The Made in Migration Collective is a fluid group of displaced and non-displaced individuals originally from eight different countries. We use established archaeological and cultural heritage methods to co-document personal belongings and places significant to lived experiences of contemporary forced displacement in Europe. Applying non-hierarchical practices drawn from the anarchist notion of ‘prefiguration’ (whereby people organise socially according to how they would like the world to be), we use film, photography, ethnographic interviews, drawing, and creative writing, to record and reflect upon material and visual culture. As a diverse Collective, we co-curated a digital heritage exhibition called ‘Made in Migration’, which launched during Refugee Week in June 2021. We are and we currently co-producing a live exhibition called ‘Made in Migration, In Real Life (IRL)’ which will open as one of fifteen exhibits which will form the British Academy Summer Showcase (June 2022). 

The digital and live exhibitions are contextualised within Europe’s ongoing colonial legacies. Through enacting anti-racist principles, The Made in Migration Collective actively exposes neoliberal and nationalist ideologies which continue to racialise and immobilise people according to colonial categories. We explain how we did the work together and share some of our favourite artefacts, to offer a clear example of the important role that cultural heritage can play in disrupting powerful racist narratives, to provide joyful possibilities for the future. 

I work at the interface of community-based social and environmental activism and environmental humanities research. In my research I engage with community partners, and with the environment and more-than-human-communities, to produce public-facing work that amplifies marginalised voices and knowledge practices. Since commencing my PhD in 2009, my research has focused on counter-colonial interventions into place, society and knowledge practices in the New England Tableland Region of New South Wales in Australia, where I was raised. As a descendant of white settler privilege, I am acutely aware of the connections between my own privileged childhood, the ongoing impacts of colonisation and the environmental crises we are now facing. Throughout my academic career, I have grappled with how I can work to support Aboriginal self-determination, to help decolonise places, institutions and communities, and to foreground the sophisticated knowledges of Aboriginal peoples. My first monograph was published with the Routledge Environmental Humanities series in 2017, and I am currently an affiliated researcher with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at LMU in Munich. 

I am a PhD research student in Black Studies, Department of American & Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham, M4C/AHRC. My thesis explores the geographic studies of the spatiality of the Peak District National Park in relation to access and use by people of Black African ancestry in the diaspora. My research interests, however, transcend the trajectories of ‘Race’, Ecology and Environmental Justice in UK and the genealogy of people of Black African ancestry and the natural environment in the UK from the Roman times to slavery, colonialism and post-colonialism. Prior to commencing my PhD, I worked as an Associate Lecturer/Research Associate at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), after completing a Master of Science Degree. I am a qualified journalist and set up the Sheffield Environmental Movement charity in 2016 to promote access and participation in the natural environment for people from Black & Ethnic Minority Communities. I also co-founded the 100 Black Men Walk for Health Group featured on Channel 4 News on January 13th 2019 and, on ITV News "Black Men Walking: How walking hobby became a symbol of identity" which inspired the production of the national play "Black Men Walking" by Eclipse & Royal Exchange Theatre Production in 2018/2019. 

In 2013 I contributed to the publication of the Imperial College’s “Open Air Laboratory Nature Community Environment Report - Exploring Nature Together” launched at the House of Lords. In 2009 I produced a working manual, "Engaging Black & Ethnic Minority Communities'' - Vols. 1 & 2 (unpublished) for the Environment Agency of the North-East Region. I was the first Black person appointed to sit onto the Board of the Ramblers Association UK in 2006. A recipient of the 2021 National Lottery Awards for Heritage, I was named in 2021 as one of the 70 most remarkable people in the history of the Peak District National Park since its creation in 1951. On March 23rd, 2022, I was invited to a reception at the Houses of Parliament organised by Natural England to speak on how nature recovery is serving people in grassroots communities.