Hello and welcome to Pivot Points. This is the podcast about the pivotal moments that have shaped our academic,
professional and personal lives and some clear your head of communications at Wolfson
College and I'm all about creating ways for you to share your stories like this podcast.
This month's guest on pivot points is Theodore Baughman.
His a dphil candidate studying international development and is also Wilson's new chair of general meeting.
Taking over the reins from the wonderful Frederick Florence.
We're recording this in the first week of term and things are a little busy for him as he learns the ropes.
So I start by asking him how he's feeling in his new role.
So the first part, the part where I'm like the default scholar is I'm more used to this now.
I'm on my fourth year of studying. Where's the the other part?
The the chair of the gym is the role that I've just taken up this term.
So this has been my first week. I went to meetings and that has been like a very interesting experience.
But interesting in what way? In the way that I had to think about issues that had never crossed my mind in any way.
And I really felt that there's a lot of thought going into the administration and management of the college.
And so I think this was like the most surprising part for me and the most interesting aspect and then interesting also in,
in the sense which did not surprise me as much, but that it was that I really thought that it was like a very open atmosphere
and that I felt that that everyone could contribute something even like me,
as like a relative newcomer to this area.
I was able to like ask questions and give input.
And I felt that they were integrated into the process and then just like it was a good experience.
Yeah, well, that's great. I mean, that that's the Wolfson way. So I'm glad that that's your experience so far.
I'm wondering as well. So as chair of GM, of our current community now that's kind of, you know,
acting student president for any listeners who are not familiar with the term chair.
GM I'm wondering how that relates at all to your your first pivot point.
So your first pivot point was around your time at your boarding school and how you felt your sense of community there.
Did you hold any kind of student president position when you're in that community?
Oh, that's a that's a good question. So it definitely relates to that period of my life.
So in my school, I did not have to hold any position.
I was actually lice head boys, of course, but there was a different kind of responsibility.
So me being the chair of General relates to this experience in the school and so far that I that I really enjoyed the spirit of community.
And this is also the spirit that I that I enjoy adults and most.
And, and at my med school I really like I felt that it's important to take action and to so I
directed I led some some sports group organised like a philosophical weekend as it was called.
And so I took up these responsibilities also like since it was a boarding school,
there was like additional responsibilities in what would be like the, the flats or like the housing or the dormitories.
So I always had some, some leading roles there.
So I, I got a bit experienced in administration of communities in this sense, like from the students, but I would say the different perspective.
But I think the, the chair of the gym is like a slightly different role.
But it's definitely, definitely it's definitely connected because in both cases,
both Wolfson College and my my high school, actually, there's like this strong sense of community.
Yeah. Yeah, I feel very happy and very at home.
That's nice. And I'm wondering also so I guess because you went to a boarding school, I suppose you've been living away from home for a while now.
How does that feel here? WOLFSON To live away from where you grew up.
Yeah. So it has become the new normal for me anyway.
You're absolutely right. It's.
Yeah. So I moved to this boarding school when I was 13, I believe.
And then I was in the school from Monday to Friday and then would normally go home and okay, so like a weekday boarder and then home was close by.
The home was close. I mean it was like half an hour, it was relatively close.
But yeah, so there were students who come like they were like family students who came from Switzerland, for example.
Um, maybe on this note, on this note of my school,
I should also add that the type of boarding school is different from the type of British boarding schools,
and so far that the school was focussed on the state funded.
So this makes a big difference I believe in terms of conversation.
So mostly when I talk to, to, to people from, from the UK, they, there's a certain reputation for British for yes.
Boarding schools and I think in the US there's also a different from, from the UK.
But so it, it, it was like in particular boarding school in this sense I feel it's important to note because some people connect Oxford
with this British boarding school idea and I feel this is not necessarily true on the postgraduate level especially.
Um, so on the undergraduate level probably, but on the post grade level I have not really censored so much.
Mm. That's interesting. And you did your undergraduate study where in Moonstone, Germany.
Okay. And prior to coming to Oxford, you did two postgraduate degrees, right.
And one in work. One at King's College. King's College in London.
Exactly. And I'm also interested I think this comes onto your second pivot point.
So for your your two post-grad degrees, you were at the time studying economics or political economics.
Yeah. And you've since shifted into a more kind of anthropological subject area.
Can you talk me through that, that shift? Yeah, it was a very drastic shift.
Um, yeah, it's big change. Yeah. So as I did only political science and economics doing my bachelor's and then during the master's
and then the second master's degree was actually a master master of research plus B and C,
so it would have directly led to the right to funded.
It's deeper. And at that time I was very interested in game theory.
So this form of study, of strategic relations between people and I still, I'm still quite fascinated by this area.
Um, and it can give a lot of pleasure in analysing these formal settings, I would say.
Can you talk for anyone who's not familiar with game theory? Can you talk a little bit in more detail about that or in more detail?
I mean, kind of in detail, but also in layman's terms, for anyone who's not familiar with it, I'm I'm kind of curious.
Um. Yes. So the basic premise of game theory is that people act rationally and utility makes them amazing.
So. And then the question is if they're like two people or two states, for that matter,
two people who both want to maximise their own well-being, can they achieve results that are that are good for both of them all?
So I feel I'm doing a terrible. It's okay.
I mean, I'm I'm one of those people who don't know anything about boundaries.
So you're in a safe place. Safe. And also,
I think like a good I think the best way to describe it is like and by giving a so
like the nuclear arms race is like an example for like a game theoretic application.
They basically have two states in the formal setting.
None of these states really want to have a nuclear war, but both of them maximise only their own utility in a way.
And for both of them it is better to have more nuclear weapons than the other state.
So only like in this setting, this is my opinion. Yeah.
And so like then with game theoretic methods, you can analyse how states get more and more nuclear arms,
even though neither of the or none of the states actually wants to have a nuclear war, nuclear weapons for this matter.
So it's a huge waste of money and resources. But you can explain it in like economic terms or like personal terms if you wanted to use in game theory.
So I suppose you're studying that kind of thing on a more state level, and now what you're studying is on a kind of smaller,
more individual scale, talking about individual people rather than states.
This could be one difference. So game theory is also it's so like the arms race is like one of one of the examples.
It always happens on the individual level.
And I studied more like the very theoretical model that's very really does not matter whether it's a state or person.
So I think the main difference would be that game theory is very much based on like a set of assumptions.
And from these assumptions you generate knowledge. But anthropology now is a device, its data from the field setting your goal.
And so it's very much based on empirical data. And so this is the big difference.
And for me, this was also the big change. So I, I enjoyed solving these, these models and finding something out.
But it was, I felt that I did not really understand more about our world because in the end, it is just my,
my own assumption, all of the assumptions of the discipline, and then I can see what comes out of it.
Hmm. So was that partly your motivation for wanting to change subject area,
to study something that would in the end, give you a better understanding of the world?
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So this was my my main reasons why I enjoyed game theory or political theorising of political economy.
But I felt that it it was. I mean, I don't want to, like, know this for you.
Maybe it sounds like it was too intangible or something.
Yes, it was too abstract in the movie.
And I felt that I, I it it could not easily be applied to the world or if it or what I also observed is if people apply it,
then they would also often assume that it's something like a, like a prescription.
So so they say, oh, you should act professionally, you should act as a utility.
Maximising, which is not about think through is about.
I mean, you just tell you what happens if you do, but it doesn't tell you that you should act like this.
So it is often misinterpreted, I feel, and it's to me it's too often misinterpreted as so I don't want to like be in this subject
and find out something and then see how other people completely turn it upside down.
Yeah, that's interesting. I'm thinking for, you know, for any listeners who have maybe gone a certain a certain way down,
you know, one academic discipline and then they at some point decide to shift.
I suppose people need to know that that is possible. First of all, I think some people probably feel pigeonholed into a certain discipline.
Did it feel difficult for you to make a shift? It did add some.
So in Germany, for example, we would not have been possible to to shift in this manner.
If you don't have a bachelor's in social enterprises, you'll be able to do with, with and social anthropology.
So I was quite happy to have this opportunity because of course not.
Now we focus a lot on on the not negative aspects, but I like on my motivation, on the push factors.
But of course there was also that huge pullback delay. I wanted to join anthropology as a discipline and by and large,
like at the Department of International Development, became pretty much doing a study with ethnographic methods.
Yes, I definitely it is definitely possible to to shift and.
I yeah, I struggled a bit at the beginning because, again, you're like a newcomer.
You have to read all the all the book that's most I'm the gratitude and apologies are
apologies I completely familiar with like Levi's trolls or Malinowski and for me,
these are still empty names in the movie. So I heard about them, but I've never really critically engaged with it.
And I would say that this sort of I'm in uncertainty or like, um, yeah, so I'm still a bit in comfort.
Like, I still like a bit of confidence when it comes to anthropology.
So I'm, I'm, I'm firm in my, my area of research, I would say.
So when it comes to Amazonian anthropology, I, I'm not afraid of like making major errors.
But when I would shift, for example, like from the Amazonian context to another context,
see Melanesia, which is also like a big study area for anthropologists.
Then I, I basically like a lot of knowledge that would be required otherwise.
Um, but yeah, I'm equally confident that I'd be able to, I read into this, this new area and, and would fairly or fairly rapidly make advancement.
Yeah, of course. And speaking of Amazonian context, so you said you're in your second pivot point that, um,
having the opportunity to do fieldwork in Peru, in the Peruvian Amazon was a kind of pivotal moment in your life.
Can you explain to me why? Almost like a very intense experience.
Intense in what way? So, first of all, it was the longest period that I was completely abroad gonna come from home.
So here I was.
I did an internship before doing the fieldwork, but in total I stayed for one and a half years and in Peru and then in that very rainforest.
And that was just like a very long period of time. Just this an end in itself would be very, very intense.
And then it was the, um, the immersion, a very different lifestyle.
So I lived in a, in a village which was like 6 hours from the, from the major city or like in another village, which was 10 to 20 hours away.
So these villages would only be reachable by boat normally.
So they and everything we walked around the river.
So you would take your bath in the river, you would brush your teeth in the river, and if you wanted to visit friends, you would be hopping to a boat.
And then they go upstream or downstream. And where where were you living like?
What kind of house or shelter were you living in? Well, I was I was very lucky in this regard.
I suppose that people would like to buy company in their homes.
So it was amazing. There was like one of the points where I was a bit timid at first because I thought,
what if someone came to my house and asked, Oh, can I sleep in your living room?
I'm sure you can keep it like two or three nights or I'm going to want to be.
And then they answered, Well, just like seven or eight months, I would probably be like, okay, we should talk about this interview first.
Yeah. So like were so the families, they arrived, they were very open.
They were like, sure, no problem. Yeah. Take a corner in the living room.
Amazing. Put your mosquito net up and and then you're then you said so and, and so they, they really integrated me into the into their lives.
And I was very thankful for this. Yeah. Um, what do you think you learned from I mean, I'm sure you learned many things from living there.
What's the gift giving the top thing that you learned? The top thing.
If you had to choose. That is. Yeah, that is difficult.
Yeah. I think that it is mainly.
A more relaxed approach to life that I that I learned so.
Maybe. I mean, there's this prejudice against Germans that Germans always want to be on time.
They have they to play the high value on on punctuality.
And I was there months before going into the field.
Yeah, well, nowadays I'm. Yeah, I basically never learn.
Well, if you're 5 minutes late, it's not that big of a deal.
And so, like, then this is not only true about punctuality, but it's true for many situations in life.
I would have previously thought, Oh, well, this is really important.
You need to, like, fix that. We need to settle it.
Why? I've I've learned in from living with the friends and family and through that, um,
yeah, sometimes you can just accept the things as they are and they turn out alright.
And, and how do you, what's your experience of integrating that value into your life here in Oxford?
Well it was a bit difficult at first, but overall I think it worked.
It worked well. Yeah. Yeah. I think another thing which was a bit more difficult to integrate, which is that when I left.
Schadenfreude was not looked down upon.
So like if something bad happened to a person, everyone was assumed to laugh, including that.
So let's say you're a you and you're hammock and then all of a sudden, like the rope.
Ribs and you just fall down and in here.
I mean, that doesn't happen too often because they're not remaining. You're not going to have a good day.
Yes. But if it happened here, very people would be would care.
That would be all I heard or something. And when I was in Peru, the people would mainly laugh.
And if the person who was in the hammock to begin with did not love, then this person would be laughed at even more normally.
Of course, if there was blood or something, if there was something really serious, then even then they take it seriously.
Then they would always take it too. But like so this was the first instinct.
Well, always to laugh, even in a small church and with just like days of waiting for me, if there was a like,
let's say a two year old just barely managed to walk and then fall, just like trips over and falls and tries.
Like my instinct would be to just do that and to help people.
That would be that just get up and they laugh it off. That's very interesting.
Yeah, very resilient. They are quite resilient. And they take yeah, they yeah.
They have a different approach. And when they came back like this was just like when something bad happened like this, like loss of my first instinct,
they get off and of course this was not as as appreciated yet then you find it's not appropriate and it remains that way.
So I should not do that. They should be more serious about about certain things, especially so if something bad happens to me,
I can still laugh it off if something bad happens to another person.
I yeah. I mean, I got back to my life. So it's like you can tap into the right mind frame depending on the context.
Yes, I would say so. Like I've done this, but it was a learning period.
Yeah, no, I can imagine. I'm wondering then also how so you spent.
What did you say? A year? A year and a half. It's about living.
Living in a rainforest. And now all scenarios are involved in the green team.
I'm wondering a little bit how that experience also shaped your sense of care for the natural world,
or did you have a feeling of that before, or was that something that has come to later in your life?
So I would say that I've always been interested in the in the environment, like for my for my upbringing, I think.
And this has probably translated into some more activism, starting with.
I don't know if it was adult, maybe like with 18, 19 years old and they know then all this like I think the topics for my book in
political science and economics relates to like environmental topics in my mind,
politics and economics to get a better understanding of how we can live more sustainable.
And also. Yeah, and it wasn't I was all involved in these issues before going to the field.
Now, whether the how the field has impacted my understanding or my ideas of environmental ethics is a bit difficult to save.
Um, because the context is, in my understanding, quite different.
So, um, in the way available in the field, the setting was very much one of what would often be called a subsistence economy.
Um, so you would have to hunt and you would have to fish in order to, to eat.
And that's also what I've been doing. So I can still remember trying to go into the field.
I would not have wanted to. I did not even like killing the flies on the walls, so to say.
And then in the field I had, um. Yeah.
I mean, it was, let's say let's a bit trim. I mean, basically you had to like, I also like learn how to kill animals in the field,
which was something that I would not have done and tried to go into bu and would end it or something that I would not do.
Yeah. And um, but in this particular context, I felt it was the right thing to do.
And so this has kind of changed my attitude to, um, to the, to our non-human environment in the sense, I suppose that it's.
That. And I'm trying to conceptualise the environment as something that we can really like to live with together rather than having like only this.
This attitude of or that we have to like the nature is something sacred and that you should not touch it whatsoever.
But that I now trying to like find ways how we can actually, like, live well together with the non-human environment.
That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it goes back to the conversation we're having about context, right?
Like certain ways of behaving in your natural environment are appropriate in one context and not appropriate in another context.
Absolutely. Yeah. And the issue of food, for example, is is one one examines.
And it's about choice, right. In terms of all the choices. So in the foods, it it is positive.
I heard people can do it that they they live as vegetarian.
But A, it doesn't really help with building the pot.
If if you're the only one, you are already the outsider as an anthropologist, normally at least at the beginning.
And then you're the only one who does not eat meat or fish, and it can easily get like this taste of that.
You look down upon the people that they that they offer you.
Hmm. So I. Yeah, if you take every anthropologist has to decide this on his or her own in the end.
Yeah, but I opted for eating fish and meat in that he had said.
And now here that I'm back in in in job of a vegan Oxford.
I live as a, as a vegetarian as I used to, to live before.
Yeah. So yeah, it's very much this context. Yeah.
It's context and choice. Like here it's easy to be vegetarian and it's not looked down upon and you don't kind of,
you like separate yourself from your social community if you make that choice.
And it's just completely different. Yes. And it's actually yeah.
But again, this is getting better.
But I think this was the first week that I that I saw like that they had like the vegetable and and the vegan option.
Yeah. Um, I think. I think that's great. Yeah.
To see this progress. Yeah, that's great. Um, so you have been involved in the green team throughout this year, right?
Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think it's.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would say that I've been more involved in my first year with the green team.
Um, let me think. How, how have you found your experience with the Green Team?
Wilson. Although I really loved it.
I mean, yeah, in general, like with, not only with the green team, but with Wilson,
I feel that there's a lot of momentum right now where we can that that we can use tool to push sustainable policies and ideas, too.
So it's a very welcoming atmosphere, a very fertile soil to speak.
So in the green team, I feel they have people have great ideas and if you have the right idea, you can normally implemented as well.
Yeah. Um, so, but now that they've, they've, I think this year I think the flagship projects have been like The Pelham Post,
um, for example, which is did you change your address?
I did not think so, but this had more to do with it.
I'm living offside right now. I never wanted anything. Your excuse.
That's why it was. I was thinking of ordering something just for it.
Just to try the pattern pulls. No, I mean, this. This is also the thing I've asked some people, oh, did you change your address?
And some people's answer is no, because I'm not ordering anything.
And that's actually the better response. Exactly.
Yeah. So so this is what happens with me. I generally try to reduce exactly all I think so that I'm receiving.
Yeah. Because I think in when it comes to environment the behaviour reduction comes first.
Yeah. And then we can, we can see better if you really need product then we can see whether we can
produce them more sustainably over in order them in a more sustainable manner.
Yeah. For me like the reduction part is, is first. Yeah. Yeah.
That's good. Yeah. What? I'm curious that in your because you, you really have only just taken over this role of chair of GM.
How do you how do you see yourself?
Kind of helping our whole community shift towards this reduction in the emissions that we have left over.
So obviously we've completed this incredible project of electrifying the buildings.
And then collectively, the remaining challenge that we have for however many years to come forever is about reducing those scope.
Three emissions that are all tied up in our behaviour, our supply chains, the way we eat, the way we travel.
Do you have any thoughts around how, first of all, whether you want to kind of help shift things and in your role of charity and if so, how?
It's a huge challenge, right? It is, absolutely. And I don't mean to kind of ask you to come up with the golden answer.
I don't think there is a golden answer, but it's it's things that we have to talk about all the time.
Absolutely. And I'm I'm good at the things or I, I believe this is not something that that can be done, I guess,
as a chair or even like as a as like the governing body,
it is something that every member of the college community has to engage with and and be active.
And I'm going to be thinking about ways how to how to encourage people to actually use
their opportunities here at this college or to bring forward ideas and to implement them.
Because this is what I personally find and great about the college.
And I feel if we can persuade the students or the fellows alike to to really have like ideas, like a lecture series,
like more on the academic part or like in an arts competition on the arts about or about ideas,
very pragmatic issues to say, okay, this is what we're going to do with our fundraiser,
this is how we want to eat or how often we want to invest in food.
And I feel this is like is very much. Yeah.
These, these ideas should really be developed on the on the ground level.
Like, as, like Crestwood initiatives. And I think in, in, in most encouraging particularly like in the in prime position to like push.
Absolutely. Yeah. I think I mean my that sounds very aligned with my experience of Alstom as well.
I think it's funny because it's it's a college that's part of such a historic institution.
But at the same time, the college itself to me feels very much like a Start-Up.
It's like if you have an idea and you run with it, you can test it,
you can see how it goes, and then you can iterate afterwards and it's okay to try things.
Maybe it goes well, maybe it doesn't go well, but you learn something from it and you try something else next time.
It really has that feeling. Absolutely. And I wonder maybe whether there's something to do with these philosophical ideas of of the founding president
of Berlin is that there was this idea that you can really that you're very open to new ideas and inputs.
Yeah. That you're not just like saying that you're open, but in fact you're like very traditional, very conservative.
But yeah, in this country, I feel the best view, this openness. Yeah.
And. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. There really does feel like that.
Is there is there anything in particular that you want to focus on in your next year?
With regards to in general, you mean? Well, there's two parts to that question, actually.
One is in your in your new role as chair of GM.
And second, I'll come to the second one afterwards. Answer that one first.
Okay. So I think my my top priority as a chair of GM will be to to help and recreate
this community spirit that that that has gone down a bit with the pandemic.
So when I came here to three pre-pandemic times, there was like it was a very close knit community, very much.
I still remember that I talked a lot with the fellows as well and other students, and I and I very enjoyed that atmosphere and I still did enjoy this.
But but I think that it has gone down a bit with with COVID because a lot of institutional memory has been lost.
Yeah. I mean, when it comes to like the organi, I mean the organisation of the ball, for example, all of.
So all these things had to be rediscovered in a way.
And sometimes they were like people who had like a lot of information that had gone in the meantime.
And there was like the B.S., this hiatus of this gap of one half years or two years of the pandemic.
Yeah.
And and this would be my priority to, like, really try and seek ways how to involve the whole community so that not only talking about the students,
but also about the fellows and about the connections between students and fellows and also staff.
And so how to, like reconnect and rebuild this, this community.
And I think that the previous chair of GM has done a great job in like pushing into the right doing.
Yeah, I've heard. It's been great. Yes. And I'm I'm planning on just following his his his route in this sense.
Yeah. Um, and yeah. And then the, my, my second part is that question is more along the lines of academically, where do you see yourself going next?
So how much longer do you have in your do feel? So I think that I will have one and a half years more.
So I plan on finishing my dissertation somewhat next year.
Okay. And do you have any idea of what you're thinking of after that, or is that way too far away to talk about?
It is. So I plan on staying in academia, but I'm not yet sure where.
Okay. So it could be anthropology if possible.
So it very much depends on how my how my research also develops and what types of people I can I can publish.
Yeah. So, yeah, I can manage like anthology or international development in this area.
But you see yourself staying in academia long term, if possible.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So watch the space.
Yes. Great. Well, thank you so much, Theodore.
Oh, thank you very much for the invite. Of course. Great to speak.
Thank you. Thank you.