Thinking Us is an exciting interdisciplinary project for Cambridge researchers to explore and incorporate intersectional and anti-racist perspectives into their academic work.
In its first year, the project hosted a series of collaborative workshops and a Thinking Us Festival, where participants discussed various aspects of the research process, including project conception, methodology, team building, impact planning, writing-up, dissemination, and publication. The festival concluded with an interactive conversation between Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Professor Arathi Sriprakash on anti-racist work.
The Thinking Us project also served as an experimental platform for testing collaborative approaches and practices to further develop the GRIST and its residency programme. The projects that are part of the Thinking Us conceptual framework include Caring for Transformation, a 12-session course and Creative Methodologies, a series of online workshops.
In the second year, with attention to the Thinking Us community’s feedback, the programme of activities transformed. Instead of hosting an open festival, the project focused on an in-depth understanding of the personal and collective impact of research on intersectional oppressions. The Thinking Us project hosted a three-day Winter Retreat, during which participants were invited to pause and reflect on their research and on issues of collaborative work. The further activities repeated the programme of the previous year, including Caring for Transformation and Creative Methodologies, with a newly developed three-day workshop, Decolonising Practice through Creative Writing.
Feedback for Thinking Us
“I’ve never experienced anything like this in Cambridge. I came away inspired, thinking about what can be done, and what I can do” (workshop participant).
“My main takeaway is hope – for the first time in six years I feel like there’s a chance here of doing things differently” (workshop participant).
Funding
School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS Research Framework)
Enhancing Research Culture Fund
Project team
Communications Coordinator