Which Schools and/or Institutes are you part of?

I'm part of the Schools of Social Sciences and Humanities.

What is your role within research?

I am a first-year PhD researcher at Keele. My research focuses on transnational youth activism for nuclear disarmament, and I am affiliated with the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences and the David Bruce Centre for the Study of the Americas. My role at this stage of the project involves reviewing the literature, exploring journals, attending training and events, and preparing my methodological plans before collecting data.

Once the writing session ends, I try to organize my citations and references, making sure to download or print any documents that I should read before the next writing session. After this, I respond to emails and catch up with tasks from my calendar. Most days, I try to keep myself updated with the news related to nuclear disarmament. I have signed up to newsletters from organisations like the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) or the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Reading the news can turn into a black hole absorbing time, so I try to limit myself when reading the news to perhaps some 30 minutes maximum a day. 

Lastly, some of my time is used in communications with people who have helped or could contribute to this project. This includes messages and calls with my supervisors, professors, colleagues, organisations, expert scholars, and more. Someone once told me that a successful PhD relies on the connections you make. For this reason, I try to connect with other researchers of all ages and backgrounds, formally and informally. My time could be split into four categories: creative (used in reading, writing, and editing), administrative (filling forms, applying for funding, replying to emails, and managing calendars), keeping up to date (catching up with news and events and seeking training opportunities), and networking (making and nurturing the necessary connections for the project to succeed).

What do you enjoy most about your role?

What I love about research is that it is a path of discovery. Doing my PhD enables me to gain skills, experiences, and knowledge, but it also challenges me to produce new insights and original contributions. This means that I need to search, organize, analyze, speculate, verify, compare, review, argue, criticise, synthesise, discuss, present, and do everything I can to make sure that my work is systematic and generalisable. Sometimes, doing a PhD can be daunting, and being a Latino student from Mexico comes with its own challenges. But I believe that some of the very difficulties that come with undertaking a PhD (e.g., the peer review process, crafting the dissertation, collecting and analysing data) really are what make it a meaningful endeavor. I look forward to the challenges that I will face, and discoveries that this journey will bring about during my time at Keele.

What is your background? How did first get involved in research?

My first participation in research occurred nine years ago, when I collaborated in the publication of the first Global Impunity Index (2015). At that time, I was an undergraduate student in Mexico and I worked 20 hours per week to cover part of my tuition fees. Today, I am deeply grateful that I was paired to work in this research project with the two professors who were leading its publication. 

After that, I have been more directly involved in research since my master's degree in Conflict Resolution at Lancaster University (UK) in 2020-2021. Here, I studied service providers assisting survivors of trafficking in persons. Then, I was awarded with a Fulbright Scholarship at the University of San Diego (USA), where I worked at the Cross Borders Initiative department at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice and as a Restorative Justice dialogue facilitator at the university.

Is your role at Keele your first involvement in research, or do you have previous experience in other roles?

My role at Keele is the first full-time and independent research project I have been involved in. Although my experience during my undergraduate prepared me with some research skills, and my master's degree involved a dissertation, this is the first time that I am dedicated full-time to managing a long-term research project of my own.

Please tell us about research projects you are involved with.

I am currently involved only in one research project, currently titled "Youth Organizing at the dawn of a Post-Hibakusha Nuclear Disarmament Movement". 

The project has two main goals: The first goal is to create an oral history record of interviews with transnational youth-based and youth-led activists/advocates who organise within the nuclear disarmament movement. “Youth activism” is a concept that has traditionally been undertheorised in the social movements’ literature—although recent scholarly work has paid attention to the intergenerational dynamics in them. The interviews produced by this project will be archived as audio files to compensate for the abundance of written records and serve as reference points for future research aimed at understanding how social movements are sustained intergenerationally. 

The second goal of this project is to engage with three specific literatures: social movements, transnational advocacy networks, and political participation of youth, hoping to contribute with theoretical insights grounded on the data from the oral history records mentioned above. For instance, how are youth being socialised into nuclear disarmament activism? Do concerns about transitioning to a post-survivor period matter? If so, how do youth activists and advocates understand their role in the transfer of memory and leadership within a decades-long movement? Why are some organisations making “youth” a central component of their identity? And how do youth-adult coalitions form within transnational advocacy networks? These are some of the questions that guide the formulation of this project, which focuses on how young people narrate and remember their activism while they are still young. 

Regarding the methods, participants will be sampled from a pool of organisations that partner with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the United Nations’ Youth Leader Fund for A World Without Nuclear Weapons (N=651). However, only those organisations that have the word “youth” in their name, or that explicitly identify as “youth-based” or “youth-led” in their mission/vision statements, will be included (N=26). Individuals who work in the included organisations will be invited to participate regardless of biological age to avoid biasing the sample into monocultural definitions of “youth” (given that age ranges vary significantly cross-culturally and organisationally). And given that adults and young adults often function as important allies to youth activists/advocates in these organisations. Therefore, by not restricting participation based on biological age, this project seeks to capture the phenomenon of “youth organising” more fully. 

The interviews will be transcribed and qualitatively analysed. I expect to conduct 20-25 interviews. Currently, the number of people with the ability to recollect memories concerning the use of nuclear weapons are aging and dwindling. These people include hibakusha (Japanese atomic bomb survivors), downwinders (nuclear weapon testing survivors), and World War 2 veterans. Given that the nuclear disarmament movement has long used their testimonies as an important element of their arguments for humanitarian nuclear abolition, this project is guided by the following inquiries: what will happen to their memories and leadership? How are younger generations of activists and advocates being included as the movement transitions into a post-survivor period? And, as we approach a time with no living memory of nuclear weapons’ use, what is the role of youth-based or youth-led organisations in this transition?

Can you tell us a bit about your role at Keele? What does a typical day look like for you?

I begin most days with a short run to catch a bit of sunlight and oxygen, which is followed by a light breakfast and a cup of coffee. This prepares me for the first task of the day: writing. For me, most typical days begin with one or two hours of writing that I try to allot - sometimes unsuccessfully - to each morning. During this time, I review and edit former notes, or put down new thoughts, emerging questions, and fresh ideas. Sometimes, I use this time to write application materials to access funding or other opportunities to grow in my career.