BUSSIN Team
Dr Geetha Reddy - Principal Investigator
Dr Geetha Reddy (they/she) works within and out with the psychological sciences to understand how people make sense of colonisation, multiculturalism, and migration in contemporary societies. As part of a global academic movement that questions and disrupts Western psychological understanding of our social worlds, they have co-edited three special issues on decolonising psychology together with the Readsura Decolonial Editorial Collective. They have also edited a special issue, “Towards a Social Psychology of Precarity” with colleagues Dr Clare Coultas and Dr Johanna Lukate. Their research takes an intersectional perspective on identities, highlighting the power structures that influence an individual's psychology. Geetha is the principal investigator of the British Academy funded EXCAPE-URMI Project and the Open Societal Challenges funded BUSSIN project. They are based at The Open University, UK.
Ope Olusoga
Ope (she/her) is a Black-British woman of Yoruba descent raised in the Southeast of England. She is the Research Assistant on the Open Societal Challenges (OSC) funded BUSSIN project. Ope is an experienced Clinical Research Practitioner and is currently undertaking her PhD in Psychology to develop a 'psychology of Black reproductive health'. She is a pro-Black, anti-racist scholar who draws on decolonial principles in her work and everyday life to advocate for Black communities and other marginalised groups.
Dr Subashini Gordon
Subashini is a researcher of South African Indian descent, based in South Africa. She has her PhD in Sociology, focusing on transnational experiences and identity construction of South Africans of Indian descent in Australia. She is currently a part-time Post-Doctoral Research Associate (PDRA) on the BUSSIN Archive Project. She also leads the development of BUSSIN Newsletters. Her research interests include identity, migration and diaspora studies.
Enbah Nilah Sugurmar
Enbah Nilah (she/her) is a poet and educator from Malaysia. She is currently the project manager of British Academy funded EXCAPE-URMI Project and the Creative Lead for BUSSIN Storytelling Pilot. She was a featured reader for “Inventories of Dispossession,” a Tamil literary symposium by York University, Toronto in 2022. She also collaborated on a Tamil literary translation anthology, soon to be published by trace press (CAN) with the support of Ontario’s Anti-Racism Anti-Hate Grant. Her works can be found in the Anthology of Southeast Asian Eco-Writing (Mānoa Journal), This is Southeast Asia (AUS), Innovation for Change — East Asia, and Adi Magazine (US).
Sabelo Mcinziba
Sabelo Mcinziba is a researcher primarily preoccupied with the Question of the Human. His intellectual work is inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary in service of a set of questions at the convergence of thinking about the human. These include: power, knowledge, violence, trauma, land, death, freedom, aesthetics, space, modernity, identity, heritage, memory, etc. His approach is historical and invested in revealing the philosophical entrails often masked in the history of ideas and in everyday life. He threads the past with the present to dream differently about the future towards the rehumanisation of the dehumanised and rethinking the entire question of the human towards greater justice.
Dr James Moura Jr
James Ferreira Moura Junior (he/him) is Brazilian in the Northeast of Latin America/Brazil and a community psychologist and senior lecturer at the University for International Integration of the Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB). His research focuses on decolonial approaches to mental health, particularly in Indigenous and Quilombola communities in Brazil. He has led multiple research projects on structural violence, community healing practices, and race, poverty, and mental health intersections. James was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco-Psychologies at Pacifica Graduate Institute and has collaborated with institutions in Brazil, the UK, and the US. His work integrates participatory action research and ancestral healing practices, including music and dance, to promote mental health and community well-being.
Dr Zuleika Bibi Sheik
Dr Zuleika Bibi Sheik (she/he/they) is South African poet and scholar of South Indian indentured descent. She is currently Assistant Professor of Decolonial Approaches, Gender and Black Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her particular interest is in ‘decolonizing methodologies’, considering the ‘how’ of doing research that is non-extractive, life-affirming and aimed towards social justice and collective liberation Sheik was awarded her PhD cum laude, for her thesis, Liminagraphy: Lessons in Life-affirming Research Practices for Collective Liberation. Her academic series of essays on Decolonizing the Self has featured in the journal Education as Change and Imbiza Journal for African Writing. Her latest poem ‘Senzenina, what have we done?’ is featured on ‘Planting the seeds of Collective Liberation’ (2024) the inaugural issue of OneStateCollective that brings together creatives and activists united for a Free Palestine.
Dr Nurul Huda Rashid
Dr Nurul Huda Rashid is a researcher, visual artist, and writer. Her projects are anchored in articulations of the female figure through explorations of the image in photography and the archives. Bridging perspectives from visual and archival methods alongside feminists and decolonial theories, Nurul activates through annotation as pedagogy for the collective and community. She has collaborated on a Nusantara digital archive in Pulau Something (2021) with cultural workers in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Taiwan; co-facilitated a decolonial pedagogical camp, New Curriculum for Old Questions (2019) with the National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum; and co-created programmes with arts spaces and community groups. Having completed her PhD studying the algorithmic representation of Muslim women images, Nurul has recently started a postdoc at Leiden University.
Kiru Naidoo
Kiru Naidoo is a local historian of Indian indentured worker origins born and raised in Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal. His more recent publications in 2019 are an edited volume of poetry marking 25 years of South African freedom as well as a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories titled Made in Chatsworth. He is the co-author with Paul David, Ranjith Choonilall and Selvan Naidoo of The Indian Africans, published to mark the 160th anniversary in 2020 of the first Indian indenture in South Africa. He is currently a civil servant in the provincial government of KwaZulu-Natal.
Dr Sathya Baanu Jeevanba
Sathya Baanu Jeevanba, Ph.D (they/she) is Counseling Psychologist based in Kansas City, Missouri whose work centers on navigating traumatic stress, identity-based and mood-related concerns, grief and loss. Their practice is steeped in multicultural competencies, systemically-informed approaches, and feminist values.
Suntosh R. Pillay
Suntosh is a scholar-activist in Durban, South Africa. He is the chief clinical psychologist for the eThekwini District in the provincial Department of Health and is affiliated to the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He conducts research at the intersections of race, sexuality, identity, and community mental health. He is also PhD candidate at the University of South Africa (UNISA) using Photovoice methods to explore queer identities in post-apartheid life. For over 10 years, he has been a core member of the African LGBTQIA+ Human Rights Project, a research, training and advocacy subgroup of the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA). He has been featured in two local documentaries on queer issues: When the Rainbow is bittersweet (2022) and the Reimagine Freedom series (2025). His co-edited book, Chasing Freedom (2023), explores freedom and social change in the context of student activism and calls for decolonization of universities. He serves of the editorial boards of Psychology in Society (PINS) and the South African Journal of Psychology (SAJP).
Preveena Balakrishnan
Preveena is currently a PhD Research Scholar at University Science Malaysia, conducting research bearing the title “Industry-Academia Collaboration Framework: Towards a Sustainable Corporate.” She contributes to Penang Monthly mainly on Indian Heritage and History. Her works include oral documentation of several aspects of the Malaysian Indian cultural heritage. She has made oral history recordings of World War 2 experiences, traditional food, traditional trades, changes in the transportation system, as well as use of spaces and communities. Through her associations with GTWHI and an extensive network, Preveena has created a whole range of oral history collections in the Tamil language.
Dr Sheena Baharudin
Born and raised in Malaysia, Sheena Baharudin is an educator, writer and performer. Her works have been translated into Spanish and French, featured in a number of local and international anthologies, and staged in multiple arts events. She is currently Assistant Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the School of English, University of Nottingham Malaysia. She works as a co-editor for the BUSSIN Storytelling Project.
Veshalini Naidu
Vesha (they/them) is a queer, disabled, Malaysian Indian justice-based multidisciplinary artist, designing for advocacy groups and non-profits such as Oxfam Novib, IWRAW, and Amnesty International Malaysia. You can learn more about their work on their website.
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