P&P Profile: Where are they now?
People & Planet has been around for over 35 years in one form or another. To celebrate this we will be profiling former members of P&P / Third World First groups or former staff members to see what they've been up to.
Name: Keith Hyams
Dr Keith Hyams BA, BPhil, DPhil (Oxford)
What are you doing now? How did you get there?
I am now a lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Exeter, teaching everything from human rights and global justice to the struggle for freedom in West Papua and climate change. I got there by doing a PhD in philosophy, and by writing journalistic pieces about various social struggles around the world that I visited during the summer vacations. (Shameless plug - if you’re thinking of staying at uni to do a masters then I’d definitely recommend our department, lots of people working on activism, justice, human rights, conflict, etc.
When were you involved in People & Planet?
I was involved with Third World First whilst I was an undergraduate at Oxford from 1996 to 1999.
What inspired you to start campaigning?
I spent a year teaching science in Guyana with Project Trust before I started at uni - that got me interested in the Global South but it was only when I started at university and joined Third World First that I began to realise how we in the North are involved in the mechanisms that create poverty in the South. I still clearly remember the first Third World First event that woke me up to what was going on in the world - a screening of John Pilger’s documentary about Burma.
Describe your most memorable P&P experience.
Being thrown out of Sainsbury’s by the bouncers for turning up in a DJ with a walking banana, a walking of grapes, and a shopping basket full of receipts, as part of the fair food code campaign. The co-op were much more welcoming, and even let us take a picture with their manager for the local press!
What do you think is the most pressing issue in the UK today?
Climate change without a doubt. The catastrophic effects of climate change particularly in the Global South will dwarf anything we have seen before. We need urgent action to reduce carbon emissions across society, and our campaigning tactics need to take this urgency on board.
With many commentators suggesting that apathy is rife amongst young people, what can be done to engage young people in the campaign for social justice?
Don’t guilt people into getting involved, excite them into getting involved - make activism fun, engaging and effective! I will always remember a line that Mike Woodin delivered in a keynote speech at a Shared Planet conference I went to - ‘We need to pollinate the minds of young people with our ideas before they grow up to be like their parents - but remember, group pollination is much more fun than self pollination!’
What was the last film you watched?/book you read?
- Last film: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (a Bollywood classic)
- Last Book: The Ventriloquist’s Tale by Pauline Melville, a novel set in the Guyanese savannahs
What are your ambitions for the future?
I’d like both to contribute to theoretical and policy debates about climate change and global justice, and to continue my involvement in activism. For me the two go hand in hand - we need to think out our ideas for a fairer, sustainable world, but we also need passionate activism to force those with power to listen to those ideas.
