A pioneering Settlement

1 Alejandro Biondi Rodriguez

MSc Evidence Based Social

Intervention & Policy

Evaluation, 2020

As Social Protection project coordinator at CIPPEC (Centre for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth), a major non-partisan think-tank in Argentina, Alejandro has co-authored El Género del Trabajo (The Gender of Work). This is the first book dedicated to gender economic equality in Argentina, from a human rights approach. The book came out in late 2019 in Spanish and an English Executive Summary was published in 2020. Both are freely available for download online.

In Alejandro’s role as researcher in Southern Voice’s flagship State of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) initiative he has co-authored a Global Report on the state of 2030 Agenda implementation around the world. Southern Voice is an international platform for think-tanks, disseminating policy analysis by researchers from Global South countries. The Report is closely aligned with research carried out at Mansfield, especially because of its focus on the international human rights and development agendas. The digital edition is freely available for download online, in English, Spanish and French.

Alejandro is one of Mansfield’s first cohort of Kofi Annan Scholars – find out more about the Kofi Annan graduate scholarships on page 14.

2 Anya Gleizer

DPhil Geography & the

Environment, 2020

In November 2020 Anya’s artwork, Granny’s Bones, was recreated for the Moscow Biennale. It was displayed within the Personal Places//Archival Spaces exhibition, curated by Giulia Morale and Sterre Barentsen, and shown alongside the work of nine other international artists. This exhibition aimed to activate memories that live within lost archives and the personal stories of voices that have been historically marginalised.

Granny’s Bones, the ‘Pheasant’ and ‘Reindeer’ (currently residing in the foyer of the main building at Mansfield), and accompanying virtual reality film, was the winner of the inaugural (graduate) Mansfield-Ruddock Prize for Art in 2019. work to researchers and academics within the Department of Engineering Science, as well as to alumni of the University, and representatives from industry.

3 Eve McCarten

Jurisprudence, 2019

In 2020 Eve was appointed President of the Oxford First-Gen Society.

‘As President, I’m helping to grow a small yet supportive community that has real impact on the experiences of our students. First-Gen aims to support those who are the first in their family to go to university, through academic, social, and career-based events. We also work with the University and other organisations on widening participation projects. Twenty-five per cent of students admitted to our College this year are the first in their family to access higher education. I couldn’t be more proud of Mansfield and all the hard work that has helped make this happen.’

4 Henry Williams

Engineering Science, 2016

This year, Henry was awarded ‘Highly Commendable’ in the Chemical category of the 2020 Oxford Engineering Science FourthYear Project Exhibition & Competition.

The competition offers fourth-year students at Oxford the opportunity to showcase their 5 Mohini Gupta

DPhil Oriental Studies, 2020

Mohini was recently featured in India’s leading newspaper, The Indian Express, for her initiative in languages and translation. She started a multilingual digital collective ‘Mother Tongue Twisters’ during the UK’s first lockdown in March. It attracted thousands of followers from around the world, and was featured in publications such as The Economic Times, Business Standard, Firstpost, the Telegraph (India) and the Columbia Journal.

Mohini’s digital talk series under this initiative, ‘Translation Thursdays’, has hosted writers and translators such as Jerry Pinto, Rita Kothari, Arshia Sattar, Roz Schwartz, Maureen Freely and Arunava Sinha, covering over 20 languages from India and around the world. She has always been passionate about languages, literature, and translation. Her DPhil research is centred on language politics in India and tropes of nationalism in the country.

You can read the article here: https://indianexpress.com/article/books-and-literature/ mohini-gupta-conversations-6838662/

6 Mustaqim Iqbal &

Yan Shen Tan

Jurisprudence, 2018

In February, two of Mansfield’s secondyear lawyers were part of the fourmember University of Oxford team that won the first Northern European rounds of the Price Media Law Moot Court competition in Paris. The Oxford team also scooped the prize for Best Memorials. 7 Sarah Khan

Theology, 2017

Early in 2020, Sarah won first prize at the Girls Impact the World Film Festival for her documentary Passoon: Girls Championing Sustainability.

In Pashto, ‘Passoon’ (پاسون) means ‘to rise up for a cause’. Sarah’s short film profiles a young climate activist, Manal Shad, in Dir, Pakistan. The film also celebrates the leadership of young, Pakistani women, as well as documenting indigenous and innovative sustainability methods from Pakistan.

The Girls Impact the World Film Festival welcomes original short films focused on critical women’s issues such as girls’ education, ending violence against women, poverty and economic independence and more. It aims to amplify youth voices to highlight critical issues that women and girls face around the world. The judging panel included Nobel Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, the philanthropist and supermodel Christy Turlington Burns, as well as screenwriter, Richard Curtis.

Sarah won The Green IS Environmental Film Award, which recognises a short film that shines a light on an environmental issue that impacts women and girls globally – and considers solutions.

8 Sean Sinanan PPE, 2019

This year Sean was elected President of the Oxford African and Caribbean Society (ACS).

The Society’s mission is to empower its members, enhance their Oxford experience and ensure younger students from African and Caribbean communities feel inspired and motivated to aim high and one day study at Oxford. ‘If it wasn’t for the Oxford ACS, I wouldn’t have got into Oxford. Having been a recipient of the Oxford ACS Access and Outreach schemes since Year 12, I was in awe of how students from similar cultural backgrounds to myself not only prosper at Oxford but also devote their time to inspiring students from our communities to aim high and apply for Oxford. The reason why the Oxford ACS is so special is because even in an exclusive place like Oxford, you can always be yourself and celebrate your cultural identity. Being President means I now have the amazing opportunity to give back to prospective and current students of African and Caribbean descent, forever ensuring that the Oxford ACS is a safe, inclusive environment – a home away from home – in [what sometimes is] a daunting university. The Oxford ACS is more than a society, it’s a community which makes Oxford more vibrant, lively, and welcoming – and as President I hope to further grow the society whilst always keeping to these fundamental aims.’

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University of Oxford team. Photo courtesy of Mustaqim Iqbal. 7 5

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Central to our culture, our history and our wellbeing, food can provide a multidisciplinary, as well as a multisensory approach to understanding the world. Georgina Morris (Geography, 2018) and Rachael Chan (Geography, 2018) embarked on a unique alimentary voyage.

On 28 February 2020, Mansfield’s undergraduate geographers filed, with much anticipation, into a small seminar room at the Geography department which was draped in African wax prints and multicoloured chiffon. We were handed a blindfold and received a squeeze of lemon with which we were instructed to cleanse our hands and palates. ‘For the sweetness of the journey…’, we were told while we sucked the lemon. An appetising, spiced fragrance welcomed us as we were seated on chairs arranged back-to-back, in a semi-circle. The room was hushed. With little further explanation, the ‘Food Journey’ began.

The Food Journey is an immersive, multisensory experience created by Mama D Ujuaje, founder of Community Centred Knowledge, and seeks to question what food is and how it is experienced, disrupting its cultural history. Throughout the Journey, a powerful spoken-word performance accompanied by a prerecorded soundscape provided a shifting auditory dimension to a voyage through the history of food. With our hands open in our laps, food was placed regularly into our palms and, occasionally, offered into our mouths directly. Large metallic chains brushed against our legs and an angry man bellowed above sounds of ocean waves. We were travelling out of Africa towards the plantations of the Americas, where we mourned plantain that had been replaced by banana. We found ourselves part of this story, as Mama reflected on the trauma that humans inflicted on the land. In the last two minutes, the bland tastes of popcorn from a bag and juice from a carton were jarring and almost obscene when compared to the delicious jollof rice we savoured at the journey’s beginning. The sweetness was gone.

That afternoon, we were offered a rare chance to slow down and reflect on the ways we perceived food ontologically and epistemologically. The act of eating is universal, yet there is arguably an infinite diversity in what and how we eat that can be understood through historical material forces.

The geographical discipline lends itself well to understanding this. Geographers endeavour to anchor everyday experiences within a wider spatial geometry of historical, political, economic and environmental processes, and food is a common strand of academic discourse. The breadth and depth of the discipline is what makes it so enjoyable, engaging and relatable.

However, geography can also be challenging when we realise that we are not detached knowers and observers, but individuals entangled in these invisible networks. In Oxford, we see both overconsumption and undernutrition along the same street; one of the readings to prepare us for the Food Journey was by Julie Guthman and Melanie DuPuis, whose claim ‘the central contradictions of global capitalism are literally embodied’ is relevant.

The Food Journey allowed us to contemplate our position within this system, and it also created an opportunity for us to discuss how traditional ways of learning and academic research can be limited. Geographers can spend hours immersing themselves in texts that seek to represent the world we inhabit. The experiential nature of the Food Journey allowed us to be affected by the narrative, the tastes, the smells and the sounds.

For me (Gina), as I reflect on this experience amid the current Black Lives Matter movement, I am reminded of the important, embodied feeling of discomfort. The uncomfortable history of colonialism in which my city, ancestors, and the very whiteness of my own body have played a role, was paralleled by the discomfort felt as potatoes were shoved into our mouths, chains rattling around us on the slave ship. And for me (Rachael), I remembered stories my grandmother told of her great-great grandfather’s massive wealth as a spice plantation owner (later squandered on gambling and opium). Through these encounters, we became aware of the liveliness and agency of food, and their interconnection with our own histories. This sensory rhapsody and Mama’s teaching-as-performance could hardly be replicated on a page. Through our participation, we recognised the importance of the decolonial project in thinking about how we acquire knowledge.

The experience of being blindfolded and fed food hand-to-hand, and in some cases hand-to-mouth, is unforgettable, powerful – and, with Covid restrictions, unlikely to be repeated for quite some time. Today, we are all becoming accustomed to masks covering our mouths rather than our eyes, although both can feel disorientating. We are very grateful for being given this opportunity, which allowed us to feel challenged, immersed, surprised and at times uncomfortable (but with very satisfied stomachs). We look forward to the next time we can share a meal as a community in the College Chapel.