“Oppression Does Not Sit With Me” A Conversation on Truth, Justice & Community | Camille Nakhid MNZM

What emerges from conversations with Professor Camille Nakhid is not simply an academic perspective or critique of research systems. It is something much deeper — a story about identity, courage, truth-telling, and the quiet but unwavering refusal to betray who you are.

In a world increasingly shaped by systems that claim universality, Camille gently but firmly asks an important question: Universal according to whom?

For many of us who come from migrant, Indigenous, collectivist, or culturally diverse backgrounds, there is often an invisible tension that sits quietly beneath our everyday lives. We learn to move through institutions — education, healthcare, government, academia — where dominant frameworks are often treated as neutral, objective, or simply “the way things are.” Yet for many communities, these frameworks do not always feel familiar. They do not necessarily reflect how people build trust, gather wisdom, form relationships, or make meaning of their lives.

Camille’s work in Caribbean Research Methodologies emerged from precisely this discomfort. Not from rebellion for rebellion’s sake, nor from a desire to reject others, but from a deep recognition that Caribbean peoples have always possessed ways of knowing long before institutions decided what counted as legitimate knowledge. Storytelling, relationships, humour, spirituality, lived experiences, ancestors, reciprocity — these were never absent. They were simply not recognised in spaces shaped predominantly through Western traditions.

But what struck me most deeply was that Camille does not frame this work as resistance against Western systems. Instead, she frames it as affirmation.

There is a quiet but profound difference between constantly fighting against something and simply standing firmly in who you are.

Too often, conversations around decolonisation can become trapped in reaction — defining ourselves in opposition to dominant systems, forever justifying why existing approaches do not work for us. Camille offers another pathway: what if we stopped seeking permission? What if communities simply affirmed their own ways of learning, knowing, and being without needing external validation? What if we trusted that our stories, histories, and inherited wisdom already carried value?

This does not mean romanticising culture or pretending everything within our traditions is beyond critique. Camille is clear about this. Every culture, including our own, carries practices that deserve honest reflection — patriarchy, inequity, exclusion, or harm. But perhaps maturity lies in being willing to critically examine ourselves without abandoning ourselves in the process.

What stayed with me throughout our conversation was how deeply her values seemed rooted not only in theory but also in lived experience.

Camille spoke movingly about her mother — a nurse who rose to senior leadership in Trinidad, advocating for fathers to be present at births and for mothers to receive greater care. Though her mother once dreamed of becoming a doctor, life circumstances meant that path changed. Yet instead of seeing limitation, Camille witnessed dignity, service, and quiet strength embodied daily. More importantly, she grew up never believing she was less than anyone else.

Not better than others.

But never less than.

Perhaps this explains why oppression, in Camille’s words, “does not sit with me.”

Not because she consciously decided one day to become radical or confrontational, but because injustice simply feels fundamentally incompatible with how she understands the world. When her students jokingly asked, “When did you become radicalised?”, another student responded simply: She has always been like that. It’s in her nature.

There is something deeply important in that reflection.

Many people imagine courage as something loud, dramatic, or heroic. Yet listening to Camille, I found myself wondering whether courage is sometimes much quieter than that. Perhaps courage is simply refusing to betray yourself. Perhaps it is the willingness to speak when something feels wrong, even when institutions resist, when promotions become harder, or when people misunderstand your intentions.

Throughout her career, Camille challenged systems not because she sought conflict, but because she could not unknow what she had seen.

Teaching mathematics at Auckland Girls’ Grammar, she noticed Māori and Pacific students entering school with similar achievement levels to Pākehā students, yet over time, many began falling behind. The students, she realised, were not failing.

The system was failing them. Low expectations, assumptions, attitudes toward families, and structural inequities quietly shaped outcomes long before young people were ever blamed for not succeeding. Rather than accepting this reality, Camille shifted her path — moving into social sciences and education to influence future teachers and challenge inequities at their roots.

There is also something deeply refreshing in how Camille speaks about knowledge itself.

Why, she asks, must research always be serious, formal, and inaccessible? Why do we make knowledge feel elite when so much wisdom comes from people outside universities? After all, communities laugh, cry, joke, tell stories, and hold generations of lived understanding. Why should research not reflect this humanness too?

It reminded me of something many culturally diverse communities instinctively understand: relationships come before information. People rarely share deeply when approached in a transactional way. They speak when trust exists, when dignity is present, and when they feel seen as human beings rather than simply participants or data points.

Perhaps this is why Camille’s concept of affirming methodologies feels so powerful.

To affirm another person is not simply to agree with them. It is to honour their humanity, recognise their context, respect their ways of being, and engage with reciprocity rather than dominance. In affirming others, we also affirm ourselves. And perhaps that is the kind of relationship our increasingly fragmented world desperately needs more of.

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Camille for advice on speaking up against injustice.

Her answer was surprisingly simple:

Do not stand alone if you can avoid it. Find people who ground you, support you emotionally, and remind you that your voice matters. Because truth-telling can be lonely work, especially inside institutions. But community makes courage sustainable.

Perhaps that is ultimately what stayed with me most after speaking with Camille.

This conversation was never really about academia.

It was about remembering that who we are does not require permission.

That truth spoken with integrity still matters.

That communities carry knowledge long before institutions recognise it.

And that maybe the greatest form of resistance is not fighting endlessly for acceptance — but standing fully, honestly, and unapologetically in the truth of who we already are.

Full Podcast: “Oppression Does Not Sit With Me” A Conversation on Truth, Justice & Community | Camille Nakhid MNZM

4th Conference on Caribbean Research Methodologies 2027 https://www.caribbeanmethodology.org/

Affirming Methodologies: Research and Education in the Caribbean https://www.routledge.com/Affirming-Methodologies-Research-and-Education-in-the-Caribbean/Nakhid-Nakhid-Chatoor-Santana-Wilson-Scott/p/book/9781032053080