Causing a SPLAS: Why I’m Still Talking to White People about Race

Following on from his involvement in the ‘Tackling the BAME/BIPOC Awarding Gap’ project conducted within the Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies programme at University College London, between 2023 and 2025, Haydn Kirnon offers reflections on his experience as a translator, lexicographer, and subtitler, through the lens of his identity as a cisgender man of African-Caribbean descent, in a career spanning three decades. Kirnon addresses questions of diversity and inclusivity in the translation classroom, how both trainers and trainees might be allies, and how he, in turn, seeks to integrate his own cultural and ethnic identity into his practice in an organic way.