country you would like to have a better salary. And, but there's been so many instances where for the same job that you would hire a local person like very much of a local salary but for the same job some foreigner would be hired for completely absurd, like a level of salary compared to a local salary. And this, this always has been the argument is because it's, it's difficult to bring a foreign expert in unless you give a big salary. So it's not really about the foreign expert it's about trying to give the same it's a, it's for the same job and trying to give that same level of respect and same level of benefits for the local expert as well because they, they are also experts in the same field and the same or maybe more sometimes level of effort. And, and the last one is one of my favorites where you, I come across a lot of time the researchers from more powerful countries tend to know sometimes about other nations more. The knowledge in other nations that sciences and culture and societies and so on. And, especially when I mean I have seen this in so many conferences, especially Asia and some, sometimes in African nation. Where some of the western precision I have seen even somebody try to correct me once about Sri Lanka and how we were handling our telescopes and so it's a, it's a quite a privileged place to be where that someone would think that you are from a powerful nation that you have much more knowledge about what's going on in another nation when there are other experts in that nation who's been studying the same bit more hands on and closer. So, moving forward, I kind of want to look into some of these examples and and how research and education and outreach place, place into our role on decolonizing science. So, one of the focusing on sort of like either astronomy or some of the sciences that needs to be built infrastructure, setting up, setting up labs and setting up certain things that you need specific areas. Astronomy is one of one of the good examples on these kind of setting up infrastructure because for astronomy you need either like really dark skies, really clear and dark skies or really a piece of free songs. And these kind of regions are quite rare to find in powerful countries with a lot of money and funding and so on. So, it ends up setting up these infrastructure in places like in Africa, or Hawaii, Chile, Argentina, and so on where you have access to land. And, but there's been issues setting up these so historically, the policies and how these were set up, are a bit looser. But now, as I mentioned in the beginning, one of the most important things on this field is the awareness and more and more people are being aware and more and when I say awareness, it's not just within the scientists it has to be within like public and policy makers and so on. And so, for example, in 2015 in Hawaii, when the during IA International Astronomical Union General Assembly was going on, there were a bunch of people protesting for the building of 30 meter telescope. So, one of the good things happened from this is to come up to this cultural impact assessment, which is an assessment that you can anybody can use what is a cultural impact on building an infrastructure because in up until recently, most of the infrastructure infrastructures are looked into in a way where you look at jobs, and you look at, you know, the amount of money going into the country. So it's more about financial and employment benefits, but not so much about cultural and even land, because some telescope ended up in ended up in indigenous lands without knowing. And so these are huge ethical issues. And so establishing like ethical guidelines and and also accountability structure is important because the larger the project it's very difficult to find who's actually accountable. And so, sort of looking at adding this cultural impact assessment process and also establishing like ethical guidelines and accountability is really important any sort of level of structure that you are going to build in somebody else's some other nation. And then, but what, a lot of the times that we always circle back this scientific infrastructure about as an investment for the country like you're bringing in a lot of money, you're bringing in a lot of dollars. And then this helps in long term to build human capital development by getting jobs and and so on like jobs as in like engineering jobs and, you know, building jobs and so on, not particularly scientific jobs. And so this is all also sort of how whites in this introverts were historically, you know, that even during colonization period that where you go to another nation say, oh, let me help you, you all are struggling and we have better ideas to run this country or your resources. And so in the same way in science we are repeating the same mistakes in this white standard investment investing on things and looking at like more looking at data rather than the human needs and the societal needs and so on. And, yeah. And, and just an example of that some years ago this is actually a talk that Tana, yeah, we are above the salary discrepancy from European based and then a local stock in Chile. And, but luckily, some days are changing like people identify and sometimes it's will change do take time but some it's nice to see some times it being quite quick for changing. Right, so I also touch base on outreach because I'm outreach is something I'm heavily involved and that also my expertise is in. And so one of the things I mentioned in the beginning is about this setting up a global agenda and frameworks. And this is, this is quite commonly seen in outreach where we have like global programs. And, and quite a lot of times, if we trace back in many of the different sciences, you have these programs originating from Western countries and Western ideologies and and sometimes these you're celebrating a specific day but for a large majority of the world, it's a holiday and it's like religious. And, and there's global efforts need doing without local relevance is a bit of issue. And, but also, one of my pet peeves pet peeves is actually this quarter feeling that a lot of the time these global programs that all be reached 100 countries, where and there's like one event, or from India, which has a millions of people and millions of hundreds of science groups. And so it's a quarter feeling just for the sake of a report is also quite on for for there are ways you can do much more in terms of like rather than saying number of countries you can see actually number of events in these countries. It's not that you reach nobody is no one can reach 100 countries. And even the one in my lifetime, the, the most active science activities happen in Sri Lanka was 2009. And we had, we had, which was a UN declared a year of astronomy, and we had about 200 300 events a year, within that year, but overall, from that 20 million people, I think we reached about 50,000 people. And it's we never reached a nation country that that's not the reality so this quarter feeling is, is another way that we are sort of saying outreach programs, and which is interesting. And also in colonial times, sometimes, if you look at some of the maps from the back then, they say they say that the Dutch dominated region or the Portuguese dominated region. And in fact, some of the regions in Asia were not really because some these countries became countries later on. And breaking up. And but some regions had their own independent they work for it. And some, some regions were able to really fight or the Dutch or the Portuguese at some point and held their part. But it doesn't reflect on the historically in the maps and some reports. And, and then in outreach, we, we try to do a lot of project proposal like collaborations in outreach and try to get funding and it's, it's also important and there are a number of funding opportunities where globally available from different foundations and organizations that people can apply to do outreach projects with the global like it can be like from from us to Africa. And so it's really important to add a critical review on these projects to make sure that it doesn't fall into this parachute science efforts where either somebody from a global or western country, get a grant or large funding to go and go to like Sri Lanka, Simbapio, one of these countries to do one of one of events, and they spend most of the money for the team traveling into this country but not really locally or to build local resources and so on. And this has happened so much in some the things like in my field in Africa and outreach and in last few decades. And, and slowly I'm seeing change which is really nice. And, but parachute sciences was so much prominent. And, and I have contributed to that as a, and I can see why this can be a problem to overcome because when I was a student in Sri Lanka. And so we, we didn't have astronomy at research level back then but we still don't have. And so, which means we don't have any local expert. So, but it's also very to I mean, tourism is one of the biggest income for the country. So it's a very attractive country for people to visit. So we, I would randomly get connected to somebody from US or in Europe that has potential to want to visit, we want to come to Sri Lanka to give a talk. And as a student like a 15 year old student in Sri Lanka I would jump into this opportunity to get someone to, you know, come and speak to all the students and inspire us give us knowledge and so on. Because you can't I mean, now, now you have internet this is before internet and you only have textbooks, and we didn't have there's no such for there was a thing called astronomy books. Like we, I remember one of the first books I received from some professor in US, about 20 of us has read that one single book. And so when when you get sort of like an opportunity and expert visiting here, then you jump into that opportunity because we you don't have the expertise and resources. And, and the person would come and for us the important thing is this person doing a lecture. And we don't look into what's what's the program what's the, you know, why is it this person is coming what's it what is this program none of us actually none of that is really important since our main focus would be lack of resources of lack of expertise so we get an opportunity to hold on to that. And, but turns out a lot of people who came would really be grants to travel and set up programs and do things, which now that happened but we did gain the knowledge that that one hour lecture that we received. And so, there's a lot of parachute science efforts going on, and in all different sciences, and this is for outreach and also for research, because there's research terms. There's a lot of research terms being given to travel to other countries to like to conduct work research workshop and research training and so on and but in terms of thinking. How do we sort of expert how do we think long term one one really good example is that Japan, where I currently work, had a program some years ago, where Japanese government donated big telescopes, I mean, I rather be for a country without a telescope it's a 45 centimeter telescope, so put my interest telescope and these telescopes were called white elephants and they were going to bunch of countries, and the one is really long is is set up right next to a main road. And every time a vehicle goes past the whole telescope shapes. You, there's no research value in this big and big objective because you can't really do research when the telescope is shaking. And so it's one of the things where one of the example where you have enough money to donate this really expensive product. It's don't really check if there's a local expertise to really set it up in a proper way and think long term or provide the expertise to set up and and for a country like Sri Lanka. We are not able to relocate as such a big instrument, so it's just an additional cost that we can afford. And so that there's there are incidents like this all over the world. Certain things are donated certain things are given, but has really low value locally because it's not set up properly. Yeah, so, and then moving on to a little bit of curriculum. As I mentioned that the current current curriculum is basically started in in Europe in Europe, and that curriculum still continues today, and it hasn't changed in most of the world. And so it was nice to hear that Australia and New Zealand special moving in the direction to change the curriculum. And what what I mean. Understand that Eurocentric curricula is not the, I mean, it's not the hard part, but thinking that was majority of the students in the world at school experiencing a science as war and culture. And, but then teachers, most of the teachers actually don't have the time and the capacity to sort of bring in the local or the regional sciences into the current curriculum. I mean, anywhere I go, teachers are always quite stressed because their workload is really, really heavy. And sometimes I think teachers are actually working more than even scientists that always really heavy workload and there's no time to really bring in this other like local or the regional knowledge into the classroom. So it's difficult to even think of this science as a foreign culture because that was some science is what we are known as is Western, and a lot of the science from like Arabic or the Indian is an indigenous like both indigenous cultures are missing. And so we need to sort of find a balance somehow. Yes, this is also something I noticed from Tana's talk that maybe last year or a year before. And so I, I have been in, I've been working with you know, for last more than a decade. And it's some of these European projects are exploring the world, you know, conquering the world, which is still basically how colonize is so like what they want to do with the rest of the world. And it's interesting to see some of these narratives are still playing in science that once they're one Europeans or once explorers and always explorers and still exploring. And which is, yes, exploring is good. But those who are colonized are saying in a way that are you, you know, these explorers and discoveries and new words. And my only hope is that we are not repeating the history but sort of the times the how we see things are repeated. Right, so with all these discussions and findings and and areas that we look into. We tend to think this is how the system is sort of, you know, going on right now, it's this process. And, and it's just broken, we always say it's broken. And, but it's not really broken. I mean, somebody made it with like me, all of us, like people who are live today and people who are not with us today, we all built it. We should be able to change it. And, and it's, it's basically our job to change it because we built it as humans and we can change it. Right, so how in decolonizing science like starting from awareness. We need to sort of confront this imperialism, the colonialism and the racism in going on in modern science. And sometimes it's a really, really difficult conversation. I mean, I, the comments I have received is blows on my mind, but you still need to have this conversation. And, and from also I'm learning. I mean, I mentioned that even as a colonizer I have support I have been part of even supporting this colonizing science like supporting the actual effort and so on, because my awareness was not there. So even for me, this is all of this is a learning experience and, and, and moving forward. And then we need to sort of change the approach of this hierarchy that exists in academia. And, which still in certain countries are quite higher like I see that in Japan a lot. And, and then we can take action actions by putting in policies and so on for like things like parachute science. And eventually hopefully like countries like following countries like New Zealand, and not as an example, we will be able to this move away from glorified Western science into adding a little bit of research of sciences that matters for local perspectives and then local understanding and so on. Right. And with that, I'm going to see if we have Tana is also online. Yeah. And yeah, also, if anyone has questions, we are happy to bring those into the discussion. Can I, let me see if I can get on. Stop sharing. Yeah, I'm gonna show one more slide, and then I will stop sharing my slides. Okay. So, as I mentioned, so Tana and I will discuss a couple of things. But I will also want to get into a discussion with Tana with this, some of the immediate reaction that probably also while talking to her, her perspectives and that what we what I have this year so or even with all of these discussions and I have given talks on decolonizing for a number of times. And there's always the context of, you know, reactions from scientists. I'm not that I'm only helping and helping should not be considered as clients in science. And but we are providing a lot of resources. It's not really relevant to me, it's not my job. Or asking are you suggesting to stop what you're doing. And, or you should be grateful for what we actually did. So these are like the major reactions, I have a student also I'm sure Tana share that with me. And which is interesting and we will get into some of these during the discussion. So let me stop sharing. Hi, Tana. Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting me to be here with you all today. Yeah, sorry you were right. We both spotlight. Oh, have you been yourself. No. You might be clicking bullets doing a move in upon your corner. Yeah. Great. Hi, Tana. You're in a big, you're in a couple of screens. Okay. So we will go through several different things but I think first, let us also start with introducing ourselves again for discussion. Tana, would you like to go first, take your time and Sure. Hello everyone. Once again, thank you for inviting me to be a part of this interesting and necessary discussion on decolonization in the, in the context of science. My name is Dr. Tana Joseph and I am a South African astronomer currently based in the Netherlands. And here in the Netherlands, I have a dual role. If you've looked at my profile or seen the little bio of mine you'll see that my affiliation is with the University of Amsterdam. And in that capacity, I work part time as a postdoctoral research fellow or postdoctoral researcher. And I study blackholder neutron stars in double star systems outside of our galaxy. And then the other part of my time, I am the equity and inclusion officer for Dutch astronomy and in that capacity, I work with the Netherlands astronomy inclusion and equity committee that is part of the astronomy, the Dutch astronomy council. And so I, it's split my time between doing science and we do, and doing sort of the social justice part of science as well and I'm really enjoying this what keeps me very busy. But it's also this is the first time that I've ever been in a paid position to do this job. And that's a whole other talk and a whole other panel discussion that needs to be had. Not from decolonization, but kind of the way that we do equity, diversity and inclusion work in general in the sciences and corporate, etc. And so I have a particular interest in this decolonization work and we'll get to that as well how I got into it and how I am like most scientists self taught in this area and what that actually means for for our work going forward. Thank you. Thanks, and yeah, great that they actually that's managed to set up this position, paid position is really, really important. And those who are joining now for a second session. Welcome. So, right now we are we have Tana Joseph, and then myself. I'll do a brief introduction as well. My name is Helena Hina together. I'm from Sri Lanka, and currently working in Japan at the Life Science Institute. And, and previously I work in mostly European institutions from in Netherlands and also Portugal and England. And my current work is mostly on science communication and outreach at my institution, and and also science communication teaching, and then outside of that, outside of my institution where I also work on every project and which is actually really close to me because we, a lot of the developing countries don't have research level of astronomy. So I have set up a program that we, since I'm based at one of the G7 countries now have access to apply I have able to apply for time. So, through this program, I give, I set up student research groups and countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and where we study double stars for excellence on the astronomy measurement. And so how did, let me start with how did I come to work on the decolonizing science topic and why that's actually personally relevant to me and Tana will also share her thoughts later on how things got into today. So, this, it's not even though I'm coming from a colonized country. It hasn't been an obvious theme or topic for many that I was in. I was always experienced differences working in in academia as a person of color and personal minority, and also person coming living in Western countries. But it took me a while to really put these experiences together to see that these actually some of these effects of decolonial science. And so we, especially for countries like Sri Lanka where we are at a really struggling with losing our experts, because pretty much a lot of the local experts are moving out of the country. And, and because we don't have the local infrastructure to keep them. But at the same time, we are a lot of the local things that are done in a way from funding from other countries are not really called long term. And the, the, it's mostly very much a casual to celebrate something or to do a workshop or one of the best. And so, and I have been a contributor to that for a longer time when I was a school like student in Sri Lanka. And this happens because of lack of resources. So it's one of the things I really want to change and why it's personally important to me. And, and since I'm at a certain committees and level that I'm close to policy changes right now. So it's quite relevant. And it's a good time for me to also work on these topics that I can influence certain things. And that's sort of my interest in changing academia and making it more inclusive and also making it better for especially, especially making it better for people coming from developing countries. And how about you. I think sort of consciousness raising moment around the colonization came when I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cape Town from 2013 to 2016. And during that time we had the, these roads must fall the colonization protests at the universities across South Africa that became quite famous worldwide. And I participated in those protests and I supported them in various ways as well. What I found that of course these protests were started by students in the humanities. It was no engagement really from scientists, but I was also raised in a very politically conscious and active household. During these protests from up I was one of the few scientists that actually went and got involved. And during the discussions that happened. These four that happened with the students were talking and everything I turned up because I wanted to know more and they had one about decolonizing science and at first when people started saying decolonizing science it was met with a derision laughter people were like oh you look delegitimizing the, the protests and the movement by saying decolonize science because even by it was still science was still seen as this search for objective truth, even by people who are extremely knowledgeable about decolonization. They were like no you leave science alone because science is about collecting facts and how can that possibly be colonized. And so I wanted to hear more about this. And in these discussions I was challenged I was asked. You know these were students in undergrad and they were looking at me as a postdoctoral fellow. You know someone who had spent 10 years at university and said, Why did you never speak up why did you, you know why are you lecture on to our thing thank you for supporting but why didn't you do this while you were a student and I decided that I was entirely ignorant of this. And actually we can decolonize science and this is something that we must take seriously it's not. It's not, you know, it's not about counting photons differently or you know bacteria is going to change. If you decolonize science it's not about that kind of thing but what is science is the first question you need to ask yourself and it's not just about collecting facts and writing them down in a book and teaching that to children at school. There's so much more and once you have a bigger understanding of what science is and isn't, you can see where naturally the framework of decolonization fits in there so just to kind of very quickly go over what science is. People who have thought about this a lot more in a much more knowledgeable about this, such as Jonathan marks and say that basically science is three things. It's a, it's a series of techniques. So that's what most people stop that they're like, you do the scientific method you count the thing or you measure the thing and you write it down, and that science, but it's also a community of people. So basically where you have people you have biases you have all sorts of things like that that a lot of people don't want to talk about because they think scientists are robots that don't bring any biases to their work wrong. Thirdly, science is also a information structure in conversation with power as Marx put it. And so, to me, I've added a fourth dimension to this that science is political. If science wasn't political then why would we have this, why would we be having this chat at the UNGA. It was nothing to do with politics and positionality, when you have people and when you have power hierarchies and when you have money, you have politics. And when you think about science in that more holistic sense then decolonization framework makes more sense than just, you know, then this idea that science is about collecting objective facts. And so, to me personally, I had to be called out and held accountable and I'm still, I can picture so clearly this young woman who challenged me and I never got her name. But I think about her a lot when I'm asked to give talks like this because I am very grateful for her for trying to hold me accountable like that. You know, getting in my face and saying why didn't you do more and I hope that, if she ever has a talk that I give, I hope that I'm loving up to her expectations. Thanks. Yeah, that's very interesting. So, you know, some things you mentioned, fine, let me bring in a bit more at a global stage where that, you know, how have you got into this topic in back in South Africa. And now you are in the Netherlands. And sort of similarly we both have left where we come from and working elsewhere. And, and which also, I'm sure you have seen this when it comes to employment, the discrepancies between how it is to be like at an international job. Or in a local job. And, and I remember at Symposium in probably last year, you mentioned this topic where our local and international like local and foreigners are getting paid differently. What, what can you, what's your experience and sort of how do how can we even change this. And that's a very interesting topic because of course, if you want to really talk about decolonization and accessibility and equity, all these buzzwords, some of which you so beautifully elucidated in your talk just before this. We need to talk about, you know, we love in a capitalist society, and so money talks money is power, money is access. And when you pay people differently you say to them we value some people more than others. We have numerous examples in astronomy where this is the case so the European Southern Observatories which also talked about they have a local pay scale and international pay scale. And these were all things that were agreed with previous governments so this happens in for instance in Chile where we have some of the best astronomy instrumentation in the world. And these were all agreements that were made by the European Southern Observatories or ESO with the Chilean governments at the time decades ago. And there's a lot of bureaucracy involved and so that's often uses that's used as the main excuse for why you don't want why it's hard to change things that and the fact that, you know, they say well, we need to pay international people otherwise they won't want to come and work here. So these are the kind of reasons given they're quite flimsy, of course, if you think about them. And in South Africa we have this way for instance at the postdoctoral level. Everyone is paid the same if you're funded by the square kilometer a consortium in South Africa, but we have these massive grants for professors to come in. And it's a lot a lot a lot of money, especially when you consider that South Africa is by the if you use the genie coefficient, the most unequal society when it comes to income distribution. And so we, it's also this kind of thing of parachuting people in we bring these top notch scientists in from abroad because you know if we don't give them this money they won't come and at the expense of local talent. And as far as I know there's also no there's never this discussion of a roadmap of how we're going to at some point stop this amazing, this amazing kind of exchange program for senior professors, and start putting local people Africans in place. That's, I don't know when that's going to happen this I've never heard anyone talk about a time scale for this the idea is just that we don't have the required talent. And we need to bring these people in on exorbitant salaries to try and help us, but no handover talk is ever happening so this is continuing definitely where people come in. Usually in the European winter or the global northern hemisphere winter and our summer, and they come and they spend a lot of time in the sunshine and everything so they get lots of money and a work paid holiday. And, you know, at some point they also lecture or talk to their students or whatever the case to be. And so it looks like an amazing, amazing opportunity for established professors in the, in the northern hemisphere to come down and have some sunshine. And when do we start to reap the benefits as as South Africans so. And then there's other issues with play structures where I won't get into that I'm fighting on the other side but this, it's very interesting as well of course if you bring up that both of us are from colonized countries, and now we are working you know we were part of that brain drain that we just talked about and I like to call it my, my reverse colonization tool because prior to being in the Netherlands which was one of the countries that colonized South Africa, I was in the UK, which is the other country that colonized South Africa, and so what part of the reason I'm here is because nowhere else in the world, as far as I could see, when I was applying was there this opportunity to do paid equity diversity and inclusion work, which is not the same as the colonization work to do paid work like that, but I can see recognize my job as a real thing that I can put on my CV, and I get money for it. So I also have to go with the money is because as much as I feel that this work is important. I cannot take myself on fire to keep other people warm. I can't work for free because I don't have, you know, I'm not an AES, I haven't won the lottery. So I can also only go where I can support myself. I can definitely relate to many of the things you said. And I was thinking of all this. Some of the researchers who went to that I personally know of the Sri Lanka during winter because of the, and Sri Lanka happened to be the best time to go to Sri Lanka is during December to April. And it's the best time to avoid also winter. And in fact, I know a group going there for some field work this December. Anyway, and our economy is quite down right now. So the dollars go long, long as well. And so, a lot of these folks, you know, it's about these collaborations and funding. And some of the things I've been thinking and trying to put into practice and especially in in grant proposals that I'm involved on reviewing and that how do we sort of put decolonize in science practices into collaborations and into funding and there's also a question about this in the in the chat. I don't know if you can see the chat someone has kind of asked this question as well about about research grants and how it's maintaining and sustaining the colonize the sort of colonized way of doing science just in so we can address that question as well. Okay, great. Sorry, I can't see the chat. Yeah, so how can we influence policy change and our audience. Do you think it's fair to respect grants allowing such field work for research unless it offers something more meaningful to the indigenous scientists and the scientific output of those countries. Yeah, that's a really good question exactly what we were planning to sort of discuss. Yeah, do you want to go ahead and input something. I think these kind of when it comes to funding and that you need to kind of go from the top down. And so it needs to be brought to the funding bodies themselves they need to destructure how they hand out this money and include you know include so the, I was like in my first love which is science communication to this EDI work and the colonization work the social justice work that I'm doing now. And science communication psychom is a little bit further ahead in terms of being legitimized and understood and supported. And a lot of a lot of safe instance the SK and South Africa the SK a how they award time on telescopes or, or how you have to write your telescope proposal. There's often a part where you have to say what your science communication strategy is going to be and how you're actually going to communicate your work because, as we all know the science is not done until it's been communicated. And so we need to start taking that same approach won't get funding unless you can show us you know what does your EDI framework look like your equity diversity inclusion framework what does your decolonization framework look like. What does your science communication framework look like. And that should be judged equally with the scientific matter because indeed we shouldn't separate those things they are the same things. The typical thing to say is oh, you know we want diversity but not at the expense of, you know, of scientific quality just kind of a racist thing to say. So we need to start funding bodies and senior management those are the levers of power and unfortunately also those who stand to lose the most. And we just try to dismantle the status quo need to start building this into the you know the mandates and how they start handing out the funding and if you are found to be in conservation about you lose your funding. That kind of things already starting to happen at some funding bodies for instance the NIH in the US. There are conduct audits to see you know people are behaving responsibly and so on and they have money from from PIs when they were found to be in conservation of codes of conduct for instance. And also there are actually, for example, there was a paper about in Mexico about a sample collection, and I'm talking about 20 years old paper which I can't recall exactly but that was a really good example where that a policy change was taken into account after these fossils were collected from a country without the awareness in the country itself. And these were taken back to US and I'm sorry I can't recall that exact paper but this took, it took about 10 years. But later there are policies in players after realizing that you know this some local resources was taken off without the knowledge of locus. And I think so the influence in policy changes can take time. And sometimes I have seen it's almost a lot of the times, especially at like a larger level institutions or government level, almost as if when something happens, the reaction is the policy change, rather than before happening something and you set up policies already. And I think it's all quite common to many other people where you know you react with the policy, rather than setting up the policies first, and thinking about you know different scenarios. And about the, and also in terms of specifically for institutions to change policies is that you have to think with long term like the effect on policies. One of the reasons actually, you might not benefit today or in your career. And that's something we have to think about when it comes to policies, but probably somebody down the line will benefit from that policy. And, and that's something I always say about anybody like most of us working in Japan, that right now we are going through all of us almost like guinea pigs to change policies. And we are struggling and there's so many things that Japan is, you know, when it comes to having foreign researchers but hopefully the things we are trying to do and things we are trying to change will benefit somebody down the line 1020 years later. And I think it's good to think maybe it's for the social good for future for someone else. And, and then about I will put you on also address this about the restriction in grants and in such field work and research and so on. And I, there are many of the grants already has so many different restrictions like grants always comes with many different restrictions and like who can apply and where from where you can apply. So, having sort of adding different sort of restrictions that would benefit another nation is would not really sort of take. I wouldn't say we are going back in science but it's rather going forward in science but allowing others to stepping in and being and this also forces people to collaborate and you when you have restrictions on certain things. It's forces you to find somebody local forces you to find some local experts. And but there are many instances there are no local experts. And there are like, for example if somebody wants to set up a astronomy research facility in Sri Lanka, we don't have local expert. How do we do that, but we do have experts who are close enough, who are sort of have the similar ideas but don't have the resources to do it. And so, in that way, it's good to think about not just the scientific output but also the social output of these outcomes of the grants. Yeah, that. Okay, so moving on, there are one or two other questions but let's also get to them in after one or two topics that we wanted to cover. And so these colonial practices has, you know, affected the development of scientific research. And there's like just like the question, the first, the earlier question that we were addressing that can, would the science actually be affected by trying to do trying to take step thinking about, you know, in science? Are we setting back things? Are we putting so much restrictions? But at the same time, we could also look at these how colonial practices potentially affecting the development of scientific research. And one of the things I mentioned is that, you know, when Sri Lanka received the first big telescope that has the potential to do scientific research, it was given without any expertise or guidance and more of a donation. And so that's, that could have been an easy sort of a fix if both parties had this long term sort of an idea to like how do we give this but maybe provide expertise for next certain years and also look into there are different experts who can recognize the sites where a telescope should go. And that's a completely different level of expertise and which we don't, we didn't never had in Sri Lanka. So these kind of, I would say always the infrastructure going into another nation from like from one nation to the other nation, it should go along with the expertise where either without the local expertise, then you not only give a donation, but also donation comes with some expertise that they can train locals and train local educators, local scientists and give them the opportunity to use it properly, develop science and produce science. And but unfortunately, a lot of the times the donations are more, we have seen like towards pro bono, you know, just so you can look good also by supporting another country. And, and my colleagues and like in marine biology and geology always complain how samples are shared and how samples are collected. There are sometimes you don't really have lab equipment to analyze and locally, but you have this rich resource locally. And, but ideally this collaboration should end up in papers where your name don't get added. And, and these are quite common in many of, like, especially geology marine biology, you have examples and things. And yeah, so in terms of these sort of donations, maybe kind of like even setting up these research infrastructures and like, I mean, African nation itself there are many, not just in astronomy other sciences many infrastructures are being built because of the vast land availability. And yeah, what's your experience in that so far. And that is the this issue of using unseeded indigenous land for instance to build big science installations, one that was very much in the news. A few years ago was the 30 meter telescope the TMT that they're trying to build in Manukauya in Hawaii, and there's been loud protests and pushback against the, the building of the status code by indigenous Hawaiians, because they, this is not the first of course that would have been built there. And they feel that their community doesn't benefit from these big installations, that these are world-class telescopes being built, and they are not seeing this sort of trickle down effects. And then also some some members of the community were also saying you know that Manukauya is actually a sacred site to us. And on the science side we're saying you know science at all costs. And I am very much of the belief that there is no amount of science you can do no level of science you can do that is worth sampling on people's rights. You know that there's no science you can do that that should be put above you know the dignity and and humanity of certain groups of people of anyone. And so, so, I mean that's a very high profile situation in South Africa with the square kilometer and in Australia with the square kilometer. The square kilometer I just very quickly is being bolted as a radio telescope, a radio frequency telescope, and when it is complete over the next few years it will be the world's biggest science experiment so way bigger than CERN. Well the Large Hadron Collider which is currently the biggest science experiment on the planet. So we're building this incredible telescope on in both cases in South Africa and in Australia on Indigenous land. There's all this the new thing right now is to have land recognition statements. And that's nice, but it kind of Hawkins back to what you just said, Tilina about how we do stuff that makes us feel and look good. And I would for photo up if you have some photos with some traditionally dressed Indigenous people on their land, giving a thumbs up, but what does it actually mean for the local communities because one thing that is often the gap in thinking about Indigenous and Indigenous knowledge systems and Indigenous ways of knowing and interacting with the world is that these aren't ancient civilizations these are modern existing still growing still changing active ways of doing things and these groups of people are alive right now and the culture is alive and the language is alive and the knowledge systems are alive. So it's not about, you know, this isn't about this is about, you know, contemporary people who have the right to self determination and that absolutely includes the right to determine what happens to the land that people are on without the permission in most cases. And so we build these telescopes and we have these land acknowledgments but for instance in Australia Australia doesn't have any formalized treaties with aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. So they so as astronomers we have this little like you know paragraph where we say we thank you so much for letting us build here we recognize your right to the land, but it doesn't go any further than that because there's no legal basis right now in which aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders can actually challenge the Australian state to do anything meaningful. And so we need to scratch just below the surface and it actually brings me to something that I champion a lot and I'm very passionate about. And I want people to engage with more is this idea of just doing things that make us look and feel good versus doing actual evidence based interventions. And this is where and this kind of touches on is another question here in the checkbox where they ask, I'll just kind of quickly summarize that they say with critical and stem scholars meaningfully engaging in sciences that only in the colonial project, whether lack of being led by critical colonial scholars so sorry there's another part of the question. So they ask about successful case studies outside of science communication where there's a practice of decolonial science. And so I'll talk about this right at the end when we kind of wrap up as well, but especially for the heart what we call the hard sciences of physics and chemistry stuff like that. There's a lot of hubris there's a lot of arrogance that you know I study physics or I'm better than everyone and I know everything, and we need to change that hubris to humility and actually reach out across campus to the humanities to the social sciences to the decolonial scholars who actually have made this their life's work. We can't know my PhD is in counting photons. They put in the telescope and then I count the photons that come from the state star, and then I write a paper about it. They are people who have devoted decades of their life to critically thinking about decolonial frameworks and how to implement them in society, and we as scientists need to practice humility in reaching out to them and saying we can't do this on our own. What are our problems how do we change them because you have the expertise, and equally we must practice humility and reach out to the local people the people who the land really belongs to the indigenous peoples and say, you know this land better than anyone how do we with your permission use it in such a way that it benefits everyone it benefits you in particular, and also supports our science goals. And that's that dialogue needs to happen a lot more. And with the TMT it was really brought to light in a very kind of, you know, very big flashing kind of way that that's that dialogue is still not happening. What is happening it's not, it's you know we're reaching a deadlock because it's indigenous people fighting for their self determination in their humanity and the continuation of their way of life, and a bunch of scientists who only care about looking at stars. And they need to be more, we need more support to be able to have meaningful, and you know successful conversations that will move us forward. And one of the interesting that sort of complains, or this narratives built because of TMT is that, or maybe we can actually take science out of it within science as a context you know you, you, you see science as a natural arena and leave cultural context out of it. And because there was so many protests and, and request for policy changes at TMT, it delayed in years and years, and which made a lot of people unhappy, like a lot of scientists because it delayed doing science. And, but yes it delayed doing science like it delayed building one of the biggest telescopes that, you know, should come in the available in previous but I think in large spectrum of scale of years, this delay is tiny, and it's a necessary delay. And I wouldn't consider, yeah, this few years of delaying and, and also it's quite difficult. I mean, in my opinion, looking science as a purely like a subject that we all can look into is quite difficult because science itself is very much of, there's so much of cultural connection to how I learned science and how I understood science. And, and how I slowly realized in that I have been off like only for Western science, and then large portion of my education missing any sciences that generated from my region. And yeah, so there are, I think few other questions maybe I missed in the chat, but okay, great. So the, sorry, the chat question was about, like, you know, as I read out, but they specifically said it outside of science communication but now as you work professionally in that area can ask you, how does the colonial practices and frameworks how do they impact the science communication and the science communication and public engagement that we do, because that is, I mean, science communication is how we justify what we do as scientists to the taxpayer essentially, you know, we have, you know, we get taxpayer money and it's our duty to show the work to the people who pay us ultimately. And the way we do that is probably also steeped in colonial practices so we'd like to speak on that. And also, I think, in maybe like last decade, the, this topic of science communication came into a job, became a job. And interestingly, it's happening right now for science policy. There's quite a lot of science policy jobs are coming up at these bigger institutions. And so it's a really interesting role of science communicators and now science policy officers are playing a part on trying to sort of connect these hard or whichever the sciences that we are learning and results also failures, and you know, communicating both the success and failures are equally important to for the, for two, I see two reasons one. It helps to justify taxpayer money. But that's how we also increase the scientific literacy in the society. And so far the scientific literacy the way we increase the scientific literacy is actually the school education. And that has been the main basic measurement of science, you know, scientific increase in scientific literacy. And then, and then people are basically on their own, right, unlimited resources but as a as a society wouldn't really grow the scientific literacy so science communicators and plays a bigger role in this. And, and let me also touch base in science policies because within last five years. Many of the major research infrastructures higher the science police officers, like, even I know one of my colleagues who was at my institution, moved to as strong as a science, the police officer in Netherlands and so as science communicators are communicating the science with the public, but also you know bringing public opinion back to the scientists, because I always say that it's, it's not a lot of the time we are looking at the receivers like the audience. But we also need to look at how scientists see what is important like what is out which what is education, and how do we, how do they, what are their inclusive inclusive practices. And we, there's been two studies done that I saw sort of like for all of our colleagues and friends, Petro Russo actually did that from Leiden University did a study on how astronomers view public outreach. And this is actually like how scientists basically view what's important or public outreach, but astronomy being such a fascinating subject to public. It turns out the study show like confirm what we always believe that astronomers are like active in this. And last year with the intent I did the similar study for the field on work on working in my institution, how scientists look at origin of life. Doing like doing outreach and education to origin of life. And interestingly, it's almost opposite of how astronomers will communicate in the south research with public. And it's the, the, the, the about 100, about 100 research has been surveyed, turns out that everyone thinks it's too complex for the public and so on. And it's not, not so much of a good use of money. So, and policymakers are key here as well because policymakers helps really to change things that we discussed like changing, you know, making sure that for example salaries and you know when you're doing a project. When you're writing project and from especially these international collaborations I'm more like local expertise and how the funding is collected and looking into like local policies and also and they come with really different set up skills. So, I think the really, not everyone has the resources but the really well oil machine would be to have a scientist science communicator science policymaker, you know, falling one room, whenever you can like a larger or small project. And, but even without these resources you still are able to sort of reach out to other experts to build things. And that's sort of like how I see this, like how send the role of the science communicator and science policymaker officer. So, the kind of so you've talked from your kind of role you know more about science policy really than I do the scientific community itself in response to the colonization just talks has been in my experience of a negative. So I want to really engage with it my last talk on decolonization resulted in loud racist material being spewed at me that videos on YouTube if you want to watch it. So I've also given a talk about the colonization of science very specifically in the South African astronomy context to the to the general South African astronomy community and I have and that was two years ago and I've had no follow up from anyone just click it. So they're not really willing to engage at the stage. The vibe right now the TV thing is equity diversity and inclusion right or whatever combination of letters and buzzwords. Because some people have a quality diversity and inclusion some people leave diversity out or you or you put in the longing in there some way. That's the vibe at the moment and they're not yet ready to take that step to to engage with the colonization because of course those things are very different that they overlapping and but they're not exactly the same thing. And so, yeah, this is big pushback not everywhere I saw some excellent work being done by for instance, the University of York in the UK, the science, the chemistry department is tying really hard they've written papers about this and in practice. And on social media they show you know how they, they tried to put the context back into the science so though the easiest way to get away with not changing anything is to step the cultural context, or the historical context away from from science results. And they show quite like you know you can simply by putting the cultural and historical context back into your science results. It really opens up. It opens up discussion it opens up your understanding of how science is implemented would impact who gets to do it. And also, you know it helps with this issue of Asia because a lot of a lot of the issues that we have with with science is you know who gets to do it and who gets created for it as we mentioned earlier as well. There's, you know, there's a lot of Asia of the work that and knowledge that is held by non traditional scientists or basically women, people of margin or other people of marginalized genders, indigenous people, people of color, all around the world and your work is stolen outside stolen or you just don't get the recognition or you don't get the funding and you can't continue. And this is all part and parcel of a colonized framework of how to do science. So breaking free from that can be seen as threatening to some people. And so in general, we are the work. Some people are really putting in the work button. Overall, there's a big reluctance to get actively involved. Yeah. I think I, my experience also very similar to you. It hasn't been positive in science policy changes. But overall, I don't know if you share the notion that somehow the large majority reaction to decolonizing science has been negative. Yeah. And I think it comes from also that everything happened during the colonial period happened many years ago. And the people who are living today are not directly, you know, they are not the responsible parties. They can take actions to move in that forward. And there's always that notion I have seen not just for science but anything else like for example, many of these, my favorite thing, one of my favorite thing to do is to go to some of these national museums and see all these artifacts that are stolen from other countries. And You have to play to see your own cultural artifacts in another country. And that's actually very goling. And so it's this kind of, and when you find this out, it's almost like touching somebody's nose. And so it's all in science that I say that quite often. Yeah, yeah, definitely there's, there is a refusal to so they, the ideas that you distance yourself right they say well, that happened in the 1700s and stopped in the 1800s and that's not my fault. So there's this idea that they are because they're not the perpetrators. It's not the issue but they don't people don't want to engage with the fact that they very much also actively the beneficiaries. And people need to you know you need to acknowledge that you are the beneficiaries of the system that was set up hundreds of years ago but it's still absolutely benefits you to this day something as simple as who needs a visa to go to a certain country and who doesn't and how that those kind of challenges those logistical challenges and how they why they were set up. How that impacts your ability to do science because every country every northern hemisphere conferences and we see on social media and on other platforms, scientists from Africa for instance complaining that you know I'm a keynote speaker I'm a keynote speaker or this is my first opportunity to talk about this amazing science result and I didn't get the visa. And so they, you know, there's a lot of layers to this, and the lasting impact needs to be acknowledged. And those are the beneficiary beneficiaries need to be honest with themselves as well and acknowledge. You know, the, the benefits that they still receive to this day you weren't there when it was implemented, but you're not doing anything right now to to balance the scales. And so that's you know and that and that does touch you know with people because everyone also this other myth of science is that it's a metatocracy. It's not. You know, you scientists cling to that because it also makes you feel special. And so there's a lot of psychology as well behind this of course, just giving people facts isn't enough there's a paper that came out recently that shows for instance that male scientists are less don't believe the data when you talk about for instance gender gender issues in science and how being someone from a marginalized gender has a negative impact on your ability to do science, and male scientists don't believe that data. And so giving people data is not enough we need to think about the psychology behind this as well. Let me connect that some of your thoughts into the lab the question we received and I'll read out the question. The social survey of science often differentiate between for example, you and us very very example low income countries and semi periphery which is emerging example in emerging economies. So these. What role do we see for the latter in the decolonizing science for for example, these emerging economies. Let me. Yeah, so. Interestingly, I think, look, we that it's, it's sort of a mistake that if you focus people and I think science on just on the global north or the western countries, it has to be the test to happen from like from old parties. And because we had to understand just because you come from either low income or imagine it on your own, or like one of the colonized countries, you are not by default aware of these practice like colonial practices. It takes it takes a bit more effort to understand how things are because, and also at some time at certain instances you're not even aware, some of the scientific practices done in your nation by others. Right, you, you don't know what's going on, even though it's your expertise. And, and at the same time. I, as I mentioned, like during this discussion. The lack of resources and lack of funding forces people to sort of reach out to things that they are given. And, and negotiations are sort of lacking on these matters like because because we are at this position of lack of resources and lack of opportunities. Whatever is given is sort of seeing as this golden ticket and you know, something that you appreciate and try to take the best of it out of it. And it's really in that context that we need to make sure that awareness has to come from all parties, not not just the party from from global north or western but also from our end like from yeah. So I would say that the kind of what role do the different parties of different stakeholders, given the power imbalance play. Everyone plays must play a role, but the roles will be slightly different. So we, we could just say oh you know, under resourced countries or low income countries don't have the resources but the main resource that we do have or middle income countries is our geographic advantage. In astronomy for instance, the science isn't going to happen if, if we don't allow you to come build your stuff on indigenous land. So we have that massive we must be brave, and our politicians need to stand up and say you can't, you know, you can build your stuff here but this is what we want. And this and they need to come with what we call you know the smart goals, measurable achievable time bound in the next five years. If we don't see XYZ, then we're going to stop your building. And I think that's entirely reasonable. And then on the flip side again for the countries in the global north. Again coming back to that concept of they need to start taking the first steps and realize the, you know that they are the beneficiaries of an unequal system, and it's only by honestly name acknowledging that you have a problem and naming what their problem is can you start to solve the problem. And so we need some honesty on one side and some gumption on the other side and constant collaborative talks, and everyone needs to have a voice because we're all involved in this because science is for everyone. The world belongs to everyone and not just in astronomy context in all kinds of context in environmental and life sciences there's a lot of work you know where people come in. And you can only do certain kinds of research in certain places because that's where the interesting flora or fauna or that's where the certain combination of natural occurrences are. And so those countries need to start gatekeeping in a lot of ways and saying, we're tired of being exploited. If you want to work with us that these are lists of demands these are out you know these are goals and we can work it together. For instance, the sand people of South Africa one of the indigenous South African groups of people they have a documentation and guidelines for how you if you want to come and study their language the culture beyond the land, etc. As a scientist outside of the community, they only allow a certain a certain way of questioning and a certain line of questioning, and investigation that benefits their people and their culture and they land. So you can't just come into sand into the sand community in South Africa and you know want to do a whole bunch of stuff and learn a whole bunch of stuff. If it doesn't benefit them and they're very strict on that and other indigenous groups are also interested in adopting that because that's the, you know, the right as you know people with the right to self determination I said, we know the world is massively fascinated with us and but if you want to come and learn about us and learn about what we do we are as people you have to put our humanity first and foremost. And one of the ways you're going to do that is none of the work that you're going to do can be done without an obvious indirect benefit to our community and this is how we define benefits. And so you either engage like us or you get nothing from us. And I think that is really powerful. I am in awe of the, you know, of the, of the strength, and I love that they're standing up for themselves in that way, despite the fact that they also disenfranchised in so many different ways. And I think that you know we can learn a lot more by trying to kind of engage with that intellectually and also embody that same kind of self determination. And you mentioned actually, you know, seeing science as a contextual veil, so which let me also connect that to this question we just came in, and I'll read it out for everybody. And is it possible to decolonize science while science is still figured as a property that can be all control board, sold, stolen, etc. So we need to figure out science at property connected at a fundamental level to colonially science. In a broader sense, can capitalism being rooted in property, for example, coexist with science in a decolonized context. Because yeah, that's an amazing question and not the first time that's been brought up the kind of interconnectedness of capitalism or white supremacy of colonization of the patriarchy, and how if in a truly equal and just world we have to dismantle all of these you know it's a you have to take down all of these things and the kind of science as a very extractive process is very much aligned with capitalism right because we know again the thing about and politics as well there's certain science is funded because it's been official because you could or you can make money from it or you can strengthen your you know your country's fence or military, especially with physics and astronomy is actually very close ties to military industrial complex as well. So these are all the kind of things that we need to take into account when you talk about the colonization it's not. It's not just one thing on its own it's not siloed like that some people try to silo it needs to be holistic and inclusive and we need to tackle. You know, we need to dismantle all these things because they all do go together they all very much linked and you know, pulled each other up in a statement so when we talk about the colonial framework we also talking about it, ultimately an anti capitalist framework anti patriarchal framework, you know, an anti racist framework, all of these things need to be there together to get this actually right. And, and so yeah, as they say as well the rest of the question they say maybe it's just the first step. You know, with there's no one way to do this and we're not going to get this right it's going to be a lot of false thoughts is going to be a lot of learning as we go, but we also need to recognize on the kind of on the bigger picture. How the systems of oppression and systems that uphold unjust practices and outcomes in this world how they are connected how we have to dismantle them all at the same time through going to really get this right. Um, we, I want to sort of heading towards wrapping up in the next 10 minutes or so. And, and also if anyone has more questions we'll try to sort of bring them in. Also, yeah. Yeah, so you have been focused on all this chat online. Yes. I'll try to keep loud. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last spring, no, not last like a few months ago and I know me and I was working with human rights legal aid organization for refugees. And they sort of gave me everything I was like, here's the budget here's the, like the grant like we're only going to understand this sort of like western language and western sort of thinking of like, I have to write the answers to questions in this certain way or I will get funding. And one thing that I understood I was one of the grants that was being done by the US government application. And in the application it says you must include LGBTQ plus persons in your work. And so when they saw that they were like, in Kenyan culture, we do this, and they include this specific group and we like nation programs. And we won't be able to run our other programs because we'll be blacklisted because that whole knowledge group isn't accepted. And so they actually decided not to even pursue the funding opportunity, because the like I would say grant me for the consideration, like the cultural sensitivity on the ground and what's accepted and what's not. So my question is, are hundreds doing this, because they just don't know, but you're not completely sensitive, or is it like a performative way to like include marginalized groups and say like we're ahead of you, like you should be accepting marginalized groups and like, like we're trying to push that onto them or like how do you do it? If I may. True. Oh, sorry. On my side. Sorry. So this is a very interesting point, especially on the specific issue of LGBTQI plus rights and issues around that. So you asked, you know, is it, are the funders doing this because they don't know or they're doing this because it's a seemingly easy way to include marginalized people. And, you know, and also a way to kind of virtue signal that they are more advanced on social issues. It's a combination of both. I think it's a combination of both are also very specifically like I said on the LGBTQI plus aspect, that is very much a hangover of colonialism. The homophobia and all the other, you know, as an umbrella term for any kind of discrimination or bigotry towards LGBTQI plus community of which I am a part is was introduced by Europeans coming to Africa, or South America or the Americas, Asia, et cetera, where you know just leaving Europe they brought religion they brought the Bible they brought the understanding of what is and is not acceptable behavior, and homophobia was absolutely part of that so it's very interesting now so in fact, you know, the global north is somehow further long on this issue is very much ignoring the fact that that issue exists in the first place in the rest of the world, because they introduced it to us. So that's so the lack of cultural sensitivities also a lack of grappling with the past and, and this is why I keep saying you know they mean, people need to acknowledge the harm done by colonialism they need to acknowledge that they've been the ongoing system because colonialism is not in the past colonization is not in the past in a meaningful sense. And, and so them trying to force through the issues is a disregard for the local cultural context, but also very much a problem that they brought to that local cultural context. Yeah. And also let me add with regards to, you know, people preparing funding calls and, and definitely I'm part of a few different funding review committees, and a lot of the so a lot of the times, if the funding is global or like bilateral reviewers tend to come from many different because you are almost trying to find reviewers from different countries and different background, but reviewers themselves do not write the grant application, an application in almost coming from this, the funding institution on the funding body, and which has met in my experiences, which lacks the local circumstances societal and cultural awareness and and very unfortunately. So the reviewers tend to give feedback. It's all almost, you know, this. Some of the situations where every year the same proposal goes out and then we will spread the comment to both parties know this is how you need to do. And for the applicant and also for the funder. And, but almost all the time, the upgrade of the applications are very slow or very minor. And in one of the funding agencies that I'm involved, if you look at the proposals from 10 years ago and now it has changed mostly, but also a lot of the times to benefit the fund itself like it's more about like how can you implement our agenda. And that's why these global agendas are actually built in a way without considering local context. And it's important. And that's why any agenda me like requirements. If that could be flexible that you you address in very much of a localized way. So each somebody applying for the same grant from like two different countries are completely different and it's not the project that's different it's the approach and what you're doing. And, and that's, but I also understand when you do that for the funder it becomes really hard to just, you know, numerically justify it because you it becomes harder to build a survey that equally. And I think that's one of the reasons that SDGs are so popular, because they're very, very big and we can adopt, but also very hard to measure, because there's no like a uniform measurement, how they're SDGs are achieved. But I think rather than also we have to, I would push rather than trying to fulfill the report and fulfill, you know, numbers, if we can textually see different grants and different achievements. And that adds more value to the, the sciences and the society and so on. And so a lot of the time it's unfortunately the funding agents itself that this whole grant for applications are put together. So, maybe we could start wrapping up. I kind of want to leave everyone with a couple of thoughts, especially, I assume like our audience and people who are listening live and people who are going to listen later are somewhere related to academia. And, oh, maybe they have an interest in science academia. And what are the, I want to sort of like go through what are the, some of the basic actions and steps scientists and experts can do. But from like all parties, not just from the global north or the western countries, but also from global south and then colonized countries and developing Europe. Yeah, do you have any some thoughts on this matter. So, yeah, just to thank everyone for tuning in. I hope that our discussion spots for the discussions, and even just some self reflection in and of yourself I always learn so much. When I participate in talks with I'm ostensibly the expert so this has been really really great thank you again for inviting me. And I will just reiterate my main point that I like to give to scientists for those of you are in the sciences, especially the hard sciences let go of the hubris and replace it with humility to other experts, especially outside of your field, especially in the humanities. They can help us so much, and their work is just as valuable as our work. And also to remember that the science that we do must always be connected to, you know, we mustn't lose sight of what we're doing as scientists and how it impacts society how it impacts people. Because when we start to lose sight of that we start to, you know, use science in a way that is harmful, and to be brave to be brave and challenge yourself challenge your thinking evaluate your value systems and beliefs. And don't be, don't be afraid but to be brave and engage with the colonial thoughts practices people. And also just to say very practically that social media is a great way to get involved with us that's where I have learned a lot and been put in contact with people who have really helped me along with and yeah, just to be brave, be humble, and especially to scientists you know when we're supposed to be lifelong learners. So make the something else that you educate yourself on as well. Right. And let me answer that there. So, my, what I would recommend for all different parties that you, especially we are thinking we are discussing about changing certain workflows changing how we do things. And we should not expect like immediate results. And, and if these things might not happen for you, even though you might be the person who's actually heavily affected by these colonial practices and think all this, like long term that somebody after you can be benefited and even a small step like a funding agents are requesting funding agency to change the way they write application might not happen from your email. But at least in its in somebody's mind from that agency and down the line, when more people start actually voicing that that change will have might happen eventually. And, and then it's so I think just like any other scientific research that we do which is like long term, if you look at space missions is like 1020 years, and even decolonizing science is something that it's going to take such a long time. So, but every small step makes a goes a long way. And, and the reason we are doing this now we have we have this notion of doing science it's for the society, it's for everybody's knowledge. So decolonizing science is actually also for everyone's benefit like so many others will benefit from the actions and the open doors for many other people, and, and also benefit many other nations as well. And so I would, I would, my, my recommendation is to start small like at grass food level like Tokyo quality and you know, talk to us and because we also want to learn as much as possible. And, and start from there. And, yeah, maybe going forward from here like, okay, so we had this about more than two hours of you know discussion how to be more forward from there. I don't know if you have something that you haven't even shared with me like the future plan that one something I'm really keen on doing is that that try to bring. And it's from, from the, like two, two different things that one from people from as scientists romance for mommy, and social scientists together for symposium. I would love that awesome. Yeah, we could. Yeah, we could organize at some point, because to learn these we need really need social scientists. We're not going to, we're not going to solve this problem on our own and we'd be wasting time meeting the wheel. People who have been the, the required relevant and appropriate knowledge already exists so we need to just exactly talking to them. And so hopefully, we'll find the way that we can actually bring both parties together. And, and on on different note. Also, to bring science communicators from different different sites together, because science communication is also key for to communicate these activity and they have the skills to do that. They have the skills to really reach out to bring these even two parties together. And so hopefully we'll buy the two things I kind of want to move forward is bringing scientists from astronomy or other sciences, and social science, together and also, and then science communicators together. And, and if anyone interested in, you know, moving this forward and I saw there were quite a lot of people even yesterday at another panel are discussing these topics and maybe we can work together because we do need people, and we do need people to also learn from each other so feel free to reach out to me or Tana at any, any point we're happy to get connected and learn from you and learn and do it. Absolutely. Great. So, thank you so much for joining and, and you're for your time and you're sharing your knowledge and experience and everything you've learned so far. And, and good luck with your next life future, especially with your position I'm super excited that you have this position in the Netherlands that you can make change. And thank you everyone for joining live and from New York and also from online. And thank you everyone who's going to watch this later on YouTube or wherever you are. So, and lastly, thank you to always team and, and especially to Heather for bringing everything together. I know it was such a lot of work for all of you so thank you for making this happen. Thank you so much. Thank you so much everyone for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much everyone.