Public engagement and media activities

IMPACT FILM: Arts-based research and education beyond the academy

Dr Katja Frimberger from the School of Education is member of the Experiments in Education Theory (ExET) research group (www.exet.org) in the School. The group’s main aim is to advocate thinking about matters educational so that actors therein, at all levels, might benefit from engaging with thought and its relationships with and to action. Katja has cooperated as researcher, educator and performer with stakeholders from the arts/film sector since 2013, to further the impact of arts-based research and education beyond the academy. Her long-term collaboration with Glasgow-based filmmaker Simon Bishopp (Showmanmedia) spans a variety of film education and film-making impact projects, for example, in the educational/documentary, animation and science fiction genre.

The documentary ‘Scotland Our New Home’, and film-based teaching materials, were the result of a Creative Scotland-funded participatory filmmaking project with young refugees from the New Young Peers Scotland group (hosted by YPeople Charity/Glasgow Clyde College) who wanted to learn about the art of filmmaking, and create a short film to support other new young arrivals in the process of making home in Scotland. A research article was also published from the project.

The Mice & the Bakers and film-based teaching materials were the result of the Creative Scotland and Paul Hamlyn Foundation - funded education projects ‘UAnimate’ and ‘Little Animation Studio’. The projects used adapted digital technologies to support primary school children in residential care from Harmeny School (Balerno) to learn about the art of animation and create their first fully animated short film, which was exhibited at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art. Safeguarding Online Practices interviews can also be watched online.

The Science Fiction Short Film called Refuge was selected by Alex Proyas (director of The Crow, Dark City, I-Robot, Gods of Egypt) for his new 2022 Streaming Platform Vidiverse. The short has previously screened at Glasgow Short Film 2017; the London Sci-Fi Festival 2018; Inverness Film Festival 2018 and was selected for Film Hub Scotland’s/ BFI’s “Shorts in Support” scheme, which aims to revive the tradition of the supporting short film by distributing eight new short films to cinemas and film societies to screen before features. An interview with the director is also available online.

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Dr Katja Frimberger

Lecturer School of Education katia.frimberger@strath.ac.uk

Bring Your Own Hammer is a new History and Music project in which historians and composers collaborate to create original song cycles based on historical sources. The songs aim to contribute to public history and a reinvigoration of traditional forms of presenting the past, connecting the audience with important historical themes in ways perhaps not possible in conventional ‘written’ histories. It is rooted in the history of nineteenth-century Ireland and of the Irish Diaspora and involves leading composers, musicians and singers. The project aims to be of benefit to the historian, the composer and the wider public.

The first two releases from the project appeared in September with Dimple Discs, from acclaimed Irish singer-songwriter Adrian Crowley, ably assisted on “Golden Streets, Bitter Tears” by Brigid Mae Power. They are available to stream here and the video is here.

Niall Whelehan (History) is co-director on the project, which is supported by Strathclyde’s HASS KE Fund and funding from the History Department, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick. Some of the composers and singers involved are Linda Buckley, Adrian

Crowley, Cathal Coughlan, Wally Nkikita, Brigid Mae Power, Michelle O’Rourke, Mike Smalle, Jah Wobble and James Yorkston.

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Dr Niall Whelehan

Senior Lecturer in History School of Humanities niall.whelehan@strath.ac.uk

Cultural rights project completed by School of Law

Members of the Strathclyde Centre for the Study of Human Rights, Dr Elaine Webster and Dr Lynsey Mitchell lead a team of researchers and authored a report into access to culture within the cultural rights landscape in Scotland. This work was commissioned by the Human Rights Consortium Scotland to explore the existing legal protection of access to culture and whether incorporation of UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights would help secure and improve the public’s access to culture in Scotland.

The report set out the current status of cultural rights in international human rights law and explains that access to culture is a key cultural right. The report noted that there is existing legal protection for some cultural rights in Scotland but that incorporation of UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights would add an additional layer to this.

As part of the project the researchers attended a workshop with key stakeholders within the charitable and culture sectors in Scotland. Participants discussed current challenges around achieving equality of access to culture in Scotland and whether they thought incorporation of the UN Treaty would improve this.

The team included current students enrolled in the Law School’s Human Rights LLM and PhD programmes as well as Post-Doctoral Researcher Dr Diana Camps from the University of Glasgow.

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Dr Lynsey Mitchell

Lecturer in Law lynsey.mitchell@strath.ac.uk

Strathclyde Race, Ethnicity & Migration Network

The Strathclyde Race, Ethnicity & Migration Network is a research-led group designed to bring together academics, teaching staff, and practitioners. We currently have membership spanning HaSS, the Business School, and the Equality and Diversity team. Our aim is to become a leading hub for interdisciplinary research and practice in the field.

The network was recently awarded Faculty funding to build capacity in interdisciplinary research. We have significant expertise in areas including Health, Policy, Politics, the Arts and History. There is also significant expertise in participatory methods, including research co-design with communities.

We will be hosting a networking event in November and welcome all staff and PGRs in the Strathclyde community. Our priorities in the coming year are to develop concrete plans around funding, supporting PGRs and ECRs, and enhancing our impact in policy and the third sector. Join us!

To be added to the network’s mailing list, please contact Churnjeet Mahn: (churnjeet.mahn@strath.ac.uk)

The UN One Ocean Conference and the need to scale up ocean action

The second UN Ocean Conference (Lisbon, Portugal, 27 June- 1 July 2022) brought together the international community of ocean decision-makers, researchers, practitioners and stakeholders to reflect on the need to scale up ocean action. Critical directions for the transformative change have emerged from the exchanges among civil society, youth representatives, researchers and UN partners on the side-lines of the Conference.

The Conference was convened under the theme “Scaling up ocean action based on science and innovation for the implementation of Goal 14: stocktaking, partnerships and solutions”. In addition to expressing alarm for the effects of climate change on the ocean, the 2022 Declaration also emphasized “shifts in the abundance and distribution of marine species, including fish”, the “decrease in marine biodiversity” and “related impacts on island and coastal communities”. Surprisingly, however, there were no detailed calls about scaling up ocean action under the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact.

The climate-related references in the Political Declaration do not sufficiently underscore the equity issues at stake, despite the additional reference to “avert[ing], minimiz[ing] and address[ing] loss and damage, and implementing nature-based solutions, ecosystem-based approaches for… carbon sequestration and the prevention of coastal erosion”. It is noteworthy, in this connection, that the recently appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights attended the UN Ocean Conference, and is preparing a report on loss and damage. The One Ocean Hub made a submission to contribute to that report, in order to underscore the loss and damage arising from climate change impacts on marine ecosystems, and the transformative potential of ocean-based climate action that contributes to biodiversity conservation and human rights protection. There were certainly various national delegations expressing commitment towards a speedy conclusion of current negotiations, but not much detail about what an ambitious agreement may look like.

What was mentioned several times, in official parts of the Conference, as well as on the sidelines, was the continued need to protect the human rights of small-scale fishers, as an integral part of the efforts to implement SDG 14. The references to human rights were another remarkable difference compared to the 2017 UN Ocean Conference. More work remains to be done to understand the benefits of more coherent human rights protection for sustainable fisheries and a healthy ocean, as the One Ocean Hub is exploring with FAO, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Danish Institute for Human Rights and WWF.

The Political Declaration further contains commitments to empower women and girls in progressing towards a sustainable oceanbased economy and to achieving SDG 14, as well as children and youth to “understand the importance of and the need to contribute to the health of the ocean, including in decisionmaking, through promoting and supporting quality education and lifelong learning for ocean literacy.” Youth representatives in Lisbon made

the most articulated statements on the oceanclimate nexus, on the BBNJ negotiations and the need to rethink deep-seabed mining (see also here). On the latter, the political momentum gained around a moratorium on deep-seabed mining has been considered one of the main achievements at the Conference. Despite this, youth representatives felt marginalized from the main political discussions taking place in Lisbon. It is for this reason that the One Ocean Hub has been contributing to the development of a new UN General Comment on children’s human rights and the environment, with a view to providing more clarity on the international human rights obligations of States to ensure meaningful participation of youth in ocean decisions-making.

The One Ocean Hub and its partners have provided their most recent insights on these critical questions in and around the UN Ocean Conference. We shared the message that our analysis (Niner et al, 2022) indicates that national blue economy policies focus on technical solutions that do not address systemic issues, such as discrimination, gender equality, and challenges posed by climate change (SDGs 16C, 5 and 13). We thus identified four challenges to strengthening sustainable ocean-based economies: • avoid reproducing historical and current injustices, by identifying and addressing contextual inequalities; • avoid exclusionary and non-responsive processes (SDG 16.7), by paying attention to local, national and global power imbalances that limit people’s abilities to engage in policy development; • avoid prejudice against local knowledge systems, by integrating intangible cultural heritage (SDG 11.4) and respecting cultural rights; • valuing blue natural capital, by integrating crucial marine ecosystem services (including deep-sea ecosystem services) on which humanity depends (notably, climate regulation and climate change mitigation, and contributions to human health).

We have exchanged with stakeholders and decision-makers our interim findings on how inclusive ocean knowledge co-production is a necessary precondition for the development of fair and sustainable blue economies, effective ocean-based solutions to climate change, and the implementation of multiple Sustainable Development Goals. This requires relying on the latest understanding of deep-sea ecosystems, and their benefits to humanity, the role of ocean culture and the arts in providing a space for transformative dialogue, and the benefits of mainstreaming human rights (of indigenous peoples, small-scale fishers, women and children, as well as everyone’s human right to a healthy environment) for integrated ocean science, management and governance. We will continue to distil key learning and approaches from our work, connect it in innovative ways with other’s efforts, and work with partners in preparation for the next UN Climate and Biodiversity COPs and the continuation of the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture.

Read Prof Elisa Morgera’s full blog here.

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Prof Elisa Morgera

One Ocean Hub School of Law elisa.morgera@strath.ac.uk