Navigating insider and outsider positionality: Anita Lateano’s journey through conservation
Published on 8 January 2026
While volunteering for a marine conservation programme in Mozambique, Anita Lateano noticed how wealthy tourists swam freely in marine reserves, while local Mozambicans were excluded – a moment that set her on a path toward decolonial research methods.
Anita Lateano began her academic journey with a BSc in Psychology at the University of Exeter. It was during this degree, where she started exploring the role of language and discourse in encouraging pro-environmental behaviour, that her desire to forge a career within the environmental sector was sparked.
After graduating, she interned for an NGO in South Africa, hoping to gain experience within the sector, and then for a voluntary marine conservation programme in Mozambique, where she hoped to swim with whale sharks. While there, she noticed how wealthy tourists had privileged access to protected marine spaces, while local communities were often excluded. This early experience raised important questions about access, power, and inequality in conservation work. She went on to gain further experience in Tanzania working as a volunteer coordinator for six months. In this role, she developed marine-focused activities for young people, many of whom had limited experience in marine environments. She observed a disconnect between the volunteers and local marine officers and noticed how some conservation efforts lacked collaboration with the communities they aimed to involve.
Between 2018 and 2021, Anita worked within the communications team for a well-known international conservation charity. She contributed to public mobilisation campaigns and supported work lobbying for a stronger post-Brexit UK Environment Bill. These years were fulfilling, and she felt she was contributing to real change. Global events such as extreme wildfires in Australia and the Amazon rainforest, and the school strikes for climate movement brought further attention to environmental issues.
However, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, she observed a significant shift in the organisation’s focus. It began operating more like a business, with a stronger emphasis on fundraising. This prompted her to reflect on the broader conservation sector and its structures. Through reading and research, including public criticisms of the organisation from other NGOs, she began to reflect the ongoing colonial legacies in conservation that she had previously not recognised.
These reflections led her to pursue a master’s degree in social anthropology at SOAS, University of London. She secured funding to study, which she acknowledges as a privilege. During her time at SOAS, she rediscovered her passion for learning but also grew more aware of how inaccessible higher education can be. She became interested in how knowledge is produced and who gets to participate in academic and policy conversations. After completing her MA, Anita joined the University of Birmingham as a Research Fellow in the Decolonisation Project at Birmingham Business School. Her work focuses on rethinking how institutions like business schools approach knowledge, identity, and justice. She is particularly interested in creative, participatory, and decolonial research methods.
In 2023, she joined the University of Westminster to continue her studies at PhD level. Her current research examines the difference between short-term, externally driven conservation projects and long-term, community-based approaches within the marine environment in Indonesia. She explores how conservation is often shaped by tourism or corporate funding, and how it can become more about visibility and performance than meaningful impact. A core question she continues to ask is whose voices are included in conservation, and whose are left out.
Her interest in marine environments was further shaped by her time in Tanzania, where she met a woman who had completed a master’s in coral biology. This encounter sparked an interest in coral as both a living being and something often misunderstood as inert. Anita now examines the human relationship with marine life, and how it is often framed through a Western lens. Her lived experience as a researcher also informs her research. While travelling in Indonesia, she noticed that locals and foreigners often assumed she was from the area. This changed how she presented herself and moved through public spaces. At times, she felt invisible. European tourists did not acknowledge her, which raised questions about race, identity, and belonging. These moments highlighted how her racial identity was being perceived in ways that differed from how she saw herself.
During her PhD research project Anita was required to co-author a policy paper with a local academic in Indonesia as part of the research permit process. While initially frustrated by the administrative complexity, she came to see it as a valuable and ethical approach to research that supported collaboration and mutual benefit. Anita examines the structural barriers within both conservation and academia such as publishing paywalls, the high cost of conferences, and limited access to research funding, especially when comparing her own position to that of colleagues in Indonesia. Her aim is to develop research that is not only academically sound but also inclusive, collaborative, and responsible.
Anita Lateano, PhD student at the School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster and Research Fellow on the Decolonisation Project at the University of Birmingham Business School.
Since this interview, Anita has also become a Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fellow on the ACCESS Environmental Social Science in Interdisciplinary Working project.
Read more about Anita’s work:
University of Westminster profile
University of Birmingham: Decolonise the Business School
Contact Anita:
Anita was interviewed by Jaya Gajparia as part of her new ACCESS interview series, spotlighting environmental social scientists with global-majority backgrounds. Read more.