On 1 April 2020, the news website Al Jazeera published an article titled ‘Muslim minority doctors first to die on front line of UK pandemic’. The image accompanying the article revealed that all four doctors were Black (Khan, 2020). Over the previous 2 weeks, other stories of healthcare staff deaths had been reported in the papers; many were Black or Asian, many of them migrant staff. They included Thomas Harvey, a healthcare assistant who had worked for the NHS for 20 years; Mary Agyapong, a young pregnant midwife, who died after giving birth; and John Alagos, a young Filipino nurse of only 23. With no appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), Thomas Harvey caught COVID-19 in early March 2020. Although his family called the emergency services repeatedly, he was never admitted to hospital (Bartholomew, 2020). He died after collapsing in his own bathroom. Mary Agyapong’s family reported that she had felt pressured to work despite being heavily pregnant (BBC, 2020). John Alagos fell ill on his shift, did not have protective equipment to work with COVID-19 positive patients, and had been refused permission to go home when he fell ill (Dickinson, 2020). There were many more stories.

As the rising evidence of the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on Black and Brown communities in the UK became known, explanations began to appear in the press on why we were seeing such disproportionate rates of death. These explanations immediately started to focus on a host of environmental factors: low levels of vitamin D, pre-existing conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, cultural factors such as living in extended families and lower socio-economic profiles that lead to poorer housing conditions (Booth and Barr, 2020; Forrest, 2020). While these pre-existing inequalities in health and healthcare were contributory factors to vulnerability, there has been muted discussion of implicit or explicit racialised discriminations in the health sector or more widely in society.

On 19 April 2020, however, an article in the Nursing Times suggested that ‘BME staff’ felt that they were being disproportionately targeted to work on COVID-19 wards (Ford, 2020). Was this contributing to disparities in deaths? As the Equality and Human Rights Commission has highlighted, it is critical to recognise racial discrimination in order to create positive change (EHRC, 2016). Was the feeling that they were being disproportionately targeted to work on COVID-19 wards widespread? If so, why? How did it correlate to previous experiences at work? How have such feelings and experiences created vulnerabilities for both individual staff and the National Health Service (NHS) as a whole? These were some of the questions that the Nursing Narratives: Racism and the Pandemic research project set out to answer through gathering the stories of healthcare workers on film, audio and in text.¹

While it was clear that doctors were just as impacted as nurses, our decision to focus on nurses, midwives and other healthcare workers was partly made as a result of the early data available on staff deaths, which indicated that the staff group with the greatest number of deaths comprised nursing staff (Cook et al., 2020). In addition, doctors are often more able to have their voices amplified due to their professional position in the health hierarchy. A recent British Medical Journal (BMJ) special issue on Racism in Medicine had highlighted the continued inequalities and discriminations faced both by service users and medics in the NHS (Adebowale and Rao, 2020). What, however, was the experience of those whose voices were even more muted?

Our aim was to use storytelling as a methodology to develop our understanding of the impact of historical discriminations on experiences in the COVID-19 pandemic through the experiences of Black, Brown and migrant nurses and midwives. We wanted to recognise their experience and insights as a crucial asset in creating significant change, with which to support the building of a more inclusive society and a more equitable NHS capable of delivering the best patient care. This research was therefore not simply focused on collecting evidence of racial discrimination, but on opening up our understanding of the history of the NHS by placing Black and Brown healthcare workers front and centre in our story of the pandemic. The historical amnesia in the media and wider society on the contribution of Black and Asian people, as well as the muted or silenced representation of the Black and Brown workforce in the NHS during the crisis, have distanced our appreciation of their contribution to the health sector (Simpson et al., 2010). Facts, as Edward Said noted, ‘do not at all speak for themselves, but require a socially acceptable narrative to absorb, sustain and circulate them’ (Said, 1984: n.p.).

In the Nursing Narratives project, we wanted to explore what role creativity can play in creating the space to not only give suppressed voices ‘permission to narrate’, but also enable them to be heard. Our outputs aimed to highlight the impact of entrenched and structural racism on a people’s approach to a crisis and consider the way forward. Adopting the idea of the ‘pandemic as a portal’ (Roy, 2020) through which we can reshape our direction as a society, we hoped to create a narrative and shared spaces to deepen societal understanding of the contribution of Black and Brown healthcare workers to our society, celebrate their achievements and create the space for a collective dialogue that could re-envisage the future and take joint action.

Below we outline the theoretical influences and artistic practices that shaped our approach. Critical Race theory offered a framework to understand the experience and impact of racism and highlighted the value of experiential knowledge. Creative methodologies such as A/r/tography’s open enquiry, the principles of a ‘documentary of force’ that emphasise empowerment and political impact for the exposure of ‘obstinate memory’ and ‘third cinema’ practices for participation and engagement were methods that influenced our approach.

Critical Race Theory and creative practice

At the root of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the recognition that ‘race’ is a social construct and not a biological reality, and that its impact lies not so much in extreme acts of race hatred, but in the everyday experiences of people of colour. CRT scholars argue that because of the way in which racism is embedded in society, a liberal ‘colour-blind’ approach invariably entrenches racism by its failure to take into account historical injustices and deprivations. If racism is embedded in our thought processes and social structures as deeply as many critics believe, then ‘the “ordinary business” of society – the routines, practices, and institutions that we rely on to do the world’s work – will keep minorities in subordinate positions’. It is therefore only aggressive, colour-conscious efforts to change the way things are that can challenge the status quo (Delgado and Stefancic, 2017: 27). These challenges may be focused on material and economic demands, as well as on demands to challenge the language and culture of white supremacy. In order to challenge the structures and institutions of power, CRT emphasises the value of experiential knowledge of Black and Brown people. By valuing the subjectivity of experience and centring research in the margins, CRT challenges and resists the suggested objectivity of mainstream research and knowledge (Villenas, 1996).

The focus on experiential knowledge within CRT provides a space to rethink the kind of knowledge considered valuable. The Nursing Narratives: Racism and the Pandemic research project adopted CRT’s focus on experience to enable Black and Brown nurses, midwives and other healthcare workers to recount their experiences. Influenced by A/r/tography, which encourages the use of arts practice for qualitative research, we employed a method of open enquiry that is central to allowing expression for empowerment and change (Springgay et al., 2005). Our creative methodology was multi-faceted, using documentary, animation and photography in an attempt to capture under-represented narratives of struggle. Using an arts-based approach which centred emotion as a resource for memory and recovery, our aim was to open up our knowledge and understanding of racialised experiences faced by healthcare workers, through turning our attention towards the unimagined and the uncertain, giving space to the voices and feelings of communities worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic (Greene, 1995).

By enabling Black and Brown nurses to tell their stories through an inclusive, exploratory and expressive methodology, we hoped to gain a better understanding of how the NHS’s Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) data and the emerging data on the impact of COVID-19 on racialised groups translate into the life experiences of nursing staff, their experience of the pandemic and the people that they care for. We also aimed to increase society’s awareness of the contribution of Black British and migrant workers to the NHS. A year into the pandemic, the government’s poor understanding of Black and Brown staff experience was highlighted in a House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report on PPE in February 2021. It noted that the government ‘does not know enough about the experience of frontline staff, particularly BAME staff’ (2021: 8). It asked the government to consider the ‘extent to which (and reasons why) BAME staff were less likely to report having access to PPE and more likely to report feeling pressured to work without adequate PPE’ (2021: 9). Yet a month later, the Sewell Report on Race and Ethnic Disparities denied the existence of structural racism, failing to recognise the impact of racism on health disparities (HMG, 2021). Later in the year, the government’s Coronavirus: Lessons Learned to Date report (October) recognised that ‘the higher incidence’ of COVID-19 among racialised communities ‘may have resulted from higher exposure to the virus’ (HSCC and SCT, 2021: n.p.). However, discussion remained focused on the disproportionate allocation of Black and Brown workers to frontline roles rather than looking more widely at the intersection of interpersonal and structural racisms.

Our grassroots approach to understanding and documenting the experiences of Black and Brown participants from their earliest experiences to the time of writing centred on a participatory process. We met potential participants, answered questions and heard their concerns before engaging in filmed interviews or even framing the interview questions. We used snowballing techniques through existing community networks, as well as a survey and social media, to promote awareness of the project and engage with potential participants who responded to our calls. Trust was a key consideration for participants, and members of the research team’s knowledge and participation in the experiences of issues around race and resistance enabled the project and drove its ethos. From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to work in the community and not through NHS Trusts. This, we hoped, would enable participants to speak more freely, as we were aware of the fear of reprisals that many felt. Our aim was not to single out individual Trusts, but draw together stories and patterns of experience to highlight racism within the health service as a national issue that must be addressed. Some members of the team already knew potential participants and had their trust. The filmmaker (Ken Fero) had contacts who were aware of the participatory approach to documentary through previous film productions such as Ultraviolence (Fero, 2020). One Co-Investigator was also part of the Caribbean and African Health Network (CAHN) who work to eradicate health inequalities in public health. These personal contacts and the legacy of previous work and commitments around issues of race, justice and representation enabled engagement. They helped participants to have confidence in the research process and the project team.

Despite these avenues of trust, recruitment of participants was not a simple process and many people were wary that the project would just be another piece of research that was carried out without any consequent action. For this reason, we met all those who expressed interest in advance so that they could ask any questions and we could get to know them before filming. Some individuals were very keen, others were afraid to speak out and preferred to take part in audio interviews. This was the case for many Filipino and other migrant nurses. Others decided that although they supported the project, they were not in a position to be interviewed at all. We allowed individuals to make their own decision around the form of participation, unless we were concerned about their vulnerability. This happened in one case, where we advised the individual to carry out an audio interview. There were individuals who, having made the decision to take part, subsequently dropped out of filming on the day. There were also political inconsistencies within one migrant nursing organisation which wanted to take part, gave us significant stories of racism, but then appeared afraid to be involved because we were calling out racism. In the end, of the thirty-seven individuals who expressed a desire to be interviewed on film, twenty attended on the day of filming. They included nurses, midwives and one allied health professional. All these individuals worked, at least in part, for NHS facilities. Two were agency workers at the time of filming. These fluctuating desires to speak or not to speak indicate the tangible fears among health workers about the consequences of speaking out.

Obstinate memory and a documentary of force

In our approach to filming, we adopted the notion of ‘obstinate memory’ (Fero, 2021). This chronological approach is a filmmaking process that ensures the full capturing of stories over decades. The notion of obstinate memory was employed by Patricio Guzmán to highlight the stories of the disappeared in Pinochet’s Chile (Drake, 2015). Over several decades, Guzmán used his documentary practice to expose the brutality of the regime, exploring and exposing the impact of the military junta’s use of torture as a form of state control as well as the ongoing national trauma that still exists today. This can be seen, for example, in Nostalgia for the Light (Guzmán, 2010). More recently, Fero has employed obstinate memory to document the struggles for justice by the families of Black people killed by police in the UK. Working, for example, with the family of Joy Gardner, a Jamaican student who was killed by the Metropolitan Police in her flat in London in 1993 in front of her 5-year-old son, we follow her mother Myrna as she fights for justice for her daughter. The story is featured in Justice Denied (Fero, 1995), Injustice (Fero and Mehmood, 2001) and Burn (Fero, 2014). Obstinate memory offers an approach where the participants’ personal memory (both as individuals and as part of a collective) function as the narrative, thus making interventions that challenge the dominant state narrative (Fero, 2001).

In collecting testimonies, we practised the four elements of a ‘documentary of force’ – impact, process journalism, approach and formation – a methodology of film practice which focuses on the power and role of film to challenge oppression (Fero, 2018). The desired impact for most conventional documentaries tends to be commercial, educative or entertaining. In a documentary of force, the impact is of a political nature, designed not just to question accepted notions but to directly confront and intervene in the issue. In our film, ‘impact’ helps to reshape our direction as a society and creates space for participants to offer solutions and re-envisage the future. ‘Process journalism’ engages with groups of people over an extended period of time in an embedded praxis that challenges what Watkins describes as the ‘Monoform’, a media form that dominates mainstream television, blurring our understanding and reaction to differing messages to dissipate meaning and our response to human suffering (Watkins, 2004). The participatory process involved in process journalism creates a much more reciprocal power relation between the filmmakers and the participants, borne out by a shared editorial and political direction. ‘Approach’, one aspect of process journalism, explicitly rejects the ‘state of victimology’ (Wolfgang, 1957) which holds victims responsible for their own misfortune. Rather than viewing those who may suffer oppression as victims, the emphasis is on the resistance that builds against the cause of that oppression. ‘Formation’, similarly, emphasises participants developing as organic intellectuals (Gramsci, 1971). Through combining campaigning and the filmmaking process, the aim is to create an environment where participants who may have been victims of oppression are transformed to assume a vanguard position in a struggle.

Documentary of force is a participatory filmmaking process which elicits powerful qualitative data and empowers participants. To reflect this impact, we have included reflections from the participants throughout this chapter:

As Felicia reflected:

The participatory nature of the project created a space where the nurses and midwives involved in the process were able to have input into the narrative content of the film, Exposed, that we ultimately produced. Each participant also had editorial control of their testimonies. Conventional documentary production is largely dominated by an expository approach where the narrative is pre-determined by a director; however, in this project, we wanted the space and fluidity for experiences, connections and new knowledge to emerge (Nichols, 2001). Following the methodology of a documentary of force, the editorial line in the film was discussed with participants during recruitment, pre-production, the filmed interview and while the project was being edited. We met to discuss the political direction of the film and the key strategies; for example, to debate whether their experience of the segregation of nurses on COVID-19 wards based on race could be described as apartheid.

We documented memory – personal, community, national – as a process of data gathering. This approach facilitated a reflective memory, one that is able to speak of the past, show the present and question the future. This reflexive process was carried out by the film participants who were able to do so in a forensic manner as they were given unlimited space and time to do so:

The approach to the interviews was to ensure that a space was created where participants could feel at ease and also in control of the situation. One of the major concerns that informed the filming was the awareness that many of the participants would be recalling very traumatic experiences, and an approach was needed that could ensure a safe environment where the emotions that emerged were therapeutic and not exploitative. We provided space and time for participants with no limits to the amount of filming and no restrictions on what could be said.

The element of ‘process journalism’ provides the critical time for engagement, reflection and adjustment. This is part of the ‘formation’ aspect of a documentary of force outlined earlier; it included individual and group interactions online and in person. While this was very effective in practice, we did have several meetings with potential participants who declined to take part; in many cases, the fear of reprisals or victimisation if they had gone public by appearing in the film was a risk they could not take. For those who committed to the project, we had conversations about possible workplace reprisals and how they would be dealt with and what support we could give. In terms of the process, they were briefed in advance and were informed that the interviewing technique was conversational and not inquisitorial. There was no need for them to ‘prepare’, alleviating any pressure on them to memorise factual evidence.

Despite the possibilities of retribution from employers given the historical ‘silencing’ of the voices of Black, Asian and migrant nurses, participants’ decisions to take part in the project were driven by bravery and the desire to challenge authority:

The process was an emotional journey for many of the participants, highlighting courage and raising questions and concerns:

Obstinate memory allows participants to make a more reflexive response to research questions, enabling the emergence of patterns. With memories of decades of experiencing wrongdoing, they are able to process, analyse and, most importantly, offer a critique for resistance. Viewing participants not as victims, but as experts, enabled them to present their story as well as comment on medical, social and political aspects of the story, from a personal and informed point of view. The testimonies provide important evidence for the continued issue of accountability, while deepening societal understanding of the critical contribution of Black, Asian and migrant nurses and midwives during the pandemic. While recognising their experience of victimisation, they also develop critical commentary contributing to current debates on anti-racism in the health service, which was empowering and was recognised by participants as such.

The extended interviews from a filmmaking process influenced by the concept of obstinate memory created an archive that can be a valuable resource for reflection for the profession as well as for further academic research. While the collective documentary highlighted key themes that we encountered in the experience of nurses, we were aware that this does not enable an understanding of the relentless nature of racism that an individual can experience; nor does it enable an understanding of the compounding impact of racialised trauma. We therefore decided to produce, with consent from the participants, a series of individual full-length testimonies which are housed in a digital online repository (https://nursingnarratives.com/film-testimonies/). This was a core output of the project in terms of preserving stories for future generations. Collectively, the testimonies highlight the importance of recognising the differential impact of COVID-19 on communities in any memorialisation.

The emphasis on challenging victimology and viewing the participants as organic intellectuals in their struggle for justice led to the creation of an ‘Anti-Racist Manifesto for the Health Service’. The manifesto reflects the major concerns of the participants made apparent through the filmmaking process. Through an iterative process, it was agreed by both the film and audio participants. Once the interviews were recorded and transcribed, clear themes and shared experiences emerged that pointed to critical issues that the participants outlined individually. For some in their senior roles, it became clear through a series of online group meetings that a collective response to these points might help to galvanise a collective response from nurses and midwives across the UK. We suggested it could take the form of a manifesto. All participants were involved in the writing and editing of the document in conjunction with the research team. It is worth reading and reflecting on in full as it is an important collective effort by Black, Asian and migrant healthcare workers to present demands based on their own experience at this critical time in the NHS.

The manifesto is housed on the Nursing Narratives website. It is being used as a campaigning tool, with nurses’ and midwifery organisations disseminating it widely. The manifesto has also been taken up as a template by Black and Brown nurses internationally, to encourage reflections on their own circumstances. For example, at a recent film festival in Malmö where the film was screened, the project participants built campaigning links with nurses from Sweden and Norway who are keen to adapt the manifesto to their own particular circumstances.

Opening up the narrative space

Exposed, the documentary film that we ultimately produced, was presented as a collaborative voice, one where participant testimonies intersected in a mosaic to create a collective narrative. The story segments selected in the documentary were influenced by the content of both the filmed and audio interviews. The interweaving of individual stories in a consultative editing process aimed to present a national picture. We were conscious of the difficulties that we had had in recruiting migrant nurses to the project. The precarious immigration status of some participants placed migrant nurses in a particularly vulnerable position, since a disciplinary action at work or loss of employment could end in deportation – a racialised and brutal state strategy. Their personal responsibilities, often as the main source of income for their families abroad, was an additional pressure. We therefore ended up with very few migrant nurse participants who were able to be filmed. This inevitably muted their visual representation. Out of the two migrant nurses who did come forward for the film, we anonymised one migrant nurse participant to protect them. The other was clear that she wanted to speak out publicly.

In the production of Exposed (Fero and Ramamurthy, 2022), we were influenced by the filming practice of third cinema, a film movement that grew out of liberation theology and adopted film as a political practice made in conjunction with the people, to reflect their lived reality and their political critiques (Getino and Solanas, 1971). For third cinema practitioners, ‘the capacity for synthesis and the penetration of the film image, the possibilities offered by the living document, and naked reality, and the power of enlightenment of audio-visual means make the film far more effective than any other tool of communication’ (Getino and Solanas, 1971: 122). Documentary, in particular, offered a form that could be the basis of revolutionary filmmaking:

By intercutting the stories of nineteen participants we created a tapestry of their experience that spoke truth to power. The collective narrative was edited to reflect the narratives of those who could not speak in the film but contributed to the research. The findings of the overall project included the results of a survey with 308 respondents, and narrative interviews with 45 individuals. Despite the difficulty in capturing the experience of many migrant nurses from the global south on film due to their vulnerability, we were able to use our wider knowledge from the audio interviews to ensure that key experiences of vulnerability and exploitation for migrant nurses were highlighted.

To challenge racism, Exposed not only recounted stories of racism faced by Black and Brown staff in the pandemic and in their working lives, but centred Black and Brown healthcare staff within the frame. The film gives space to their experience of the unfolding pandemic and the trauma that healthcare staff experienced. Roseline describes hiding from her son to keep him safe and lying to him about the devastating experience of losing six patients in one day to protect him from trauma. Others speak of the UK’s lack of preparedness: ‘We were all scared, we were all lost.’ Through these reflections, the role of Black and Brown health workers is afforded value and dignity.

The overall findings of the project highlighted key issues that impacted on the experience of Black and Brown nurses and midwives in the pandemic. These include a widespread culture of racism that permeates daily practice, with racialised stereotypes and attitudes accepted as the norm. This culture has led to the exclusion and neglect of Black and Brown staff; many described being ‘pushed out’, made ‘invisible’ and side-lined from critical discussions. It is a culture that routinely leads to Black and Brown health workers being given heavier and more risky work. It is a culture that leads to Black and Brown health workers being constantly overlooked for progression.

During the pandemic, such practices meant that Black and Brown staff were often the first to be put in situations of risk, with poor attention to their welfare, lack of PPE and risk assessments described as a tick box exercise:

Agency workers described how they first thought they were not being given PPE because they were agency workers, but then they realised that many of their Black and Brown colleagues were being treated similarly: ‘I was allocated to a COVID ward and I was not given protection, I asked for like a proper filtered mask and I was told I can’t have it because I will scare people’ (Bennett, 2022).

Some described what can be seen as a cultural apartheid: ‘In the Emergency Area they divided into different sections, the red area and the green area. All the Black nurses were always allocated in the red area which was more dangerous’ (Ajose, 2022).

In order to reflect on the collective experiences above and because we were limited to filming in a controlled studio during the pandemic, we created animations to thread each section of the film together. We aimed to create moments of pause and reflection to increase the power of the narrated experiences. The visuals and voiceover create a series of provocations. Some elicit the feeling of forensic medical investigations through the blue/black colours of X-rays held up to the light. Often tampered with or damaged, these images call on the viewer to look deeper, beyond the surface. In one, the sign ‘Blacks Only’ flashing on a TV screen recalls the exclusionary signs of the colour bar; this time, the sign ironically turns the former exclusion around to include only Blacks in the space of danger.

The animated sections allow the viewer to reflect on wider political strategies of corporations and governments in relation to death and crisis and on the historical experiences of racism and migration. Evoking philosophical and political thinkers such as Naomi Klein and Frantz Fanon, we aimed to encourage the viewer to reconsider dominant media narratives of the pandemic and give greater weight and authority to the voices of Black and Brown health workers in the film. The narrator questions the feeling of a wartime spirit and a nation ‘in it together’, suggesting that the state’s pandemic response was part of ‘the shock doctrine’ (Klein, 2007) that evokes fear and panic as a means of social control. As we move through the story, the narrator alludes to Frantz Fanon’s critique of racism to highlight both an entrenched colonial past and the psychological impact of racialisation (Fanon, 1967). The authoritative, restrained voice acts as a contrast to the emotional narratives and reflections of the health workers, enabling their speech to be heard with a stronger force.

As we move through the film, the health workers’ reflections expand to include not just their own experience, but their response to the death of George Floyd (May 2020) and the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), recognising their role as organic intellectuals: ‘It was like opening a wound that was still bleeding’ (Fatimah Ghaouch, 2020 interview). The 2020 BLM protests were a significant moment that enabled many nurses and midwives to get organised. As a third cinema practice, highlighting ‘the ways of organising and arming for the change’ was crucial (Getino and Solanas, 1971: 125). Neomi reflects on the significance of Black Lives Matter:

Both the principles of third cinema and a ‘documentary of force’ use film to catalyse progressive or revolutionary change. Our aim was to create impact at many levels. While the film was released online for general viewing supported by a press and social media campaign, one of the important intentions was to hold screenings with Q&As with the participants to create a space for the narrative to be extended through discussion with other nurses. At every screening, Black and Brown healthcareworkers, young and old, who have come to watch the film, have spoken out about their own experiences of racism. White allies have expressed shock and a sense of shame. These experiences have been most powerfully felt at our in-person screenings, where emotions gain a physical presence and resonance that cannot be achieved in an online meeting. The London premiere of the film in July 2022 was such an event:

The film continues to be screened around the UK. Our aim is for participants and audiences to debate, contribute and organise:

We continue to try to ensure that one or two participants take part in the Q&As at other screenings as much as possible, to create a discursive space that allows for embellishment, awareness and progress. But this needs sustained work:

Speaking ‘truth to power’ was one of our aims and there have been some positive responses. Paul Roberts, the Chief Executive of Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust, made the following response (by email to Ken Fero) following the screening of Exposed and Q&A on 20 July 2022:

In the discussion after the film screening, we heard from nurses locally who spoke about how they have spent 30 years trying to change racist attitudes that still persist today, causing untold harm, distress and getting in the way of career satisfaction and progression. We can’t allow this to happen in our Trust. It’s about actively changing and challenging and it’s not up to the colleagues among us who are from minority ethnic groups to bring about the change – it’s all of us. (Roberts 2022)

One of the earliest screenings of the film was held at the Royal College of Nursing Congress 2022. Subsequently, many regional officers began to take up the opportunity of screenings across the country. Ali Upton, Chair of the Royal College of Nursing UK Health & Safety Representatives Committee, made the following comment (by email to Ken Fero) following a viewing of Exposed:

The film Exposed has not only been employed to bring about change and give voice to those whose narratives have been silenced, but has acted to empower the individuals who took part to develop as organic intellectuals in their communities. Many of the participants have spoken about the positive experience of taking part:

By using obstinate memory within a documentary of force we were able to consolidate ideas for collective struggle, sown through interactions during research, interviewing, editing and screenings. These were sites of political conversations and alignments as much as they were about the process of academic research and cultural production. The idea for the Anti-Racist Manifesto for the Health Service and the subsequent solidarity actions which the filmmaking process helped to consolidate build on the personal and community histories of the Black and Brown nurses and midwives. At the same time, the political activism in other struggles around race and resistance by the project team created a spirit of subjectivity (being influenced by people’s feelings and thoughts) that is essential to move beyond data collection. As Jean-Luc Godard argued, ‘The problem is not to make political films, but to make films politically’ (Godard, 1970, quoted in Hoberman, 2005: para. 1). This is exactly what a methodology of a documentary of force can deliver.

In conclusion, it is only right in a project of this nature to give the last word to one of the participants, speaking in Exposed to the struggle against racism: ‘Black and [B]‌rown nurses need their own organisation so that collectively they can be a loud voice together. There are common themes across the country, at the moment they are fragmented but we’re all saying the same thing, our experiences are mirror images of each other’ (Bennett, 2022).

Research project participants

Ajose, Roseline (2022), Nursing Narratives Participant Post-project Participant Survey

Anwar, Nafiza (2022), Nursing Narratives Participant Post-project Participant Survey

Babalola, Olanike (2022), Nursing Narratives Participant Post-project Participant Survey

Bennett, Neomi (2022), Nursing Narratives Participant Post-project Participant Survey

Dunn, Estephanie (2022), Nursing Narratives Participant Post-project Participant Survey

Kwaku, Felicia (2022), Nursing Narratives Participant Post-project Participant Survey

Newbold, Gemma (2022), Nursing Narratives Participant Post-project Participant Survey