The PSi Peer-Mentoring Scheme

Background:

The PSi Peer-Mentoring Scheme was created by the PSi Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism to help PSi academics and artists, at any stage of their career, achieve their academic and professional goals through the provision of peer-mentoring on an “as-needed” basis.

Ethos of the Scheme:
This is a volunteer, need-based, inclusive, non-hierarchical, and mutually beneficial scheme that aims to build community by connecting peers across the world. It is based on an ethics of care and the presupposition that we all learn from one another’s different perspectives and experiences and are therefore peers in different ways.

Types of Peer-Mentoring Available:
The scheme provides varying opportunities for peer-mentoring. For example, a junior scholar can be partnered with another junior scholar; an ECR/artist with a senior academic/well-established artist; a group of mentees partnered with one or more mentors; or a peer-mentoring group can be formed in which all
relationships are lateral, such as one where all participants are junior scholars.

History of the PSi Peer-Mentoring Scheme & of the PSi Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism:
The PSi Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism was co-founded in 2020 by Bruce Barton, Jane Frances Dunlop, Nilüfer Gros, Anna Jayne Kimmel, Jazmin Llana, Sean Metzger, Tavia Nyong’o, Katerina Paramana, Eddie Paterson, Azadeh Sharifi, and Kimberly Welch, who also served as members of the initial committee from 2020-2021.

The PSi Peer-Mentoring Scheme was designed and proposed to the PSi Board in 2024 by the 2021-2025 PSi Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism members Ronald Baytan, Sibusisiwe Gugu Manqele, Katerina Paramana, Eddie Paterson, and Kimberly Welch.

In 2025, the outgoing 2021-2025 PSi Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism, along with its incoming members, Zachary Easterling, Maipelo Gabang, Dennis Gupa, Dominika Laster, and Maurice Moore, proposed the opening of the Board position of the PSi Mentorship Programme Officer for the setting up and running of the scheme. Katerina Paramana was nominated for the role and appointed by the Board as the Interim Mentorship Program Officer in order to accomplish this.