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The paper is the abridged text of the author’s opening keynote address given on June 28, 2017 at the 10th Annual Equality Diversity Inclusion Conference hosted at Brunel University (London, UK). The conference theme was Borders. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The address was given orally accompanied with slides that included pictures and quotes of referenced authors and works, websites, memes and various civil rights events. The address interwove personal experiences, published research, social movement strategies and current events and social issues. A brief question and answer period followed the address.

The address made the case that while scholarship is important, diversity scholars need to do more than publish scholarship but also engage in activism. In fact, the author argued that history has informed us that scholarship has never been enough to produce significant civil rights advancements.

Toward this end, the author provides three action steps that diversity scholars can take to engage in activism that produces results: translate research for the general public; partner with activist groups, and call out respectability politics and false equivalencies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how biography influences professional and academic development. It aims to show how in different ways our experiences reflect the structures of society and that histories repeat themselves with different protagonists and different preys. It uses the author’s own biography to argue that in the author’s case, early influences of Irish migration shaped some of the decisions she made and her commitment to researching inequalities. The paper also asks how relevant are early life influences on the careers of equality and diversity academics?

This paper uses a biographical method that draws on a personal history of migration and relates these to historical moments to show the interconnection between the self and wider macro events.

The findings of the paper show the relevance and interconnection of biography with the macro and political context. The paper explores how an academic's personal biography[1] and the multi-layered relationship between the self and the wider macro historical context have influenced her research development. It does this by using her personal stories of being part of an Irish community and shows how everyday interactions may lead to a sense of being an outsider, of being other. History is used to show the multiple borders that Irish and other migrants experience, from biographic and diasporic borders, to violence and conflict and finally to work borders including the link with the author's research work. The paper argues that while the targets of discrimination may change over time, contemporary events can intensify the devaluation and othering of particular migrant groups.

Each biography has a unique element but the paper shows how individual biographies are connected and interrelated with the macro level of analysis.