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Hello and welcome to Pivot Points. This is the podcast about the pivotal moments that have shaped our academic,

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professional and personal lives and some clear your head of communications at Wolfson

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College and I'm all about creating ways for you to share your stories like this podcast.

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This month's guest on pivot points is Theodore Baughman.

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His a dphil candidate studying international development and is also Wilson's new chair of general meeting.

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Taking over the reins from the wonderful Frederick Florence.

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We're recording this in the first week of term and things are a little busy for him as he learns the ropes.

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So I start by asking him how he's feeling in his new role.

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So the first part, the part where I'm like the default scholar is I'm more used to this now.

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I'm on my fourth year of studying. Where's the the other part?

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The the chair of the gym is the role that I've just taken up this term.

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So this has been my first week. I went to meetings and that has been like a very interesting experience.

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But interesting in what way? In the way that I had to think about issues that had never crossed my mind in any way.

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And I really felt that there's a lot of thought going into the administration and management of the college.

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And so I think this was like the most surprising part for me and the most interesting aspect and then interesting also in,

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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

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and that I felt that that everyone could contribute something even like me,

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as like a relative newcomer to this area.

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I was able to like ask questions and give input.

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And I felt that they were integrated into the process and then just like it was a good experience.

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Yeah, well, that's great. I mean, that that's the Wolfson way. So I'm glad that that's your experience so far.

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I'm wondering as well. So as chair of GM, of our current community now that's kind of, you know,

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acting student president for any listeners who are not familiar with the term chair.

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GM I'm wondering how that relates at all to your your first pivot point.

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So your first pivot point was around your time at your boarding school and how you felt your sense of community there.

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Did you hold any kind of student president position when you're in that community?

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Oh, that's a that's a good question. So it definitely relates to that period of my life.

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So in my school, I did not have to hold any position.

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I was actually lice head boys, of course, but there was a different kind of responsibility.

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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.

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And this is also the spirit that I that I enjoy adults and most.

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And, and at my med school I really like I felt that it's important to take action and to so I

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directed I led some some sports group organised like a philosophical weekend as it was called.

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And so I took up these responsibilities also like since it was a boarding school,

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there was like additional responsibilities in what would be like the, the flats or like the housing or the dormitories.

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So I always had some, some leading roles there.

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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.

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But I think the, the chair of the gym is like a slightly different role.

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But it's definitely, definitely it's definitely connected because in both cases,

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both Wolfson College and my my high school, actually, there's like this strong sense of community.

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Yeah. Yeah, I feel very happy and very at home.

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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.

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How does that feel here? WOLFSON To live away from where you grew up.

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Yeah. So it has become the new normal for me anyway.

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You're absolutely right. It's.

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Yeah. So I moved to this boarding school when I was 13, I believe.

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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.

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The home was close. I mean it was like half an hour, it was relatively close.

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But yeah, so there were students who come like they were like family students who came from Switzerland, for example.

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Um, maybe on this note, on this note of my school,

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I should also add that the type of boarding school is different from the type of British boarding schools,

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and so far that the school was focussed on the state funded.

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So this makes a big difference I believe in terms of conversation.

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So mostly when I talk to, to, to people from, from the UK, they, there's a certain reputation for British for yes.

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Boarding schools and I think in the US there's also a different from, from the UK.

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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

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with this British boarding school idea and I feel this is not necessarily true on the postgraduate level especially.

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Um, so on the undergraduate level probably, but on the post grade level I have not really censored so much.

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Mm. That's interesting. And you did your undergraduate study where in Moonstone, Germany.

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Okay. And prior to coming to Oxford, you did two postgraduate degrees, right.

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And one in work. One at King's College. King's College in London.

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Exactly. And I'm also interested I think this comes onto your second pivot point.

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So for your your two post-grad degrees, you were at the time studying economics or political economics.

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Yeah. And you've since shifted into a more kind of anthropological subject area.

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Can you talk me through that, that shift? Yeah, it was a very drastic shift.

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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

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and then the second master's degree was actually a master master of research plus B and C,

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so it would have directly led to the right to funded.

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It's deeper. And at that time I was very interested in game theory.

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So this form of study, of strategic relations between people and I still, I'm still quite fascinated by this area.

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Um, and it can give a lot of pleasure in analysing these formal settings, I would say.

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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?

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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.

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Um. Yes. So the basic premise of game theory is that people act rationally and utility makes them amazing.

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So. And then the question is if they're like two people or two states, for that matter,

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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?

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So I feel I'm doing a terrible. It's okay.

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I mean, I'm I'm one of those people who don't know anything about boundaries.

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So you're in a safe place. Safe. And also,

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I think like a good I think the best way to describe it is like and by giving a so

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like the nuclear arms race is like an example for like a game theoretic application.

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They basically have two states in the formal setting.

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None of these states really want to have a nuclear war, but both of them maximise only their own utility in a way.

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And for both of them it is better to have more nuclear weapons than the other state.

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So only like in this setting, this is my opinion. Yeah.

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And so like then with game theoretic methods, you can analyse how states get more and more nuclear arms,

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even though neither of the or none of the states actually wants to have a nuclear war, nuclear weapons for this matter.

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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.

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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,

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more individual scale, talking about individual people rather than states.

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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.

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It always happens on the individual level.

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And I studied more like the very theoretical model that's very really does not matter whether it's a state or person.

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So I think the main difference would be that game theory is very much based on like a set of assumptions.

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And from these assumptions you generate knowledge. But anthropology now is a device, its data from the field setting your goal.

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And so it's very much based on empirical data. And so this is the big difference.

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And for me, this was also the big change. So I, I enjoyed solving these, these models and finding something out.

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But it was, I felt that I did not really understand more about our world because in the end, it is just my,

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my own assumption, all of the assumptions of the discipline, and then I can see what comes out of it.

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Hmm. So was that partly your motivation for wanting to change subject area,

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to study something that would in the end, give you a better understanding of the world?

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Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So this was my my main reasons why I enjoyed game theory or political theorising of political economy.

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But I felt that it it was. I mean, I don't want to, like, know this for you.

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Maybe it sounds like it was too intangible or something.

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Yes, it was too abstract in the movie.

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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,

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then they would also often assume that it's something like a, like a prescription.

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So so they say, oh, you should act professionally, you should act as a utility.

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Maximising, which is not about think through is about.

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I mean, you just tell you what happens if you do, but it doesn't tell you that you should act like this.

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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

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and find out something and then see how other people completely turn it upside down.

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Yeah, that's interesting. I'm thinking for, you know, for any listeners who have maybe gone a certain a certain way down,

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you know, one academic discipline and then they at some point decide to shift.

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I suppose people need to know that that is possible. First of all, I think some people probably feel pigeonholed into a certain discipline.

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Did it feel difficult for you to make a shift? It did add some.

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So in Germany, for example, we would not have been possible to to shift in this manner.

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If you don't have a bachelor's in social enterprises, you'll be able to do with, with and social anthropology.

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So I was quite happy to have this opportunity because of course not.

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Now we focus a lot on on the not negative aspects, but I like on my motivation, on the push factors.

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But of course there was also that huge pullback delay. I wanted to join anthropology as a discipline and by and large,

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like at the Department of International Development, became pretty much doing a study with ethnographic methods.

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Yes, I definitely it is definitely possible to to shift and.

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I yeah, I struggled a bit at the beginning because, again, you're like a newcomer.

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You have to read all the all the book that's most I'm the gratitude and apologies are

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apologies I completely familiar with like Levi's trolls or Malinowski and for me,

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these are still empty names in the movie. So I heard about them, but I've never really critically engaged with it.

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And I would say that this sort of I'm in uncertainty or like, um, yeah, so I'm still a bit in comfort.

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Like, I still like a bit of confidence when it comes to anthropology.

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So I'm, I'm, I'm firm in my, my area of research, I would say.

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So when it comes to Amazonian anthropology, I, I'm not afraid of like making major errors.

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But when I would shift, for example, like from the Amazonian context to another context,

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see Melanesia, which is also like a big study area for anthropologists.

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Then I, I basically like a lot of knowledge that would be required otherwise.

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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.

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Yeah, of course. And speaking of Amazonian context, so you said you're in your second pivot point that, um,

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having the opportunity to do fieldwork in Peru, in the Peruvian Amazon was a kind of pivotal moment in your life.

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Can you explain to me why? Almost like a very intense experience.

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Intense in what way? So, first of all, it was the longest period that I was completely abroad gonna come from home.

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So here I was.

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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.

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And that was just like a very long period of time. Just this an end in itself would be very, very intense.

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And then it was the, um, the immersion, a very different lifestyle.

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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.

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So these villages would only be reachable by boat normally.

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So they and everything we walked around the river.

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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.

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And then they go upstream or downstream. And where where were you living like?

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What kind of house or shelter were you living in? Well, I was I was very lucky in this regard.

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I suppose that people would like to buy company in their homes.

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So it was amazing. There was like one of the points where I was a bit timid at first because I thought,

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what if someone came to my house and asked, Oh, can I sleep in your living room?

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I'm sure you can keep it like two or three nights or I'm going to want to be.

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And then they answered, Well, just like seven or eight months, I would probably be like, okay, we should talk about this interview first.

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Yeah. So like were so the families, they arrived, they were very open.

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They were like, sure, no problem. Yeah. Take a corner in the living room.

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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.

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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.

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What's the gift giving the top thing that you learned? The top thing.

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If you had to choose. That is. Yeah, that is difficult.

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Yeah. I think that it is mainly.

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A more relaxed approach to life that I that I learned so.

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Maybe. I mean, there's this prejudice against Germans that Germans always want to be on time.

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They have they to play the high value on on punctuality.

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And I was there months before going into the field.

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Yeah, well, nowadays I'm. Yeah, I basically never learn.

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Well, if you're 5 minutes late, it's not that big of a deal.

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And so, like, then this is not only true about punctuality, but it's true for many situations in life.

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I would have previously thought, Oh, well, this is really important.

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You need to, like, fix that. We need to settle it.

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Why? I've I've learned in from living with the friends and family and through that, um,

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yeah, sometimes you can just accept the things as they are and they turn out alright.

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And, and how do you, what's your experience of integrating that value into your life here in Oxford?

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Well it was a bit difficult at first, but overall I think it worked.

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It worked well. Yeah. Yeah. I think another thing which was a bit more difficult to integrate, which is that when I left.

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Schadenfreude was not looked down upon.

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So like if something bad happened to a person, everyone was assumed to laugh, including that.

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So let's say you're a you and you're hammock and then all of a sudden, like the rope.

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Ribs and you just fall down and in here.

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I mean, that doesn't happen too often because they're not remaining. You're not going to have a good day.

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Yes. But if it happened here, very people would be would care.

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That would be all I heard or something. And when I was in Peru, the people would mainly laugh.

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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.

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Of course, if there was blood or something, if there was something really serious, then even then they take it seriously.

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Then they would always take it too. But like so this was the first instinct.

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Well, always to laugh, even in a small church and with just like days of waiting for me, if there was a like,

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let's say a two year old just barely managed to walk and then fall, just like trips over and falls and tries.

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Like my instinct would be to just do that and to help people.

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That would be that just get up and they laugh it off. That's very interesting.

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Yeah, very resilient. They are quite resilient. And they take yeah, they yeah.

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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,

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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.

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So I should not do that. They should be more serious about about certain things, especially so if something bad happens to me,

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I can still laugh it off if something bad happens to another person.

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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.

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Yes, I would say so. Like I've done this, but it was a learning period.

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Yeah, no, I can imagine. I'm wondering then also how so you spent.

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What did you say? A year? A year and a half. It's about living.

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Living in a rainforest. And now all scenarios are involved in the green team.

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I'm wondering a little bit how that experience also shaped your sense of care for the natural world,

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or did you have a feeling of that before, or was that something that has come to later in your life?

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So I would say that I've always been interested in the in the environment, like for my for my upbringing, I think.

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And this has probably translated into some more activism, starting with.

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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

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political science and economics relates to like environmental topics in my mind,

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politics and economics to get a better understanding of how we can live more sustainable.

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And also. Yeah, and it wasn't I was all involved in these issues before going to the field.

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Now, whether the how the field has impacted my understanding or my ideas of environmental ethics is a bit difficult to save.

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Um, because the context is, in my understanding, quite different.

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So, um, in the way available in the field, the setting was very much one of what would often be called a subsistence economy.

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Um, so you would have to hunt and you would have to fish in order to, to eat.

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And that's also what I've been doing. So I can still remember trying to go into the field.

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I would not have wanted to. I did not even like killing the flies on the walls, so to say.

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And then in the field I had, um. Yeah.

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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,

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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.

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Yeah. And um, but in this particular context, I felt it was the right thing to do.

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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.

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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.

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This attitude of or that we have to like the nature is something sacred and that you should not touch it whatsoever.

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But that I now trying to like find ways how we can actually, like, live well together with the non-human environment.

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That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it goes back to the conversation we're having about context, right?

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Like certain ways of behaving in your natural environment are appropriate in one context and not appropriate in another context.

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Absolutely. Yeah. And the issue of food, for example, is is one one examines.

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And it's about choice, right. In terms of all the choices. So in the foods, it it is positive.

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I heard people can do it that they they live as vegetarian.

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But A, it doesn't really help with building the pot.

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If if you're the only one, you are already the outsider as an anthropologist, normally at least at the beginning.

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And then you're the only one who does not eat meat or fish, and it can easily get like this taste of that.

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You look down upon the people that they that they offer you.

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Hmm. So I. Yeah, if you take every anthropologist has to decide this on his or her own in the end.

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Yeah, but I opted for eating fish and meat in that he had said.

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And now here that I'm back in in in job of a vegan Oxford.

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I live as a, as a vegetarian as I used to, to live before.

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Yeah. So yeah, it's very much this context. Yeah.

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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,

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you like separate yourself from your social community if you make that choice.

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And it's just completely different. Yes. And it's actually yeah.

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But again, this is getting better.

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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.

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Yeah. Um, I think. I think that's great. Yeah.

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To see this progress. Yeah, that's great. Um, so you have been involved in the green team throughout this year, right?

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Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think it's.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would say that I've been more involved in my first year with the green team.

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Um, let me think. How, how have you found your experience with the Green Team?

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Wilson. Although I really loved it.

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I mean, yeah, in general, like with, not only with the green team, but with Wilson,

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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.

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So it's a very welcoming atmosphere, a very fertile soil to speak.

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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.

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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,

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um, for example, which is did you change your address?

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I did not think so, but this had more to do with it.

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I'm living offside right now. I never wanted anything. Your excuse.

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That's why it was. I was thinking of ordering something just for it.

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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?

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And some people's answer is no, because I'm not ordering anything.

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And that's actually the better response. Exactly.

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Yeah. So so this is what happens with me. I generally try to reduce exactly all I think so that I'm receiving.

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Yeah. Because I think in when it comes to environment the behaviour reduction comes first.

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Yeah. And then we can, we can see better if you really need product then we can see whether we can

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produce them more sustainably over in order them in a more sustainable manner.

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Yeah. For me like the reduction part is, is first. Yeah. Yeah.

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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.

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How do you how do you see yourself?

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Kind of helping our whole community shift towards this reduction in the emissions that we have left over.

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So obviously we've completed this incredible project of electrifying the buildings.

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And then collectively, the remaining challenge that we have for however many years to come forever is about reducing those scope.

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Three emissions that are all tied up in our behaviour, our supply chains, the way we eat, the way we travel.

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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?

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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.

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I don't think there is a golden answer, but it's it's things that we have to talk about all the time.

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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,

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as a chair or even like as a as like the governing body,

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it is something that every member of the college community has to engage with and and be active.

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And I'm going to be thinking about ways how to how to encourage people to actually use

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their opportunities here at this college or to bring forward ideas and to implement them.

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Because this is what I personally find and great about the college.

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And I feel if we can persuade the students or the fellows alike to to really have like ideas, like a lecture series,

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like more on the academic part or like in an arts competition on the arts about or about ideas,

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very pragmatic issues to say, okay, this is what we're going to do with our fundraiser,

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this is how we want to eat or how often we want to invest in food.

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And I feel this is like is very much. Yeah.

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These, these ideas should really be developed on the on the ground level.

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Like, as, like Crestwood initiatives. And I think in, in, in most encouraging particularly like in the in prime position to like push.

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Absolutely. Yeah. I think I mean my that sounds very aligned with my experience of Alstom as well.

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I think it's funny because it's it's a college that's part of such a historic institution.

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But at the same time, the college itself to me feels very much like a Start-Up.

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It's like if you have an idea and you run with it, you can test it,

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you can see how it goes, and then you can iterate afterwards and it's okay to try things.

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Maybe it goes well, maybe it doesn't go well, but you learn something from it and you try something else next time.

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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

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of Berlin is that there was this idea that you can really that you're very open to new ideas and inputs.

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Yeah. That you're not just like saying that you're open, but in fact you're like very traditional, very conservative.

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But yeah, in this country, I feel the best view, this openness. Yeah.

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And. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. There really does feel like that.

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Is there is there anything in particular that you want to focus on in your next year?

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With regards to in general, you mean? Well, there's two parts to that question, actually.

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One is in your in your new role as chair of GM.

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And second, I'll come to the second one afterwards. Answer that one first.

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Okay. So I think my my top priority as a chair of GM will be to to help and recreate

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this community spirit that that that has gone down a bit with the pandemic.

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So when I came here to three pre-pandemic times, there was like it was a very close knit community, very much.

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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.

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But but I think that it has gone down a bit with with COVID because a lot of institutional memory has been lost.

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Yeah. I mean, when it comes to like the organi, I mean the organisation of the ball, for example, all of.

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So all these things had to be rediscovered in a way.

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And sometimes they were like people who had like a lot of information that had gone in the meantime.

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And there was like the B.S., this hiatus of this gap of one half years or two years of the pandemic.

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Yeah.

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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,

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but also about the fellows and about the connections between students and fellows and also staff.

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And so how to, like reconnect and rebuild this, this community.

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And I think that the previous chair of GM has done a great job in like pushing into the right doing.

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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.

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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?

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So how much longer do you have in your do feel? So I think that I will have one and a half years more.

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So I plan on finishing my dissertation somewhat next year.

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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?

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It is. So I plan on staying in academia, but I'm not yet sure where.

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Okay. So it could be anthropology if possible.

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So it very much depends on how my how my research also develops and what types of people I can I can publish.

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Yeah. So, yeah, I can manage like anthology or international development in this area.

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But you see yourself staying in academia long term, if possible.

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Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So watch the space.

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Yes. Great. Well, thank you so much, Theodore.

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Oh, thank you very much for the invite. Of course. Great to speak.

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Thank you. Thank you.