Threads and Frontiers: Weaving Identify and Governance in a Changing World.

Are you a Global Majority doctoral researcher looking to share your work, connect with others, and build your academic profile in a supportive space? Join us for the That’s Me! Research Exchange Seminar Series, hosted by Birmingham City University. launching online on 26 June 2025. This brand-new interdisciplinary series is designed specifically for Global Majority researchers, offering space to:

· Present your research to a global audience.

· Enhance your research profile.

Build community with fellow scholars. Whatever your career stage, this is a chance to be seen, heard, and supported. Attendance at the series is open to all students and staff at Birmingham City University (BCU), University of Wolverhampton (UoW), and external colleagues.

To kick-off our Research Exchange Seminar Series, we welcome two Global Majority post-doctoral researchers from the arts and humanities to share their research that connects themes of identity in physical and digital spaces.

The Fabric of Expression: Fashion, Materiality, and Identity in Hip-Hop Dance – Dr Kami Jones

This research explores how hip-hop dance performance operates through social, material, and spatial entanglements. Drawing on new materialism - a theoretical approach that emphasises the active role of matter in shaping the world and the interconnectedness of human and non-human elements - it highlights the dynamic role of clothing, bodies, spaces, and technologies as co-constitutive participants in performance. Ethnographic methods support a “follow the actors” approach - attending to both human and non-human participants - and foreground community-based knowledge and collective creation, revealing hip-hop as a complex, multi-sited network shaped by multiplicity and performative identity. Through the lens of fashion and costume, this work provides a situated account of how notions of “freshness” and embodiment produce diverse, shifting expressions of race, gender, and locality in contemporary hip-hop dance.

Navigating the Digital Frontier: AI Regulation and Media Governance in Africa – Dr Vincent Obia

This talk outlines the bulk of my research into social media (and platform) governance in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda and, more recently, AI regulation in countries like Mauritius, Egypt, and Rwanda. By so doing, it sheds light on the concepts underpinning the digital regulatory trajectory for social and other digital media across much of Africa, the strategies I have employed to gather and analyse data, the challenges I faced, and the opportunities I am articulating to mitigate these challenges going forward. All these connect to my current project, which investigates approaches to regulating general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) in Africa, using Nigeria, Egypt, and Rwanda as case studies. The project critically interrogates existing debates which tend to see AI regulatory frameworks in Africa as peripheral, while Global North perspectives are universalised. It will examine African views and strategies on AI governance to provide fresh insights, reshape our understanding, and challenge dominant Euro-American narratives. Using a mixed-method inquiry, it will carry out an in-depth analysis of African ideas around AI, and how they (re)shape and advance our understanding of prospects for effective global AI governance.

Want to get involved?

If you’d like to present at future seminars in the series, we’d love to hear from you! Whether you're exploring new ideas or refining your findings, this is a great opportunity to share your voice and connect with others. To get involved, please send a title and a 300-400 word abstract of your presentation to That’s Me! Post-doctoral Research Assistant Dr Sulayman Bah at Sulayman.bah@bcu.ac.uk. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis to build a programme that will run from May 2025.As part of the series, That’s Me! is also running a poster competition for Global Majority doctoral researchers. To get involved, create a poster that communicates an aspect of your doctoral research in your chosen format. It's a creative and impactful way to get your work noticed in BCU’s Research Hub, where your post will be displayed. A £100 shopping voucher will be awarded for the best poster. The deadline for digital submissions is 1 September 2025. Please send your submission to That’s Me! Project Manager, Amy McKenzie at amy.mckenzie@bcu.ac.uk. Poster printing costs for display in the Research Hub will be paid for by the That’s Me! project.

To find out more about the That’s Me! Project please visit: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/research/thats-me.