Beyond the Expat Bubble: Race, Power, and the "White Wave" in Global Aid with Junru Bian (Part 1)

Thank

you.

Maybe you can just tell the audience about who you are, where you're from, what you're currently doing in Nairobi.

and just maybe your journey towards coming into contact and deciding to study race and gender dynamics in the humanitarian field.

Thank you so much for having me, Wairu.

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa.

I used to work in the humanitarian and development sector for an international organization um in a number of different places in mongolia in ethiopia and in myanmar and also some kind of work profile in tajikistan too but it was quite brief so you know i never really considered doing research right in the sector it was you don't at least for me i was never really part of my plan my idea was to pursue a career in the sector Because I had, you know, I had considered the sector to be quite impactful and it's meaningful work.

And, you know, I had the same mindset as anyone who wanted to join the sector, how I thought about the sector.

But after a few years working in the sector, I realized that, you know, there are some experiences working in the sector that is quite specific to me that some people don't experience or some people experience even more than me.

Right.

And that a lot of times made me wonder if it's because of my own racial identity or my own gender identity.

having conversations with colleagues over the years too.

But at the time, there were really no available academic research that I could read on to understand the sector or what I'm going through.

there are some autobiographies like emergency sex right so but it was it's almost so um like the experience so personal that i can't really it's great to read but i can't really relate to what the authors were writing themselves right because the context i was working in was very different um you know and um so i thought i should do it myself maybe so because i i i saw that there's potentially like a vacuum of information available that tells the stories of people working in the sector and the dynamics ident of the identity and power in the sector And that made me, led me to decide to go back to academia and do research.

And that led me to Nairobi, to Kenya, as one of my research sites.

Because it is a huge regional hub.

It hosts a giant population of professionals working in the sector.

Absolutely.

But yeah, so that's sort of like a brief of how I end up meeting you too, right? Because I reach out to you on LinkedIn and just, you know, out of the blue.

And I said, hey, can I talk to you, please help? And you were nice and you said yes.

And then, you know, that's how we met.

And that's usually how I actually try to get in touch with people.

is to just cold contacts and everybody has been incredibly helpful because I think they see also know how this conversation you know never gets to take place outside of informal environments and I think you know people are happy to talk about it you know to someone who's now finally doing empirical research on this topic basically yeah

Thank

you.

Maybe you can just tell the audience about who you are, where you're from, what you're currently doing in Nairobi.

and just maybe your journey towards coming into contact and deciding to study race and gender dynamics in the humanitarian field.

Thank you so much for having me, Wairu.

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa.

I used to work in the humanitarian and development sector for an international organization um in a number of different places in mongolia in ethiopia and in myanmar and also some kind of work profile in tajikistan too but it was quite brief so you know i never really considered doing research right in the sector it was you don't at least for me i was never really part of my plan my idea was to pursue a career in the sector Because I had, you know, I had considered the sector to be quite impactful and it's meaningful work.

And, you know, I had the same mindset as anyone who wanted to join the sector, how I thought about the sector.

But after a few years working in the sector, I realized that, you know, there are some experiences working in the sector that is quite specific to me that some people don't experience or some people experience even more than me.

Right.

And that a lot of times made me wonder if it's because of my own racial identity or my own gender identity.

having conversations with colleagues over the years too.

But at the time, there were really no available academic research that I could read on to understand the sector or what I'm going through.

there are some autobiographies like emergency sex right so but it was it's almost so um like the experience so personal that i can't really it's great to read but i can't really relate to what the authors were writing themselves right because the context i was working in was very different um you know and um so i thought i should do it myself maybe so because i i i saw that there's potentially like a vacuum of information available that tells the stories of people working in the sector and the dynamics ident of the identity and power in the sector And that made me, led me to decide to go back to academia and do research.

And that led me to Nairobi, to Kenya, as one of my research sites.

Because it is a huge regional hub.

It hosts a giant population of professionals working in the sector.

Absolutely.

But yeah, so that's sort of like a brief of how I end up meeting you too, right? Because I reach out to you on LinkedIn and just, you know, out of the blue.

And I said, hey, can I talk to you, please help? And you were nice and you said yes.

And then, you know, that's how we met.

And that's usually how I actually try to get in touch with people.

is to just cold contacts and everybody has been incredibly helpful because I think they see also know how this conversation you know never gets to take place outside of informal environments and I think you know people are happy to talk about it you know to someone who's now finally doing empirical research on this topic basically yeah