All Talk and Not Much Action?

A few months ago, my son’s school had a bring your child to work day. I happened to be working from home, so we merely walked upstairs with the necessary drinks and snacks to begin our day together. I was pleased. He was joining me on a day that I was registered for a webinar on the Sustainable Development Goals, something he had been studying in school. Forty-five minutes in he passed me a note “Mum, your work seems like a lot of talk and not much action. Can I watch TV?”

A lot of talk and not much action. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s not. Are talk and action so easy to separate?

In last month’s blog I shared my developing ideas around my own identity as an academic and a writer, and what it might mean to see the university as a public good. Inspiring movements of academic activism seem to be needed now more than ever as we watch with horror the events unfolding on USA campuses and stand in solidarity with those fighting for academic freedom everywhere.

This is a vision of action.

A few days ago, I participated in a webinar where I spoke, as part of an inspiring panel, about the future of the development, humanitarian, and peace sector. We did a lot of talking. Two and a half hours to be precise. And that doesn’t include the preparatory meetings where we discussed our talking points, coordinated our interventions, explored how best to engage a wide and diverse audience. Much of the talking was about action, but not all of it. Some of it was ‘just talking’, but in those moments we were also listening, thinking as we spoke, reflecting, learning, and trying to imagine together what might be next for a sector reeling from funding cuts at the same time as need across the world increases.

Talking really matters.

It is hard to acknowledge the immediate and devastating consequences of cuts to development aid by USA and European governments without feeling a call to action. During the webinar I spoke to the role that universities and academics can play in addressing the gaps in data collection and analysis, gaps which will appear as organisations seek to reduce budgets. These more applied forms of research have an increasing role to play, notwithstanding the importance of intellectually driven rather than purely policy-driven research agendas. I also spoke to the need for academics to keep issues on the agenda. This may include how certain populations will be hit harder, or how the work of everyday survival and peacebuilding will increasingly rely on unpaid and often invisible care labour. This may also include promoting solidarity with aid recipients, conducting research on local responses and innovations, and making the case for a renewed emphasis on more equitable partnerships in aid, development and research.  

Talking is action.

It is only through dialogue, through listening and learning together, across sectors and between places that we have a hope of responding to the current overlapping and overwhelming crises with solidarity, humility and of course action. If ‘I think therefore I am’, then why not ‘I think therefore I act’.

I let my son go and watch TV, but later he recounted to the rest of the family his experience of the webinar at the dinner table, and the thinking it had prompted for him about his day-to-day experiences at school. Maybe action is a culmination of these little steps, these parts of ideas, these small moments of sharing. I am not sure a day with me inspired him to follow in my professional footsteps, but it certainly got me thinking.

April 2025