CMC Media School Lecturer and CEMP Fellow, Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, was awarded a Wellcome Trust Small Grant in Medical Humanities for her project ‘Communicating Medical Knowledge in the History of Tear Gas’. Aiming to inform new medical knowledge about tear gas, as well as provide resources for policy-makers and key stakeholders, this research project examines changing and contested notions around the health effects of tear gases for law enforcement purposes. Using a case study approach and archival methods, the project explores how medical experts have communicated medical knowledge around tear gas, shaping policies and legislation, from the Geneva Convention to the European Union ban on trade in instruments of torture. Outputs for this project include a contracted book with Verso and an open access website of tools and resources. Dr. Feigenbaum’s work on tear gas has been quoted in the Guardian, The Financial Times, New Internationalist and Vice magazine, as well as in international publications in Brazil, the Philippines, Turkey and Italy. Dr. Feigenbaum is always interested in building new interdisciplinary collaborations. If you are interested in this area of research, be in touch! afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk
Category / REF Subjects
CoPMRE Eleventh Annual Symposium: Impact in Healthcare Research and Education’
The Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education are hosting their Eleventh Annual Symposium on Tuesday 14 October 2014.
The event will focus on developments and activities around impact in healthcare research and education. It will explore impact from the perspectives of the public, the research funder, the university, the provider, the student and the medical educator.
Speakers include:
- Professor Trish Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care and Dean for Research Impact, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry
- Simon Denegri, Chair INVOLVE
- Natalie Carter, Head of Research Liaison and Evaluation, Arthritis Research UK
- Jonathan Grant, Director, Kings Policy Institute.
This symposium is suitable for primary and secondary doctors, allied healthcare professionals, academics and anyone with an interest in medical research and education. Interested staff from across BU are invited and very welcome.
You can register on Eventbrite here. For more information please contact Audrey Dixon.
BU Citizen Journalism Project Featured on BBC
Kelvin Trevett, Access Dorset citizen journalist (photo: Access Dorset)
Pioneering citizen journalism project, ADTV, involving The Media School’s Einar Thorsen, Dan Jackson and Ann Luce has recently been featured on BBC radio and BBC’s The Politics Show, for a full 8 minutes!
In a nutshell, ADTV is about empowering older people, disabled people and carers to gain a public voice through citizen journalism. Thanks to Fusion funding, we have been able to work with local charity, Access Dorset, who represents these groups locally. They have put together a fantastic video about ADTV on their website.
The project is now in its second phase. From November 2013 to January 2014, Ann Luce – together with BA (Hons) Multimedia Journalism student, Nicolas Williams – led a five-week intensive training course for twelve Access Dorset volunteers on foundation principles of video journalism. This gave them the skills and confidence to develop a citizen journalism website alongside their other advice and support functions.
Since then, the volunteers (who now actively self-identify as citizen journalists) have thrown themselves into the project and pursued a range of different stories. They have made videos about living with cancer, anorexia, emergency medical treatment for older people, inaccessible footpaths for disabled people, and overcoming attitudinal barriers to disability to name a few.
One of the most high profile reports has been in support of their campaign to make Pokesdown railway station accessible for disabled people. The funny, playful yet powerful video they made shows Bournemouth resident and Access Dorset citizen journalist, Kelvin Trevett, being repeatedly told there is no way for him to access the station platform in his wheelchair. The film pretends to be shot over several decades, with creative use of a newspaper stand marking various landmarks in the development of disabled people’s rights since 1960.
The video and campaign has made local headlines, gained the support of local politicians, and has even been discussed in Parliament.
We are now working with Access Dorset and their citizen journalists on research interviews and ongoing evaluation of the project. The findings of these will be presented at the IAMCR annual conference in Hyderabad this July, and ECREA annual conference in Lisbon, November. Publications are also lined up to disseminate these research findings in books and journals. Building on the Fusion funded project, we are now pursuing external grants: to ensure the sustainability of the project and advance this model of citizen journalism beyond Dorset, and to explore new ways for marginalised groups to get their voices heard – both within grassroots initiatives and national media.
For further information, please contact:
Einar Thorsen: ethorsen@bournemouth.ac.uk
Dan Jackson: jacksond@bournemouth.ac.uk
Ann Luce: aluce@bournemouth.ac.uk
Fury: Brad Pitt and BU Research meet at the cross roads
Brad Pitt’s new movie “Fury” which is soon to be released is based upon a story in the 2nd World War. Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank in this movie.
Some of the scenes of this movie were filmed in The Tank Museum Bovington mainly on two historically significant tanks the Sherman and Tiger 1. These are the same tanks which were subjects of SRDC widely published research by Adil Saeed (lead researcher), Zulfiqar Khan, Mark Hadfield and Richard (supervisors). These tanks can be seen in action in the movie trailer Brad Pitt – FURY in around 2 minutes and 26 seconds.
This movie reflects the importance of our research that “how can we preserve vehicles in a valuable state for the benefit of society for lengths of time that far exceed the basis any normal design intent”. As with the imminent centenaries of the First World War and the passing of the Generation that fought in the Second World War, the conservation of significantly degrading vehicle collections has taken on a new importance.
The Tank Museum at Bovington is arguably one of the largest museums in the world. There is a collection of over 300 historic military vehicles with historic significance. Structural deterioration through corrosion, corrosion fatigue, stress corrosion cracking and mechanical failures are a threat to these vehicles in terms of conservation.
Tiger and Sherman are some of the prominent collections. The only operational Tiger tank in the world is currently at The Tank Museum at Bovington. These artefacts had to be conserved sustainably while operating modestly to enthuse spectators during the annual Tank Fest, other events and engaging new generation in science, technology and maths through the interactive ingenuity of the early 20th century to develop mechanical engineering design solutions and above all conserve them sustainably for the future generations to come.
Team from the Sustainable Design Research Centre with The Tank Museum, academics from Oxbridge, Bath, Cardiff universities and stakeholders from industry met in 2008-09 at the Tank Museum to discuss/brain storm on how to develop a framework. This will allow to formulate sustainable methodology of conserving these vehicles.
These early discussions incubated The Tank Museum match funded (£25K + £3600) PhD programme in “Sustainable Methodology of Conserving Historic Vehicles”. The successful completion of the project provided an understanding of military vehicle conservation from a predominantly technical viewpoint.
The research between BU and The Tank Museum was focused to address increasing problems of corrosion and component failures in The Tank Museum military tanks including the Tiger 1, Sherman, Centaur, King Tiger, Wolverine M10 and BT – R 60, which have significant cultural, heritage and historical value.
This research has delivered immense impact through scientific findings and benefits to the British Heritage. Research led by Dr Adil Saeed with supervisory team Zulfiqar Khan, Mark Hadfield and Richard Smith has delivered a framework of condition monitoring and conservation of ageing military vehicles. This is the first kind of research which has resulted in the development of new conservation facility, installation of relative humidity and temperature monitoring sensors, live-corrosion condition monitoring sensors and the implementation of a control environment.
The findings have also attracted international industrial players in corrosion, structural deterioration and materials’ characterisation, who have been involved through in-kind support such as NASA Materials Testing and Corrosion Control Branch (joint research publication), Systems Technology, PANalytical Ltd, Analatom, PMI Analytical, Carl-Zeiss Cambridge and West-Dean Chichester (in kind support totalling £21Kl) in experimental resources.
The successful delivery of this project produced measurable significant societal and academic impacts. Defence Science and Testing Laboratories (DSTL), Ministry of Defence is match funding (£22.5K) PhD studentship in “In-situ corrosion health monitoring and prediction in military vehicles” (Dr Khan PI).
This work led to collaborative research postdoctoral research programme in “Polarisation and Coating Data research” with Wessex Institute of Technology. This work is led by Dr Adil Saeed as postdoc researcher, Mark Hadfield & Zulfiqar Khan (PI, Co-I) and Professor Carlos A. Brebbia and Dr Robert A Adey from WIT.
A first BU-Tank Museums EU Conference was held at BU on Monday 2nd July 2012. The following participated in a hugely successful conference
- BU
- The Tank Museum, Bovington, UK
- Oxford University, UK
- Military Museum, Munster Panzer Museum, Germany
- Finnish Tank Museum, Finland
- Swedish Tank Museum, Sweden
- Belgian Military Museum
- Military Museum, Dresden, Germany
Sustainable Design Research Centre has developed advanced labs which will play a significant role in future research. This is a major source of raising BU profile as International leader in Structural Integrity.
Level C Design Methods & Projects (40 credit unit led by Dr Khan) in Design Engineering course benefits from research informed education through their live project (50% of course work) in collaboration with The Tank Museum.
A newly developed level M unit “Structural Integrity” (20 credit led by M Koohgilani) will benefit from this research.
If you would like to know more about this research or SDRC activities in research, education and professional practice please contact
Dr Zulfiqar Khan (Associate Professor)
Director SDRC
IHPRC celebrates 5th birthday
The International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC) celebrated its fifth birthday on the first day of the 2014 conference on Wednesday, July 2.
The conference chair, Prof Tom Watson, was joined in cutting the celebration cake by Prof Don Wright (BostonUniversity), Associate Professor Meg Lamme (UniversityofAlabama) and Associate Professor Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo (UniversityofNavarra), who were members of an advisory panel consulted on the establishment of the conference in 2009.
The conference, which was opened by the Dean of The Media School, Stephen Jukes, has been attended by delegates from more than 12 countries. Some 33 papers and a Keynote Panel have been presented.
More than 150 papers have been offered by delegates from 30 countries in the past five years. The conference has established the field of PR history and spurred a big growth in journal and book publishing, with two more books launched at the 2014 conference.
Planning is already beginning for the 2015 conference to be held on July 7-8.
(L-R) Prof Don Wright, Prof Tom Watson, Assoc Prof Meg Lamme & Assoc Prof Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo
Reminder: Upcoming seminar from Australian visitor Dr Terry Haines
Further to the previous announcement (http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/06/12/upcoming-seminar-from-dr-terry-haines-monash-university-australia/), a title and abstract is now available for the seminar:
Tuesday 8th July, 2pm, TA134, Talbot campus:
Dr Terry Haines, Monash University, Melbourne.
Reversing research and implementation science for practices that are widely provided, dogma heavy and evidence light.
Some widely provided health services have an absence of evidence for effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and/or safety yet persist in clinical practice. It is possible that these practices are wasting valuable resources, but alternately may be valuable assets to service provision. Provision of these services in the context of usual care is a considerable barrier to conducting a conventional trial. Our team has recently developed a novel research approach to conduct a trial for this context[1]. This approach turns a conventional stepped-wedge, cluster randomised controlled trial design on its head. This presentation will outline the strengths and limitations of the stepped-wedge design relative to other experimental designs, describes how this design was turned into a novel disinvestment research design, and then describe its first application in a clinical setting. The clinical example involves the withdrawal of weekend allied health services from acute medical and surgical wards across three hospitals in Australia. The early results of this trial run contrary to current initiatives to create a 7-day a week health service.
Reference
1. Haines T, O’Brien L, McDermott F, Markham D, Mitchell D, Watterson D, Skinner E: A novel research design can aid disinvestment from existing health technologies with uncertain effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and/or safety. J Clin Epidemiol 2014 , 67(2):144-151.
If you are able to attend the seminar, please let Samuel Nyman know by email: snyman@bournemouth.ac.uk
Latest HSC Midwifery paper in Open Access
Our latest paper in Midwifery ‘Translation and validation of the German version of the Mother-Generated Index and its application during the postnatal period’ is now freely available through Open Access on the Midwifery (Elsevier) webpages.
The lead author Susanne Grylka-Baeschlin, together with my colleagues Kathrin Stoll and Mechthild M. Gross, secured funding from COST to make this paper Open Access. The paper was part of Susanne’s M.Sc. project at the Midwifery Research and Education Unit, Hannover Medical School, Germany.
We would like to thank the ISCH Cost Action ISO907 (Childbirth Cultures, Concerns, and Consequences: Creating a dynamic EU framework for optimal maternity care) for funding the Open Access. COST (European Cooperation in Science & Technology) is one of the longest-running European frameworks supporting cooperation among scientists and researchers across Europe. For further information on COST in general see: www.cost.eu. UCLan lead this particular COST Action and Prof. Soo Downe is the Chair of the Action (www.iresearch4birth.eu).
For my colleagues at Bournemouth University please, note there is also funding available for Open Access publishing within the university: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2014/05/22/money-available-for-open-access-publishing/
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Today’s slides from ROMEO project
Thank you very much for all of you who attended today’s presentation of the joint project between the University of Aberdeen, Bournemouth University and the University of Stirling. For those who missed the session or who asked for a copy of the slides after the session, please find these included in the BU Research Blog.
The project was funded by National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme (09/127/01). Therefore, I must point out that “views and opinions expressed therein (and here) are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the HTA programme, NIHR, NHS or the Department of Health.”
As with all HTA reports the final report and a ten-page summary are both freely available online, see:
www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/118180/FullReport-hta18350.pdf
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.
R
Dr. Inventor – next generation “Google” search for researchers
Are you eager to have innovative ideas? Are you keen to find an effective method to solve your research problems? Do you want to speed up your research information collection? Cooperated among eight universities and companies around Europe, we are developing a virtual personal research assistant in our new European Commission funded project “Dr. Inventor – Promoting Scientific Creativity by Utilising Web-based Research Objects”.
Dr Inventor aims to develop an intelligent software system utilising machine-empowered search and computation to bring researchers extended perspectives for scientific innovation. By informing researchers of a broad spectrum of relevant research concepts and approaches, this system will help assess the novelty of research ideas and offer suggestions of new concepts and workflows for new scientific discovery. Dr Inventor will be the first web-based system that supports the exploration of scientific creativity via a computational approach, which will overcome a lot of human limitations.
If you would like our system to work the way you envisage to do, please join our user requirement study by finishing a short survey (taking about 5 minutes) at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/drinventor. You can tell us how you perform your research tasks, what is the most difficult part in your research, what you wish our system to do to help you. Your feedback will guide our design; your suggestions may steer the way how people undertake research in the next few decades.
Jian J Zhang & Xiaosong Yang
National Centre for Computer Animation, The Media School, Bournemouth University
Epidurals PhD researcher wins EPSRC award
Congratulations to SciTech’s Dr Neil Vaughan who has won the EPSRC’s ICT Pioneers ‘Transforming Society’ award. The accolade, which recognises the most exceptional UK PhD students, was awarded to Neil at a ceremony in Westminster last week for his innovative epidural simulator project.
The simulator uses software to replicate the epidural process, thereby assisting in training for this delicate procedure that is performed over 1000 times each day in the UK.
Neil’s supervisor Dr Venky Dubey said: “This is an exceptional achievement for BU and the collaborating partner Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Neil was up against stiff competition from top universities, including the University of Oxford, University College London and the University of Bath.”
The clinical project was proposed by the senior consultant anaesthetist at Poole Hospital, Professor Michael Wee, who also co-supervised the PhD.
Neil’s work was judged by a panel of technical experts from academia and industry. He triumphed through a rigorous selection process over a six month period, which included a written proposal, video and poster presentation. This culminated in a high-profile research showcase, where finalists pitched their project to representatives from the EPSRC, Hewlett Packard, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), BT and an audience of hundreds.
For more information about the project view the news item on the research webpages.
‘Intelligences’ theme of PR conference
Dr David MacQueen and Prof Tom Watson of The Media School both chaired panels and presented papers at the PR Meeting #4 conference in Barcelona last week.
The conference, which features research on critical approaches to public relations and strategic communication, had a focus on ‘intelligences’ this year.
Dr McQueen chaired a session which included fellow speakers from the the US, Spain and New Zealand. His paper, jointly authored with Graeme Baxter of Robert Gordon University, considered community resistance to corporate power in Scotland and Ireland.
Prof Watson presented a critical review of repetitive research issues in PR, in a session which also included speakers from Australia and Sweden. On the final afternoon of the conference he was a panel speaker on academic writing and publishing.
“This conference is a top event as it has broad international participation and always pushes into new research territory,” said Prof Watson. “This year, it was built around Howard Gardners’s work on intelligences, which brought forward aspects such as competitive, professional, spiritual, digital, emotional, dialogic, wicked and feminist intelligences.”
(L-R) PR Meeting # organisers Prof Jordi Xifra (Pompeu Fabra) and Prof David McKie (Wakato) with Prof Tom Watson
Maternity, Midwifery & Baby Conference
A recent free Maternity, Midwifery & Baby Conference held in London offered an ideal opportunity for Bournemouth University to showcase two innovative projects. The first, co-presented by Dr. Sue Way and Sian Ridden, a 2nd year midwifery student, focused on a joint chiropractic and midwifery newborn clinic which was set up with Fusion principles in mind. There are a number of aims of the clinic, of which the main is to optimise women’s opportunities to breastfeed successfully by providing chiropractic care for babies and breastfeeding support and advice to mothers. There are two further important aims, one of which, is to enhance student (undergraduate midwifery students & chiropractic students) learning opportunities and secondly, to provide networking and collaborative opportunities for students and staff in relation to research and dissemination of findings around these particular topics. When it was Sian’s turn to present, she was confident and articulate. She discussed a case study and how her knowledge was enhanced by being part of the clinic. Sian found attending the clinics provided her with a great learning experience and it was empowering that she was able to provide breastfeeding support under the guidance of the experts in the respective fields (Alison Taylor and Dr. Joyce Miller). Preliminary breastfeeding results from the clinic are promising. More details to follow in due course. Finally the seminar concluded by discussing the re-launch of the clinic in September, and to raise awareness of the re-launch, a free local conference (funded by Fusion Funding) for the community will be taking place on the 12th July 2014. For further information on the above clinic or the conference please contact Alison Taylor on ataylor@bournemouth.ac.uk or Dr. Sue Way on sway@bournemouth.ac.uk .
The second seminar presentation took place after lunch and it focused on a study which is currently taking place involving five 3rd year midwifery students and the feasibility of incorporating newborn infant physical examination (NIPE) competencies into the pre-registration midwifery programme. Traditionally these competencies are usually achieved post qualification when midwives have a number of years’ experience under their belt. However BU midwifery students felt differently and Luisa Cescutti-Butler discussed how the study was initiated by Luzie who asked the question: “why couldn’t they learn all the necessary skills in the third year of their programme”? Luzie took to the podium and presented her section like a duck to water. She didn’t shy away from the difficulties from taking this extra study on, but was quite clear that the benefits for women in her care were worth the extra work. The presentation generated quite a lot of heated discussion with some midwives in the audience quite adamant that students should not be taking on this ‘extended’ skill. However Luzie was able to stand her ground and confidently counter ague as to why students should gain these skills during the undergraduate programme. She received a resounding clap and cheers from the audience.
It takes some courage to stand up in a room full of people and present, and Sian and Luzie were brilliant. Both students did Bournemouth University and in particular the midwifery team proud. For further information on the above study please contact Luisa Cescutti-Butler on lcbutler@bournemouth.ac.uk
Attention all WordPress users – Wordcamp is coming to BU
WordPress is the powerhouse behind 1 in 5 sites on the web. Everything from this research blog, JayZ’s lifeandtimes.com, Ebay, and even the New York Times online is based on a WordPress template.
This July, BU and Silicon South are hosting the 7th Wordcamp UK developers conference, inviting the best and brightest WordPress developers and users to come and share their tips and tricks to get the most out of your site.
Taking place in the EBC on the weekend of the 12th and 13th July there are lots of ways you can get involved:
- Tickets cost £20 (including a free t-shirt), these are selling fast so purchase quickly to secure your place. To find out more click here
- Perhaps you know a thing or two about WordPress you’d like to share? You can submit your own sessions you might like to run, this could be an hours talk or a five minute lightning presentation – find out more about proposing a session here
- If you’d like to be involved but don’t know want to run a session, we are looking for a few volunteers to help with the running of the event. This would be fairly light touch, just helping with registration as people arrive and helping ensure sessions keep to time. In return we can offer you a free ticket for the weekend, including lunch on both days. If you’d be interested, or know someone who might be, please send me an email and I can give you more details.
Problematising Values, Ethics and Assessment: Research seminars to ENABLE good social work practices
We were extremely fortunate and, indeed, honoured to be invited to give public research seminars at Universiti Sains Malaysia, a premier (Apex) research university in Southeast Asia where we are currently visiting professors on Fusion funded study leave. The event was widely publicised and attended by students, faculty and numerous representatives from social welfare NGOs working in and around Penang. Many of the latter have provided our past students with placement experiences in the past, and in respect of whom we have researched student learning and experiences through our earlier British Council PMI 2 grant.
We gave two seminars taken from our research and academic passions of great import to these services and to fostering good educational experiences and practices across the university and the NGOs with which they work; notably social work ethics and global issues and assessment problematics.
The first seminar, entitled ‘Reviewing Social Work Values & Ethics in the light of global, professionalised standards and definitions’ explored values and ethics as a core aspect of social work education to which all social work students are or should be exposed to in their education and training. Dr Ashencaen Crabtree argued that the challenge for social work is to ensure that what is learned in classroom settings then translates into daily practice and serves to improve the lives of service users/client groups, families and communities. She explored some of the unspoken assumptions that abound in this area stating that as well as providing guidance, professional codes of ethics create moral dilemmas and contradictions for many social workers at some point in their career wherever they practice and with whatever client or service group.
To illustrate points several case examples were used, some taken from Dr Ashencaen Crabtree’s previous research into social work practice in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. The seminar sought to problematise social work values and ethics by reflecting on international definitions and social work standards as articulated by the International Federation of Social Work (IFSW) and the Global Agenda for Social Work, together with a review of human rights as they relate to the profession.
This well-received seminar in which values and ethics were likened to the ‘mother’ of good social work practice, led into the second in which assessment was considered the ‘father’: ‘Assessment in Social Work: A complex and problematic concept for practice’.
Prof Parker opined that assessment is fundamental to social work practice throughout the world, drawing from his latest book: Parker & Bradley, Social Work Practice, 4th ed., Sage. Whilst it has been said that a good social work assessment is the keystone of good practice, however, it is equally true that a bad social work assessment makes for poor social work practice. However, whilst it is assumed we know what assessment entails and how it might or ought to be conducted, the seminar illuminated many of the hidden and unquestioned assumptions that often lead or underpin practice.
This seminar examined what we know already from research about social work assessment, what it is and how it can be used across the world and in different settings. We investigated some of the political and ethical purposes of social work assessment, focusing on the values that underpin good social work practice whilst considering some of the potentially problematic uses to which it is put. The seminar explored some of the complexities and cultural variants that abound in social work. It considered how these affect social work assessment and made suggestions for future learning and practice in different fields of social work, introducing the model the speakers have developed and researched comparatively across countries.
Prof Jonathan Parker & Dr Sara Ashencaen Crabtree
Congratulations to Sheetal Sharma (HSC)
Congratulations to HSC PhD student Ph.D. Sheetal Sharma who was co-author on a blog today on the recently published Lancet series on Midwifery. The blog is illustrated with some of Sheetal’s beautiful photos from her Ph.D. research fieldwork in Nepal.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
Bournemouth University
Two New Books for Social Workers
Bournemouth University and Centre for Social Work, Sociology and Social Policy Professor Jonathan Parker has recently published two key books.
The fourth edition of the best-selling textbook Social Work Practice, published by Sage, represents a milestone in the book’s history. First published in 2003 to introduce the new qualifying social work degree in the UK, it formed one of the first books in the highly popular Transforming Social Work Practice series from Learning Matters, now an imprint of Sage publications, and edited from the outset by Professor Parker. The book rapidly became a best-seller, consistently in the top-three best-selling social work textbooks in the UK. The work was translated into Japanese, used in Southeast Asia and Europe and has proved popular during Professor Parker’s recent study leave in Malaysia.
The concept for the second book Active Ageing: Perspectives from Europe on a vaunted topic (Whiting & Birch), an edited collection celebrating the European Year of Active Ageing in 2012, was conceived during a weeklong symposium, held at the University of Málaga in April 2012. Academics and students from Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the UK lauded the contribution that older people make to our societies through the exploration and critical analysis of the concept of active ageing. Written in a context of increased population growth and ageing, and continuing fiscal pressures, the editors, Maria Luisa Gomez Jimenez and Jonathan Parker, brought together thirteen chapters comprising diverse insights into ageing and active ageing that offer a contribution to our understanding of these complex areas of modern human life.
Stripping Back the Layers: Women’s spiritual quest for religious authenticity
Having failed to get it externally funded, I decided to hell with it! I would do the project anyway. It was too important a topic to abort on such flimsy grounds; and anyway in the social sciences funding has never been a precursor to undertaking excellent and original scholarship, and this promised to be that.
I have long been fascinated by religion and spirituality as integral to cultural diversity, and this interest has underpinned much of my scholarship in both social work and sociology. Gender studies are equally a passion and so it seemed natural to form a happy union of the two.
For the past eighteen months, and thanks to recent Fusion Funding for part of the project, I have been undertaking a cross-cultural study of women’s experiences of religious commitment across several faith groups in the UK and Malaysia. Both countries share a common historical heritage through the ties of colonialism, where additionally wide-scale migration has forged multicultural and therefore multifaith societies. Each modern nation also struggles to resolve the contradictions and paradoxes created through multiculturalism and claims to a specific national religion.
The aim of the study is to examine the constructions and meanings that women bring to religious beliefs and daily practices, which may be distinctive to those of men, particularly given the extremely powerful influences of patriarchy in organised religion. Thus, the working assumption behind this study is that women will bring their own gendered priorities and understandings as women (and variously as wives/partners, mothers, daughters and sisters) to their individual religious and spiritual beliefs.
For an in-depth ethnographic study the participant sample is extensive, and where by the end of this year, 48-50 individual narratives will complete the data gathering stage. The level of complexity is high for not only does this study cover two contemporary societies, but it also seeks to cover representatives from several different faith groups. Thus, in Southwest England I am seeking to capture the voices of Buddhist, Jewish, Christian and Muslim women, as well as hoping to access female followers of one of the ‘New Religions’.
Across Malaysia, I have covered the same groups but substituted Jewish participants for Hindus. I also hope to access indigeneous Animists to compare with the revival in pre-Christian ‘nature religions’ that may be found in the evocatively pagan, Dorset/Somerset/Wiltshire landscapes.
Such a large and highly diverse sample group represents a major study of contemporary, gendered faith practices in modern, multicultural societies; and where despite woman-centric theological re-interpretations, such as, for example, Christian feminists theologies or Malaysia’s ‘Sisters in Islam’, the insights from this study are already proving to be original and profound. My initial hypothesis has been both affirmed and challenged by participants struggling to engage with the politics of ethnicity, culture, gender constructions and gender oppression; together with the business of daily negotiating the politics of church/temple/mosque/synagogue – not forgetting, of course, the politics of the home and family.
Participant accounts have been deeply moving at times; and where to my surprise, I have been frequently thanked for giving participants the opportunity to be able to express that which is so important to their individual integrity and sense of purpose in life – and yet which remains a submerged discourse. There are many reasons, political, social and personal for religious expression among women to be largely unheard (and sometimes even a forbidden) discourse in both countries. These too are critical issues of context that are analysed alongside the narratives.
With REF2020 beginning to appear over the horizon, I will seek to do justice to these remarkable narratives in my analysis and the research monograph and peer-reviewed papers being planned. However, what is strikingly apparent is the intense interest participants hold towards their own spiritual journey, where they are also eager to read the finished publications in order to find further insights and connections with other women: impact in itself.
What this reveals to me is that not only is the area of inquiry extremely rich in theme, nuance and contemporary relevance, but that in respect of social impact (however one defines that term) much more is needed of me. Accordingly I am pondering deeply on how I may return and somehow multiply the fruits of this research to the global community of women for whom it carries such intense meaning and many shared commonalities in an otherwise divided world.
Volunteering to be a participant
If this Blog has resonated with you as a woman embracing a religious faith, or as someone who may know of such, I would be extremely grateful if you would contact me directly on scrabtree@bournemouth.ac.uk. Muslim, Jewish and ‘New Religion’ women’s voices in England are still under-represented in the study but all participants from other faith groups are equally welcome.
Obesity prevention in men, findings from a recent HTA Report
HSC Open Seminar
“Obesity Prevention in Men” with Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
Wednesday 2nd July 2014
13.00 – 13.50pm
Bournemouth House, B126
On July 2nd Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen will present findings from a HTA report published this month. Researchers from the University of Aberdeen, Bournemouth University and the University of Stirling examined the evidence for managing obesity in men and investigated how to engage men with obesity services. The evidence came from trials, interviews with men, reports of studies from the UK, and economic studies.
The research found that men are more likely than women to benefit if physical activity is part of a weight-loss programme. Also eating less produces more weight loss than physical activity on its own. However, the type of reducing diet did not appear to affect long-term weight loss.
Prof. van Teijlingen will highlight some of the key messages for Public Health policy and practice. For example, that although fewer men than women joined weight-loss programmes, once recruited they were less likely to drop out than women. The perception of having a health problem, the impact of weight loss on health problems, and the desire to improve personal appearance without looking too thin were motivators for weight loss amongst men.
This work has been funded as part of the ROMEO project (Review Of Men and Obesity) by the National Institute for Health Research, Health Technology Assessment Programme (NIHR HTA Project 09/127/01).
The full report can be downloaded here: http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/118180/FullReport-hta18350.pdf
–xx–
We hope you can make it and we look forward to seeing you there.
Beckie Freeman
Academic Community Administrator| Health & Wellbeing Community
01202 962184 | rfreeman@bournemouth.ac.uk
BU staff can login below:
Other services
Recent posts
BU research Funding opportunities EU
Connecting Research with Practice: FoodMAPP Secondment in Austria and France
Health promotion paper read 8,000 times
The Beautiful Work Challenge: On Birth- Academic Identity In The Age of AI
Free event on Solutions to Inequalities in Dementia Diagnosis and Care- Are You a Veteran? Take Part in Research Here at BU!
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
ERC Advanced Grant 2025 Webinar- European Migration Research and Impact – Invitation to a Roundtable Discussion
- MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Research Information Network
- Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
- Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
- Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
- Data centres: their use, value and impact
- Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications