Before taking a short break to finish up dissertation writing, the Can Your Hear Us team decided to tackle race in academia on their own – roundtable style. In the second of the two-part series, Madiera, Monica, Kiana, and Ana join in a Jada-Pickett-Smith-inspired “Red Table” discussion about the future of development practice, academia, and their paths post-LSE. From the importance of action-oriented research to the significance of female leadership, the team gets personal about their own experiences, thoughts, and questions for the post-COVID-19 era…and how development should change for it.

“Multidisciplinarity brings other kinds of perspectives that are scientific, and also identity and personal experience complement this perspective that can be more practical and is highly instrumental.” – Ana

“The many dimensions of who I am shaped my experience studying [International Development], which I’m sure was very different from somebody else. And I’m not just talking about being from a specific country, a middle-income country, but also being a woman and having a specific academic background…there are a lot of things that shape our experience and how we relate or think about development.”  – Ana

“I think it comes down to recognizing that there are many different routes and ways and definitions of what development means, but at the end of the day, everyone is trying to move towards a more peaceful, equitable and egalitarian world.” – Madiera

Can You Hear Us is a podcast by Monica Abad Yang, Madiera Dennison, Ana Carolina Muñoz-Morales and Kiana Shahbazi in partnership with the LSE’s first society dedicated to Women of Colour in Consulting (WoCo), created by the 2020/21 Cohort. Tune in every other week on Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and in no way reflect those of the International Development LSE blog or the London School of Economics and Political Science.