20/09/2025
LETTER TO PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Dear Professor Duflo.
My name is Saymore Masaisai. I am a doctoral researcher and an independent author under my own organisation called Young Professional Educators of Zimbabwe Trust. My interests focus on how narratives and categories travel into policy and public understanding: especially around race, migration, youth and equity. I’m writing about a recent MIT video in which Professor Duflo discusses poverty while the visuals depict Black children and women.
I am requesting two things: (1) evidentiary context for the claims presented and (2) corrective action on the video’s imagery and representation standards.
1) Evidentiary context
Please share (or point to a public note with):
Scope and claims: What outcomes, geographies, and timeframes are being asserted in the narration?
Data provenance: Primary sources, methods, limitations, and whether results are causal or descriptive.
Collaboration and roles: Names and roles of African co-investigators/partners, how they shaped design/analysis, and how authorship, funding, and benefits were shared.
Ethics and review: Research ethics approvals; any community/participant review steps; availability of replication materials where appropriate.
If the video functions as public scholarship, this context is essential.
2) Representation, consent, and child safeguarding
Using footage of healthy Black children at play as a generic poverty and eating breakfast with avocados (probably organic picked in the family orchard based on my lived experiences and understanding of African sociocultural context) as visuals is a racialised storytelling shortcut. It associates Blackness with deprivation and obscures the structural engines of poverty. Please clarify:
Image origin and consent: Were these images shot by MIT/affiliates or licensed stock? Where/when were they captured? Were subjects/guardians informed of the intended use and did they consent? Are any children identifiable?
Fit to content: Why were these visuals matched to these claims? Which structure-focused alternatives (policy rooms, budgets, supply chains, program operations, datasets) were considered?
Safeguards: What standards govern image use, especially for children from the Global South, and was the material reviewed by people from the communities depicted?
Requested actions
Pull and re-edit the video to remove racialised stock imagery; replace with consented, context-appropriate visuals or none.
Publish a brief representation/ethics note addressing the items above (data context, partnerships, consent).
Adopt a forward-looking do-no-harm representation standard for MIT materials (e.g., no generic “poverty b-roll” of unnamed children; prefer images that show structures, decisions, and named collaborators; require documented consent and community review for identifiable subjects).
I am making this request in good faith, as a fellow researcher committed to rigorous evidence and dignified, non-harmful communication. I would appreciate a written response and proposed actions within 14 days.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Saymore Masaisai
Founder & Executive Director of Young Professional Educators of Zimbabwe Trust.
