10 minute read
Events
Spring into Methods Workshop led by Strathclyde academics and students
The SGSAH & SGSSS funded ‘Spring into Methods’ workshop entitled Doing Feminist Research follows previous events. The 2022 event was hosted by University of Edinburgh (@genderED) and co-organised with the University of Strathclyde (@strath_fem).
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Presenting Strathclyde staff-students included: Prof Yvette Taylor, Dr Navan Govender, Dr Harvey Humphrey and Dr Mariya Ivancheva. Rukhsar Hussain and Kate Molyneaux presented on Researching Taboo Subjects Across Disciplines. Rukhsar presented her doctoral work on Hijra communities in India and Kate presented her work on Experiences of Menstruation in Scotland. Using their doctoral research, they discussed topics such as taboo, positionality, reflexivity and feminist research ethics.
Follow our work on Twitter: @strath_fem @rukhsarhssn @kate_mx
Event at Glasgow Science Festival
Dr Jane Essex, Dr Kirsty Ross (both from the School of Education) and undergraduate volunteer Anagha Prakash Bhat (University of Glasgow) brought a little of South Asia to the Glasgow Botanics as part of the Glasgow Science Festival in summer 2022. Their stand, titled GlasWeeAsian Plant Explorers, welcomed school children, their teachers, and the public to learn more about the movement of plants between Scotland and South Asia, the people behind those movements, and the chemistry underpinning our favourite culinary ingredients. Example blueprint created by a member of the public at the GlasWeeAsian Plant Explorers event at Glasgow Science Festival 2022. © Dr Kirsty Ross CC BY 4.0
Project website is: https://dissi.uk.engagementhq.com/
Over the course of 2 days, they engaged with 321 individuals and created a lot of blueprints! If you’d like to have a go yourself, check out the instructions at these links è (English and Gaelic). This work is co-funded by the Erasmus Plus Programme of the European Union as part of a project titled Diversity in Science and Science Inclusion.
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Dr Jane Essex
Senior Lecturer School of Education jane.essex@strath.ac.uk
Twitter: @GlasgowSciFest, @dissiprojecteu and @GlasgowBotanic
Highlighting the importance of local knowledge and experience in ecosystem restoration
One Ocean Hub co-organized to the ‘Ocean and Climate Action: Adaptation and Resilience Practices and Tools Clinic’ on 30 August 2022. This was a COP27 Virtual Ocean Pavilion liveevent for Africa Climate Week, which was co-organised by the Global Ocean Forum and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. It served as an interactive training and experience-sharing session during which experts discuss innovative ocean-based climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives with attendees. Lessons were identified and reviewed with the attendees, including possible pathways for improvement.
At the event, Deputy Director Dr Bernadette Snow (University of Strathclyde, UK and Nelson Mandela University, South Africa) provided an overview of Hub research in Algoa Bay (South Africa), including restoration initiatives undertaken by colleagues at Nelson Mandela University. The process and considerations required for success of the ecosystem restoration include considering urban drainage systems, biomimicry, inclusive decision making and tools for monitoring.
Dr Snow stressed that it is essential to take an inclusive approach when tackling climate change because inclusivity links to stewardship. Inclusion brings in lived realities and local solutions for climate change adaptation. It also enables different stakeholders to work together to foster resilience in the face of increased natural disasters.
Dr Snow further noted that ecosystem restoration is an important approach to tackle climate change because ecosystems provide essential services, both at the local and global level. Many essential ecosystems such as rivers, estuaries, and coastlines are severely impacted by increasing urbanization, pollution, ecosystem destruction, thereby weakening natural protection against severe climate impacts. Restoring these ecosystems, builds resilience, and if designed right (collaboratively), tackles poverty and human health issues. • The climate-ocean nexus needs to be included in climate discussions, mitigation and adaptation strategies; • Blue carbon habitats are essential.
Restoration is the tool in the toolbox for climate change mitigation and to build resilience; • It is important to bring in local knowledge and experience in ecosystem restoration processes; • Inclusive process is needed if we want to see the long-term benefits of ecosystem restoration, particularly to ensure the initiative can be useful for saving costs and mitigate damage; • Human activities on land such as raw sewage discharge and plastic pollution bring about negative impacts on ocean health and negatively affected local communities who are most dependent on the ocean. This shows interconnection between land and ocean ecosystems and social and environmental impacts; • A gap identified is that we need to strengthening uptake of how restoration can measurably contribute towards job creation by decision makers through policy frameworks.
The recording of the event can be accessed here.
Dr Bernadette Snow was invited by Mr James Grabert, Director of the Mitigation Division of the UNFCCC Secretariat and Lead of the Regional Climate Weeks to participate as a speaker in session 6 titled “Harnessing nature for transformative adaptation in Africa” on 31 August 2022. This session discussed the potential for nature-based solutions and their enabling environment in Africa in light of its anticipated benefits for transformative adaptation and longterm resilience.
At the event, Dr Snow explored how best can the gaps between research and practice for nature-based solutions be bridged to facilitate transformative adaptation and resilience in Africa. She also illustrated to what extent there are known limits to nature-based solutions and cost-benefit analyses, and what potential they have to inform the integration of nature-based solutions into planning and implementation.
Key messages from Dr Snow’s intervention and engagement with the audience are:
• We need to ensure that different knowledge systems are included in the research process to address gaps between research and practice for nature-based solutions; • The co-production of research between researchers and stakeholders is the way to introduce and transform nature-based solutions; • Co-production needs novel methodologies such as arts-based participatory methodologies, an innovative way for inclusion of stakeholders that are often marginalized in decision making process in climate adaptation and mitigation and for discovering new pathways to develop naturebased solutions; • It is important to unpack the inherent and intangible value of nature to people that is often overlooked in discussion on climate resilience, adaptation, and mitigation.
The recording of the event can be accessed here (FR) and here (ENG).
AS IS- theatre performance based on ESRC funded fellowship i
Dr Harvey Humphrey
Research Fellow School of Education harvey.humphrey@strath.ac.uk
Twitter: @rharveyhumphrey @strathEDU
This was an in-person performance of the AS IS play, an ethnodrama drawn from Dr Harvey Humphrey’s PhD research interviews with trans, intersex and LGBTI activists across the UK, Malta and Australia (conducted between 2016 and 2018). The play uses composite characters to ethically represent trans, intersex and LGBTI activist relationships. These characters were played by a cast all of whom had a connection to the LGBTI community. The direction and production team were all trans and non-binary. The majority of the cast defined the same way as the characters. The cast and crew were all paid for their performance and rehearsal time.
The play surrounds a fictitious proposed bill ‘ASIS’ (drawn from real laws and proposed bills across all the countries) to consider trans and intersex legal recognition. Offering the characters a chance to discuss their work, complex relationships, and the battle for recognition of who they are. The sold-out event was attended by 70 audience members and a cast and crew of 15. There was also a post-show Q&A with Harvey, Mia and three actors. The play was filmed and the recording is available on request. A queer photographer and filming company were employed for this work.
This was funded by the ESRC as part of Harvey’s ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship. Additional funding for accessibility and inclusion work was provided by the HASS KE Small Grant fund. A brief report considering accessibility and inclusion work is currently being compiled by Dr Harvey Humphrey, Prof Yvette Taylor and Dr Navan Govender, all from the School of Education.
Researcher/Writer/Producer: Dr Harvey Humphrey
Director: Mia Slater; Scottish Youth Theatre, Glasgow.
Bottom four images on page 28 (from top left,
clockwise): Full cast; Kate (played by Gina Gwenffrewi, she/her) and Sandy (played by Jacqueline Jay Wilde she/her); Narrator (played by Hev Clift they/them), Dean (played by Erden Göktepe he/him) and Iain (played by Odhran Thomson he/him); Narrator (played by Hev Clift they/them), Stephen (played by Len Lukowski he/him), cont. on opp. page
Colleagues form the School of Education, Professor Yvette Taylor and PhD student Kate Molyneaux (pictured), have again organised the Strathclyde University Feminist Research Network Seminar Series for 2022/23. The annual seminars, instigated by Yvette and co-organised with colleagues across the career course, have been running since 2016. September’s event, with speaker Renee Dixson of the Australian National University (pictured) marked a return to on-campus activities, after two years of online seminars. Renee’s well-attended talk, titled ‘Assembling Queer Displacement Archive’, introduced their project on creating an open digital archive to address the phenomenon of LGBTIQ+ forced migration, giving voice to those who are often socially marginalised.
This years’ Series has interdisciplinary, international speakers presenting on topics such as menstruation, migration, sex education in schools, karate, and ‘the uses of difficulty’. Alongside external speakers, including from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Sheffield and St Andrews Universities, internal Strathclyde colleagues will also act as expert discussants.
The full schedule is available online and both staff and students are warmly encouraged to attend – this year’s programme sees a range of in-person and online activities: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/strathclydefeminist-research-network-17792708175
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Prof Yvette Taylor
Professor of Education School of Education yvette.taylor@strath.ac.uk
Twitter: @strath_fem
Dr Rogelia Pastor-Castro brings together history and diplomacy at the British ambassador’s residence in Paris with the book Embassies in Crisis. The volume she edited with Professor Martin Thomas (Exeter) brings together historians and diplomats to explore flashpoints in the recent lives of embassies at times of acute political crisis. Historical case studies include the British Embassy in Teheran, 1976-79; the British High Commissioners in India and Pakistan and the Kashmir conflict, 1947-49; and the establishment of the first US embassy in Israel. Dr Pastor-Castro’s contribution focused on the British Embassy in Paris and the Fall of France in 1940. The volume also features chapters from diplomats such as Jane Marriott who was ambassador to Yemen, and acting ambassador to Teheran; and Simon Smith who was British ambassador in Ukraine 2012-15, leading the embassy through the challenging months of the ‘Revolution with Dignity’ and Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Dr Pastor-Castro association with the British Embassy Paris began in 2014 when she was invited by the then ambassador, Lord Ricketts, to present her publication The Paris Embassy: British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations 1944-79. This collaboration continued when she organised a colloquium at the ambassador’s residence on relations between Britain and France in world war two, and later when she provided historical expertise to events such as the commemoration of the Liberation of Paris. She has participated in a number of embassy events on Franco-British relations, most recently attending the ‘Ravivage de la flamme’ commemoration at the Arc de Triomphe to mark the 82nd anniversary of the Battle of Britain in
the presence of British ambassador Dame Menna Rawlings, Patricia Miralles, French Minister for Veterans, as well as French and British defence staff. These significant events underline the importance of historic and contemporary FrancoBritish cooperation.
Dr Rogelia Pastor-Castro is director of the MSc Diplomacy and International Security in the School of Humanities. She is currently working on an AHRC funded project on ‘The Weight of the Past in Franco-British Relations’.
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Dr Rogelia Pastor-Castro
Knowledge Exchange Fellow School of Humanities rogelia.pastor-castro@strath.ac.uk
Twitter: @RogeliaPC and @DiploStrath
Image on right: Dr Pastor-Castro at British Ambassador’s residence in Paris
Image above: Colloquium at the British Ambassador’s residence in Paris
