My Fellowship Year: An Opportunity to Become an Equity Champion

My active fellowship year was a meaningful experience that is at the same time uniquely mine and also influenced by the wonderful people I met and their visions of a more equal and equitable society, writes Aisha Abdulaziz.

“I can see how much your work has been influenced by the AFSEE Fellowship” one of my mentors, a political scientist, pointed out the other day. This came as a bit of a surprise to me because it was the first time someone who had seen my work evolve over the last three years was sharing their retrospective reflection with me. My mentor’s comment made me realise that while I thought I was only just beginning to unpack all the learnings from the past year, I had actually already become a champion of equality and equity.

Learning (as much as I could) about inequalities

I first applied to join the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (AFSEE) programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) because I wanted to gain an understanding of the topic of inequalities, through an all-rounded experience, which would include both academic work and learning from a community of practitioners. Looking at the profiles of Senior Fellows who had preceded me gave me confidence in the fellowship as a source of meaningful learning. At the same time, it made me acutely aware that I would be starting from a blank slate. As a non-residential Fellow working on infrastructure projects, the fellowship was my first foray into the field of knowledge in inequalities. I therefore set a modest goal for my fellowship year – to learn as much as I could, share the knowledge with others, and have fun doing both.

During the fellowship, I had the chance to participate in the four AFSEE modules, facilitated by readers, movers, thinkers, wanderers, and realists who shared their perspectives on the meaning of inequalities and the struggles of challenging inequalities. The modules were structured as a progressive journey linking the histories that underlie how we experience inequalities today and the policies and actions which propagate or challenge inequalities, to our individual and collective contributions to transformative change. We also had the opportunity to develop our communication skills including blogging and storytelling.

Making connections and hearing stories

Two of the modules were convened in-person at LSE in London and were an incredible opportunity to meet Fellows from all over the world and to learn about my peers’ motivations for joining the fellowship and their reflections on what it means to challenge inequalities in practice. The time that I spent outside of the structured modules, was deeply rewarding and equally - if not more - instructive than the structured aspects of the modules.

I had the honour to make friends who laughed through stories of their lived experiences - as students, children, grandchildren, parents, and partners - and poignantly reflected on the histories of inequalities that were under the surface of these stories. They were among others, stories about daring to be different, daring to be the same, overcoming pressure to conform, accepting the call to honour others, and being in doubt. It amplified for me that little acts of courage can change the world and change the way we see the world.

Hearing these stories made me understand and appreciate how their experiences, and my own, are shaped by inequalities. It made me realize that individuals who come from practitioner backgrounds are further ahead in their changemaker journeys than I originally thought, as they already have acquired organic knowledge and experiences of inequalities, which are not only useful but also invaluable.

Discovering my path as a changemaker

Being surrounded by stories and theories on challenging inequalities also seemed overwhelming in some ways. At times, I felt as if I had embarked on the fellowship as an individual without a space for contestation, something which seemed to be a hallmark of work on challenging inequalities. This sometimes made me wonder whether I was doing enough as a Fellow and question whether the depth of my interests in inequalities would measure up. However, as I participated in the modules and got to know other Fellows better, I began to understand that many of us were constantly reflecting on individual goals for the fellowship year and simultaneously trying to find a balance between that and the collective platform created by the fellowship.

Through this reflection, I realized that for me, among other things, the AFSEE Fellowship was a blank slate. I defined it as a chance to self-reflect and to figure out what my own version of challenging inequalities is (to be). That was one of the most difficult and fulfilling things about the fellowship. I wanted my success as a Fellow not to be measured against an ideal of actions, but rather by my own growth in fellowship with others.

In the end, I am inclined to believe that I accomplished my goals for the year, for whatever the affirmation of a political scientist is worth. My active fellowship year was a meaningful experience that is at the same time uniquely mine and also influenced by the wonderful people I met and their visions of a more equal and equitable society. I discovered my path within a collective of changemakers.

Applications for the 2023-24 fellowship are open from 10 October 2022 until 12 January 2023.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme, the International Inequalities Institute, or the London School of Economics and Political Science.