Category / Communities, Cultures and Conflicts

Seeing the fruits of your labour in Bangladesh

Awarded & submitted bids, international, writing

After several little hiccups in our Sonamoni research project we can now show some of the work.  Sonamoni is a four-year research study led by the University of Bournemouth and the Centre for Injury Prevention Research Bangladesh (CIPRB) with the University of Southampton, the University of the West of England (UWE), the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and Design Without Borders (DWB) to develop a number of interventions to prevent drowning in children under the age of 2 years in rural Bangladesh.  After several stages of well-planned research we worked with local communities and stakeholders to propose six interventions with the prospect of been taken further to a full community-based feasibility study.

These six interventions are being piloted in Bangladesh as I am writing this. This pilot phase is made more difficult at the moment as the country is in the ban of the forthcoming national elections.  These elections are particularly challenging for the people in Bangladesh and CIPRB as the local research partner.  The previous national election resulted in violent changes, and the lead up to this election has been, and still is, a difficult period.

We would like to highlight one of the six interventions in a little more detail, as the Human-Centred Design approach, resulted in a neat, simple and low-cost playpen.  The colourful pictures shows the first batch of flatpack playpens in the CIPRB office and some being delivered to rural villages.  However, getting the first sixty developed in Bangladesh turned out more difficult than expected. Our collagues in Bangladesh approached several small to medium-sized companies in the country with the production capabilities to produce a large number of playpens.  In the end only one way interested to try and this company took much longer than agreed to produce enough for our pilot stage.  The good news is that the first stage of the pilot is underway, although now we have the difficulty of forthcoming national election slowing down our research.

This interdisciplinary study is funded through the NIHR Research on Interventions for Global Health Transformation programme (Ref: NIHR203216).  The Bournemouth University team comprises staff from across the university covering all three faculties: Dr. Mavis Bengtsson, Dr. Kyungjoo Cha, Dr. Mehdi Chowdhury, Dr. Yong Hun Lim, Mr. John Powell, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and Ph.D. student Mr. Md. Shafkat Hossain.  For more information about our ongoing research in Bangladesh, please visit the NIHR website.

Community Pride Podcast: Research Through Storytelling in Action

Community Pride, a new podcast series created by Bournemouth University postdoctoral researcher Dr Kayla Jones, has officially launched as part of Learning from Big Local, a platform showcasing community-led change across England.

The podcast is a creative output of the AHRC-funded StoryArcs project—a practice-based research collaboration between BU and Bath Spa University. The series was produced during Kayla’s time as a postdoctoral researcher under the supervision of Dr Lyle Skains at BU, who led on the funding acquisition and collaborative partnership that made this project within StoryArcs possible.

Each episode of Community Pride dives deep into the lived experiences of residents in communities supported by the Big Local programme, a 15-year initiative managed by Local Trust. Kayla was asked by Local Trust to engage community members whose stories reflect resilience, creativity, and pride in place. She conducted interviews, gathered local perspectives, and took the project from raw audio to fully produced episodes—writing, editing, and sound-designing each one herself.

“It brings together research, resident stories and practical insight into what it really takes for communities to lead change,” says Local Trust’s Lucy Terry. “And how funders, researchers, policymakers and practitioners can enable it.”

This podcast embodies the ethos of practice-based research—fusing academic insight with creative storytelling to reach both scholarly and public audiences. It’s a shining example of how postdoctoral research can extend beyond traditional publishing routes, bringing the voices of underrepresented communities directly into the spotlight.

Listen to the podcast here:

New Nepal scoping review on maternal & neonatal health

international, open access, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Today, Discover Public Health, published our latest academic paper on maternity and neonatal care in Nepal [1].  Our latest paper ‘A scoping review of interventions to improve maternal and neonatal care in Nepal‘ is lead by Dr. Sharada Prasad Wasti at the University of Greenwich and co-authored by Bournemouth University’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

For this scoping review we found 418 studies, and twenty were included, which used various interventions that aimed to improve maternal and neonatal health. Five overarching interventions were identified: (1) community-based maternal health literacy; (2) health facility strengthening, including health staff training, (3) mobilisation of female community health volunteers (FCHV) for birth preparedness and identifying danger signs; (4) mobile health messaging, and (5) involving husbands in improving the uptake of maternal and neonatal care. Most interventions were a mixture of activities with a combination of interventions rather than a single intervention.

The authors note that no single intervention is sufficient on its own; indeed, a combination of approaches is needed to improve the uptake of maternal and neonatal care services.

This scientific paper in Discover Public Health is open access and, therefore, freely available worldwide to anybody with internet access.  Interestingly, the journal has added an AI generated summary, despite the fact that we as authors had provided a perfectly useful abstract.

 

Reference:

  1. Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Adhikari, N. Morgan, J. (2025) A scoping review of interventions to improve maternal and neonatal care in Nepal. Discover Public Health 22, 855 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12982-025-01241-x

New BU midwifery paper

PG research, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations to HEMS colleagues on their recently published paper in MIDIRS Midwifery Digest. This new qualitative publication focuses on the ‘Barriers to the uptake of healthy eating messages by Black African immigrant pregnant women living in the UK: midwives’ perspectives’ [1].  The paper grew out of Aniebiet Ekong’s PhD research on this topic which was supervised by Drs. Pramod Regmi, Juliet Wood, and Jaqui Hewitt-Taylor.

 

Reference:

  1. Ekong A, Regmi P, Wood J, Hewitt-Taylor J. Barriers to the uptake of healthy eating messages by Black African immigrant
    pregnant women living in the UK: midwives’ perspectives M    IDIRS Midwifery Digest, 35(4):  372–383.

New PhD publication on Nepal’s migrant workers

international, open access, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations to BU postgraduate student Yagya Adhikari, who has just been informed by the editor of the Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health that his paper “Parental migration for work and psychosocial problems among left-behind adolescents in Nepal” [1] has been accepted for publication.  Yagya’s PhD is based in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Science.  He is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen with support from Mr. Sudip Khanal, Lecturer in Biostatistics, at Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Kathmandu.  This is the second paper from Yagya’s PhD the first one was published at the start of his PhD studies [2].  Both papers are published in Open Access journals and therefor will be freely available to read by anyone in the world with internet access.

 

References:

  1. Adhikari, Y.R., van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P.R., Khanal, S., Parental migration for work and psychosocial problems among left-behind adolescents in Nepal, Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health (forthcoming)
  2. Adhikari, Y.R., Regmi, P.R., Devkota, B., van Teijlingen, E.R. (2022) Forgotten health and social care needs of left-behind families of Nepali migrant workers. Journal of Health Promotion, 10(1):1–4. https://doi.org/10.3126/jhp.v10i1.50976

BU paper among top 20 most cited papers

BRIAN, PG research, writing

The international journal Sociological Research Online ranked a paper written by Bournemouth University academics in its top twenty most cited papers in the past three years.  The methodological paper ‘Using a range of communication tools to interview a hard-to-reach population’ has as lead author Dr. Orlanda Harvey in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Science.

Reference:

  1. Harvey, O., van Teijlingen, E., Parrish, M. (2024) Using a range of communication tools to interview a hard-to-reach population, Sociological Research Online 29(1): 221–232 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/13607804221142212

Reflections on My Social Work Summer Internship

student research

For six weeks of my summer between the 2nd and 3rd year of my Social Work degree I completed an internship with the aim of improving my skills relating to the facilitation of PPI (Patient and Public Involvement) workshops and working with people, as well as expanding my knowledge of the issues women of ethnic minority/migrant communities face.

Week 1: I spent this first week getting to know the professionals I would be working with throughout the six weeks and forming positive and trusting relationships with them. I also worked on getting to grips with what the project was, what my role as the intern was, and how the world of PPI works.

Week 2: The majority of this week I read information/research on the various methods we could use for the workshops and general project. I also met with more professionals and learnt about the PPI process and benefits. To prepare further for the workshops I, along with two experienced colleagues (including my internship supervisor), selected the participants we would talk with in the workshops.

All the above information then started to be drafted into the report document to explain the method, reasoning and research behind the project.

Whilst we originally aimed for one (maybe two) workshop groups where we would use the methods I researched within the week, to engage the participants in a productive conversation, we ended the workshop week with an entirely different plan, two workshop groups, a few one-to-one conversations and email responses for those unable to attend.

Week 3: This week saw me preparing for the workshops by talking to other professionals more experienced in the field, amending the questions we aimed to use to engage the participants in a really positive and productive conversation and ensuring that the workshop space would be as equal, fair and safe as we could make it. I learnt this week, the importance of not guaranteeing a safe space as this removes all space for human error. This can make others uncomfortable as they fear making a mistake (and their apology not being accepted).

Week 4: Week four was workshop week. During this week two large group workshops were and four, one-to-one workshops were conducted. I learnt to co-facilitate workshops with both people I do and do not know, and how to engage participants in difficult conversations. I learnt the importance of ensuring participants felt validated and accepted in the space. Each of these workshops were transcribed and written up into a large document collectively.

Week 5: I, along with my internship supervisor, conducted a thematic analysis during this week (putting all the participants contributions and ideas from the workshops into different themes to make the report easier to write and read as it flows easier). A few last minute workshops were held in this week (one-to-one) and I also started writing up our findings in the report.

Week 6: In week six, I, along with my internship supervisor, wrote the majority of the report draft to be sent to the project leads. I also created a PowerPoint presentation to present the findings from this project to the project leads and outline my learning experiences and how they will aid in my final year of university and future career.

Lessons I learnt:

  • Flexibility (I learnt to be flexible BEFORE the workshops began but also DURING (where our method did not fit with the participants we were talking to, especially during one-to-one conversations)
  • Time management
  • Working with others
  • Co-facilitating workshops with people I do and do not know and ensuring the participants feel accepted in the space and their feelings/experiences validated
  • Presenting my ideas to professionals I do not know
  • Professional report writing
  • Ensuring the space is as safe as possible without guaranteeing a safe space for all

This project has taught me a significant amount about working with Women from ethnic minority/migrant communities and the challenges they face both in research but also in daily life. I am sure this understanding as well as the knowledge I gained about working with other professionals and presenting my ideas to them effectively, will stand me in good stead for my final university year and future career in social work.

Megan Jukes, Social Work Student

A note from Dr Orlanda Harvey:
‘It was a joy to support Megan in developing her research skills, and work alongside her on this project. She was very committed to understanding what was required and her confidence grew in leaps and bounds over the course of the project. I am very grateful to the many colleagues at BU who  gave up their time to help support her learning and development, and I am particularly grateful for the help of Kate Jupp as without her the PPI sessions would not have happened. The report that has been drafted will be very helpful to anyone seeking to understand how to engage participants in research in a meaningful way.‘

Nepal migrant workers returning from India

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Nepal has been in the world news this week for the wrong reasons, with young protesters burning down the parliament, and damaging many government building in all seven provinces.  Some 30 young people died in the process and and thousands of sometimes dangerous prisoners were freed.   After the political and social upheaval in the country this past week, Nepalese migrant workers are beginning to return home from India to be with their families. Today (Friday 12th September) the BBC online reported under the heading ‘Worried migrants head home from India after Nepal turmoil‘.

The journalist interviewed both migrant workers and students from Nepal living in India.  The piece also cited several studies on Nepalese migrant workers in India, including a Bournemouth University (BU) study with the title ‘The Health of Nepali Migrants in India: A Qualitative Study of Lifestyles and Risks‘ [1].  This publication is one of the many published papers on the health and well-being of Nepalese migrant workers conducted in BU’s Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences.  The lead author of this paper in theInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is Dr. Pramod Regmi, Principal Academic in International Health. 

 

References:

  1. Regmi PR, van Teijlingen E, Mahato P, Aryal N, Jadhav N, Simkhada P, Zahiruddin QS, Gaidhane A. (2019) The Health of Nepali Migrants in India: A Qualitative Study of Lifestyles and Risks. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 16(19):3655. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16193655.

 

World War II: Eating tulip bulbs

international, writing

Tulip bulbs can be eaten, but it is not a common source of human food. Eating tulip bulbs helped many Dutch people in the Hunger Winter, the last winter of the Second World War (1944-1945). During the German occupation the Dutch suffered from a shortage of food.  In the collection of my mother, I found a short book published in 1941 with a made-do-and-mend approach about growing your own food.  My mother died this summer at the age of 92.

The book ‘Veel groenten van weinig grond’ (in Dutch: Many vegetables from little soil) gives advice to readers on how to grown vegetables in small plots of land, gardens, etc.  This book in the first year of the occupation does not mention the use of tulips as food. Hidden in the book was a typed one-page sheet with three instruction for tulips followed by five recipes.

The main message seems to be that the preparation of the tulip bulbs as well as the taste is very much like potatoes.  For example, the recipe for tulip bulb puree includes boiling the bulbs, one packet of vanilla sugar or vanilla essence, three spoons of honey, artificial honey or syrup, mix well and add warm water.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences

AI and Visual Anthropology & Sociology

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Scholars worldwide are in dialogue about using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in various fields of research.  Of course, AI can make certain kinds of work more efficient, this is also the case in social science research. Although ethical use of AI is still fuzzy, the use of AI in visual anthropological and sociological research that entails the Interpretive Approach raises several questions. The editorial  team of Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, including BU’s Professor Edwin van Teijlingen, just published a research note raising three key questions: First, are researchers satisfied with the interpretation (the meaning created) by AI, i.e., the authenticity of the interpretation?; (b) Secondly, can AI reach the depth of the details of the visual object being interpreted? And thirdly, what ethical issues would AI-based research encounter if AI were highly supportive?

They agree that answering these questions is not easy. Since a detailed analysis of these components needs rigorous research work, we consider issues that will be the basis for further research in this editorial note. Hence, the purpose of this editorial note is to bring the research agenda to the forefront of researchers for further investigation rather than answering specific research questions mentioned above.

 

Reference:

  1. Khattri, M. B., Pandey, R., Roy, R. K., Subedi, M., van Teijlingen, E., Parker, S., & Bhandari, P. (2025). Ethical Dilemmas in Visual Anthropology and Sociology in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 19(1), i-v. https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v19i1.80819

Academics write for newspaper in Nepal

innovation, international, open access, Publishing, writing

Yesterday the online newspaper Online Khabar in Nepal published an opinion piece in English written by three Bournemouth University academics working with a colleague in Kathmandu.  This interdisciplinary piece ‘Resilient through experiences: Unlocking the entrepreneurial prowess of Nepal’s left-behind women‘ brings together ideas gained from many different studies and disciplines.  The three authors from Bournemouth University are: Dr. Sukanya Ayatakshi-Endow, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and Dr. Pramod Regmi, and they collaborated with Dr. Rashmee Rajkarnikar who is based at Nepal’s oldest and largest university, Tribhuvan University.  The four authors brings insights from economics, business studies, sociology, women’s studies, migration studies and health.