This week, Geoscience for the Future chats to Jazmin Scarlett, a scientist whose research combines volcanoes, history, society and video games! Identifying as Black, disabled and queer, Jazmin is passionate about Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) and has become an important voice for representation in geoscience. She has been an invited speaker at a number of events on decolonising geoscience, and is the EDI officer for the UK’s Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Group. She co-runs the “What on Earth?” podcast, and you can find her on Twitter @Scarlett_Jazmin.
GftF: Thanks so much for talking to us Jazmin. Things have been a bit mental for you recently- you’ve been involved in so much EDI work! Do you enjoy it, or do you get frustrated that you have to do it while being unemployed?
JS: A bit of both- it’s important that this work gets done, but it would be nice to have a job… but if I did have a job, it might take me away from the EDI work. I have free time now to write papers and do the EDI work…. It’s a dilemma, but I am applying to jobs as well!
For those reading this blog who have never heard of you, how would you describe yourself in 5 words?
Bubbly…curious… on most days, grumpy though… bubbly and grumpy! Definitely passionate, and open-minded.
And who or what inspires you?
My family. My mum in particular. She didn’t have a good upbringing, she was in foster care. Imagine foster care in the 1970s, it was pretty bad. But she made it through; she’s a successful social worker. Social workers are those unsung heroes in this country. All you hear about is the bad stuff. But my mum has done so much good- she has saved so many children. She’s a strong, resilient woman. I describe her as a mother hen, but at the same time, don’t get on her bad side! She inspires me, because she is such a powerful, strong woman.
And all the women who do volcanology inspire me. When I was looking at Masters programmes, I looked at Lancaster and I saw Jenny Gilbert (Senior Lecturer in volcanology at Lancaster University) and I was like ‘oh- I never knew you could be a woman and a volcanologist!’ I wasn’t on social media then, so I didn’t know! But then I joined Hull for my PhD, and Becky (Dr Rebecca Williams, Senior Lecturer at Hull) said, ‘Get on Twitter!’ They’re a pretty cool bunch of people- they inspire me.
“My mum said, ‘Talk to your grandad- he came from a volcanic island, that had an eruption’. And I was like ‘What? How did I not know this?!’ “
So why not social work? What made you choose do a Geography undergraduate degree?
At school, I just remember being so interested in Natural Hazards. The teachers I had were so enthusiastic. Originally I wanted to be a meteorologist and study hurricanes, but then I realised you needed physics and mathematics and I was like ‘No… I can’t do that!’
I think it was near the end of my undergraduate project that I told my family, ‘I want to continue doing this sort of stuff’ and I came across the Volcanology masters at Lancaster. I told my family, and my mum said, ‘Talk to your grandad- he came from a volcanic island, that had an eruption’. And I was like ‘What? How did I not know this?!’ I was 21 or 22 years old and had NO idea that my grandfather was from St Vincent and the Grenadines. I remember talking with my grandad, saying ‘So grandad, I hear you’re from St Vincent, and there was this volcano..?’ and he told me really beautiful stories about growing up on the island, and then about the eruption in 1979, and then stories that had been passed down from 1902…and I was like, ‘This is INSANE. I want to know more!’ That was definitely the moment. I suppose I owe it to my family, becoming a volcanologist.
Your PhD focussed on St Vincent and the Grenadines- clearly, that was research that was very personal to you- how did the project come about?
It all started with my Masters dissertation project, which was on risk perceptions of La Soufriere (a volcano on St Vincent and the Grenadines, not to be confused with Soufriere Hills on Monserrat). During my undergrad degree I had a module called Community Resilience, the social science side of hazards and disasters, and I wanted to do more of that. For my Masters dissertation, I wanted to find out how people feel about La Soufriere today. Then for the PhD project, which was advertised as ‘Come up with a project and fit it around a theme or a topic’, I built on my Masters project and came up with ‘What did risk perceptions look like in the past’. One of my supervisors was Greg Bankoff (Professor in Environmental History at Hull). The rest is history. I was very fortunate that I could choose to do that project with Becky and Greg.
Jazmin studying the archives in Virginia, USA, 2016
That’s amazing, that you were able to link your own heritage into your research… and now, La Soufriere volcano is erupting again! How has that been in the past week- because of your research expertise in the area, what do you see as your role in this event?
For me, it’s telling the volcanic history, and how it has impacted people. Although my research mainly focussed on the explosive eruptions, and right now we’re seeing effusive (non-explosive, lava) eruptions, we still can relate some of that information to what is going on today. My role is just to communicate my science, and to reinforce the communication coming from the National Emergency Management Organisation and the Seismic Research Centre, who are in charge of monitoring and disseminating information about the volcano.
I’ve taken that approach based on the work of Becky Williams and Janine Krippner; even though as scientists we may not be part of the volcano observatory team, we can still help them in some way. As soon as I knew this eruption was happening, I emailed Richard Robertson (Professor of the University of the West Indies and Director of their Seismic Research Center) and said I am available to help, because I know they’re more active on Facebook than Twitter. I have a few Twitter followers (ed- over eight thousand and growing!) and am followed by people from St Vincent. If it can reach some people, that’s all I can hope for. I’ve been getting loads more followers from the Caribbean all of a sudden, and followers from St. Vincent have contacted me to say thank you. So that’s how I see my role; telling people where the official information is coming from, and making sure that people follow those sources.
One of the interesting things about your expertise is that you cross the divide between history, social science, geography and geology. What are the best and most challenging aspects of this?
It’s challenging, particularly when deciding which theories and concepts are most applicable in different situations… and also in terms of what’s the best way to communicate all this complicated information. Not a lot of people do what I do, but it is important. Even though the volcano is also important to know about, the people who live with the volcano are way more important. That’s WHY we’re volcanologists. The best thing is that I love learning, and thinking about how we conceptualise disaster theory concepts like vulnerability and risk in new ways. I find it really interesting to flip that on its head, depending on which discipline I choose to pick from!
“even though the volcano is also important to know about, the people who live with the volcano are way more important. That’s WHY we’re volcanologists”
What kind of reaction did locals on St Vincent have to your research?
Overall, positive, because people are interested in their own history, and the history of where they come from, wherever you live. The volcano is part of the history of the island. The challenging aspect is that the eruption of 1812 happened during slavery. People on the island don’t like to think that far back, because it was such a dark time in the island’s history. I recently gave my thesis to Richard Robertson, and explained that when he had time, I’d be interested in how we can communicate what happened in 1812. The 1812 eruption is an important part of the island’s history, even though it is a dark and uncomfortable part. It’s certainly going to be a tricky eruption to talk about, and we have to find the most sensitive ways to do it. As volcanologists, we rely on information from past events to better understand what is happening now.
The town of Chateaubelair with La Soufriere in the background in 2016
And that work, on the slavery aspects of that eruption, and recognising your own heritage- has that been a driver for you becoming involved in EDI work?
When I came across the racism in my work, I was like, ‘why aren’t we talking about this?’ Particularly in countries where there is that imbalance and lack of tolerance. We talk about gender equality a lot, but we don’t talk about race in disasters; there are examples of where racism has played a role in how people respond and recover. In my thesis, I used Hurricane Katrina (a devastating hurricane in the USA that in 2015 disproportionately impacted low income minority communities) as an example of where racism played a role in what happened. These issues are important, and they are as relevant to today as they were 100, 200 years ago.
It frustrates me, how are we still going around in circles, skirting around this issue. Yes, talking about racism isn’t comfortable, but it’s so important to address because it could save people’s lives potentially. That’s why I have been involved in Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion work. I’m also interested in it because I represent more than one minority group as an individual. And these things do affect me. Because I’m physically disabled, I cannot be as “in the field” as other volcanologists. That’s why I like archive work and interviews- I can just sit down, hold a dictaphone, and ask questions! Me being Black is an issue, particularly in this country, where we are an underrepresented group in geology and geography. Also being a woman, that comes with all its own problems! And I am Queer, and that presents its own issues. Particularly if, for example, I was going to be doing fieldwork in a country that was not accepting of the LGBQT+ community. So, these things all play a role; who you are as an individual shapes how you want to tackle these issues. I saw everyone skirting around them, and I said ‘oh, ok, no one else is doing it, I’ll do it!’
How have you found all the social media attention that has come with it?
Despite my very high presence on social media, I am an introvert- so it has been uncomfortable sometimes. Sometimes I see all my followers, and think ‘Why?! I just want to talk about volcanoes and video games!’ But if you’re not there, showing who you are, then people are not going to know you’re there. If Chris Jackson (Professor of Geology at Imperial College) had not done all his outreach, and done the RI Christmas Lectures, would we know he was the only Black geology professor in the country? There’s probably a kid out there saying ‘Oo, she looks like me…I could be a volcanologist!’ So I just have to get out of comfort zone… on a daily basis!
You mentioned video games there… how did that come about?! (Jazmin has carried out research on volcanoes in video games- check it out here!)
I’ve been playing video games my whole life- it’s one of the ways I escape, and wind down. When I was a child, and my physical disability was a lot worse, it was a way to disengage. When one of my favourite video games from the 90s was re-released, I was submerging myself in nostalgia, and I reached a level with lava falls… and I found myself thinking ‘this doesn’t look right- that is not how lava behaves!’ I went through all the levels, found all the examples of volcanism, and did a blog post about it. It was a bit tongue in cheek! I came up with my own criteria- what’s the aesthetics of the volcano? How does it make you die? Is it realistic? That resulted in a few more games and blogs on a similar theme, then Ed McGowan (a PhD student in volcanology) got in touch saying he wanted to do one! And now we do it for any games we play. Then we realised that we could present this at a conference. We made a poster, brought our own Nintendo Switches along for attendees to play on…and then people started to say ‘you can write this up as a paper’! So that’s what we’ve spent the last year doing. The paper has been accepted with Geoscience Education, so watch this space… Why not combine the hobby and the science?!
And an amazing tool for geoscience outreach. Sadly, we’re coming to the end, so let’s think big picture! What one piece of advice would you give school students keen to get into geo-related research?
There’s no one path into it. Keep your mind open. For the future, volcanology and geoscience will be important. There are plenty of people, in this country and elsewhere, who can help guide you!
If you could go back, what would you say to a younger version of yourself?
There are lots of lovely people out there who will do their best to help fuel your passion to do volcanology, and fuel your passion to help people. I’d also say to my teenage self, don’t give up, and don’t give in to your disability overwhelming you. Your disability will calm down -it did, conveniently, just when I went to university. And continue being yourself- stay grumpy!
If you had an endless pot of money and could do anything, what would you do?
I would love to continue with my dark heritage research in the Caribbean. I’m also interested in looking at La Réunion, for the volcano Piton de le Fournaise. I would want to donate to volcano observatories that need it- I’d love to set up a program to subsidise people from disadvantaged backgrounds to do volcano observatory internships- particularly for people from that country, so that one day, they could be the volcanologist, or the seismologist, at that volcano observatory.
If you could change anything about geoscience, what would it be?
I would really like there to be more opportunities for people to continue from their PhD into research. There’s not a lot of funding out there, and we are losing good people from volcanology and geology. It would be great to retain as many people as possible who actually want to stay in research.
And finally, our favourite question from those submitted on Twitter- what’s your favourite volcano?!
My favourite volcano has to be Kick em’ Jenny which is a submarine volcano off the coast of Grenada in the Eastern Caribbean south of St. Vincent. Just purely for the name alone!