Category / Fusion

History and Biography in the Sociology of Welfare: The importance of student fieldwork

Fusion, student research

Sociology, as an emerging discipline, developed within the crucible of historical studies of changing lives, transforming events and a search for alternative ways to understand history. We see this in the works of such illustrious progenitors of sociology as Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim and Weber but it has itself been marginalised, even hidden, as social, political and historical events have unfurled and a turn to biography has displaced the historical. Furthermore, historical sociology has taken something of a battering since John H Goldthorpe decried its relevance towards the end of the last century. However, it is perhaps this railing against the historical which has lent itself to a resurgence through such key figures as Barrington Moore, Charles Tilly, Theda Skocpol and Shmuel Eisenstadt amongst others. But what of its place within contemporary undergraduate sociological education?

In an attempt to introduce today’s BU undergraduates to the important interdisciplinary fusion of the social, the biographical and the historical we have developed an innovative exploration of the histories of social welfare that students take in their second year of full time study. This involves the broad study of social and political welfare initiatives through to the Poor Law, its reform and the implementation of the Welfare State, retrenchment and contemporary attacks on welfare and those who claim benefits. So what? You may say. This is similar to most programmes of study charting welfare policy. However, two specific aspects mark out this module. The first is the assessment, reported elsewhere, which requires groups to explore the experiences of characters in specific historical periods through the construction of a narrative. This allows students to enter into the social and political worlds of individuals in need of social welfare and support.

The second innovative aspect relates to the continuing strands running through our explorations – we take Richard Lachmann’s approach to historical sociology to understand how the present, and future, is contingent on the past. Throughout the course, we examine seemingly inconsequential events leading to change, and why ‘transformative’ events, such as the introduction of the British Welfare State in 1948, occur when they do. Moreover, we embed this learning in a hands-on fieldtrip to the historic market town of Sherborne. Though a visit to the historic St Johns’ (two of them) almshouses, the architecturally stunning abbey, students are exposed to the religious beginnings of charity and alms, the turn to the Parish and the body politic in dispensing poor relief and an appreciation of the overt discrimination between deserving and undeserving. Indeed, they experience that the ‘poor are always with us’ and also they are stratified in society by those with power. As one student stated:

The trip … showed us how throughout history policies have changed, yet some have remained the same as 600 years ago. It made us appreciate and value history more. We learned how the welfare state changed with time to adjust to the environment and the social conditions (war, economic state, health condition of people etc).

The students undertaking this trip have experienced the importance of an historical sociological approach to social welfare policy and application marrying this with the contemporary focus on biography and merging analytic thought, and an appreciation of the affective. This was particularly evident in discussion of the contemporary foodbank provision which religious and lay people undertake to offset some of the hardships experienced by those requiring benefits today:

I also found it interesting how the food bank is run. I think it is so lovely that the people of Sherborne deliver the food bags to the people who cannot come to collect them. I have never heard of anywhere else that does this before and think it shows just how close a community can be and that we should all work together to help each other.

This takes historical sociology into a contemporary arena in which the biographical is included, and offers the students a chance to bring in the personal and to reflect on experiences whilst acknowledging the historical and the structural:

I was really surprised to find out that there are people still living in the alms houses today! I was not expecting that. I found it really interesting how there are still so many similarities to how it was ran when it began to how it is ran now. Before the trip my understanding was that to live in the alms houses wouldn’t have been a nice experience but from the trip I was able to understand that it was actually built with the intention to help people and that is exactly what it did and still does today. I made connections with the histories of social policy and welfare when I understood that the people who came to live in the alms houses were the ‘deserving poor’.

Jonathan Parker (Department of Social Sciences and Social Work), Nezhat Habib and Bonnie Brown (students on BA Sociology and Social Policy programme)

Sherborne Abbey

Sherborne Abbey

Fusion project leads to best paper award

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund

Work by BU researchers examining the human aspects of Digital Rights Management has won a best paper award at the Fourth International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and IP Law. This is joint work carried out by Marcella Favale, Neil McDonald, Shamal Faily, and Christos Gatzidis.

This work, which resulted from research carried out during the FIF funded MADRIGAL project, examines the perspective of DRM from the perspective of content creators using qualitative socio-legal analysis.

In addition to this work, we were also invited to write an extended version of this paper for SCRIPTed, which is currently in press.

Well done Marcella and the rest of the MADRIGAL team!

CMC’s Promotional Cultures and Communication Centre wins prestigious industry research award

Business Engagement, Fusion

CMC’s Promotional Cultures and Communication Centre (PCCC) is delighted to announce that the recent research project they undertook for Exterion Media won ‘Best Research Initiative’ at last week’s Media Research Group Awards.  The MRG is the industry group for research professionals working in media related roles and is a great showcase for the work we do here.

The project was titled ‘The Mood of the Underground’ and undertaken in partnership with COG Research, a leading independent research agency.  It comprised of a number of elements: a literature review undertaken by PCCC- CMC; a proposed approach recommended by CMC; primary research completed by PCCC-CMC and COG, and delivery of the final debrief written by PCCC-CMC and COG.

Congratulations to Stuart Armon, Rebecca Jenkins, Chris Miles, Georgiana Grigore, Janice Denegri-Knott, Jill Nash and Shenel McLawrence who worked on this project.

Islam and Social Work: Culturally sensitive practice in a diverse world

Fusion, Women's Academic Network

islam%20and%20social%20work-pbk_qcThe complexities of multiculturalism as a social ontology and as a political discourse have taken a rapid and alarming turn to the right in a political moment of increasing social turbulence on issues that revolve around national identity, ethnicity and religion. It is therefore timely, if regrettably so, that the second edition of Islam and Social Work makes its debut this month.

The first volume went to press in 2008, in my first year at BU, and my co-authors and I were overwhelmed when the book was showered with positive reviews. Regarded as not only the best, but the sole European text on this conspicuously important topic, it was also viewed as having no counterpart in the Global North (where the subject of social work and minority ethnic groups has been a dominant theme in the social work literature for decades). Since then it has been regularly cited and I been privileged to have anonymously reviewed dozens of papers on Islamic interpretations of social work practice. I have learned that Western social work is no longer the epicentre of practice – there are other worlds out there. I feel that this earlier book was, if nothing else, pivotal to opening the door much wider to be able to hear from our Muslim social work colleagues around the world, whose practice can challenge the restrictive, bureaucratised and therefore often inhuman professional processes in the UK

Strangely, however, over the years, despite the world having changed so very much since in terms of the shifting geo-political axes of power, the rise and fall of despotic regimes, the call for accountability of Western leaders implicated in invasion of Gulf nations, the Arab Spring, global terrorism, Al-Qaeda and later the monstrous birth of imploding Daesh – no one has produced a text to supersede the old first edition. And so, reader, we, Fatima Husain, Basia Spalek and I decided to produce the 2nd edition, which has been fully revised and updated, rewritten virtually from scratch, and I believe we have produced a book that is specific in detail, expansive in scope and completely international in outlook.

We hope that this will be a text that is the first port of call for all social work students across the globe who are interested in learning more about competent and sensitive practice with Muslim service user and client groups across the lifespan, as well as discovering the many beauties and wise profundities that are embedded, but often overlooked, in the youngest of the Abrahamic religions, Islam.

Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

Professor of Social & Cultural Diversity

Researching Talbot Campus Biodiversity

Fusion, Student Engagement, student research

Ever wondered what wildlife we have on campus? Volunteer students and staff from the Dept. of Life & Environmental Science Green team are initiating a series of Student Environment Research Team (SERT) projects to find out and you can join in. We will help monitor the successful use wildlife is making of the habitats, nesting boxes and wild food resources that are being created on campus. The wildlife- friendly work is being spearheaded by the Estates Team, led by Dr Neil Smith and supported by the Biodiversity Action Plan Group.

There is a chance to get involved in a bit of  campus habitat creation yourself this week if you like – join us this Friday at noon to help plant flower bulbs around the Fusion building. The bulbs have been chosen for both their wildlife and aesthetic value. Estates have bought the bulb and the planting design has been developed by a SERT of six students for Ecology & Wildlife Conservation BSc mentored by Damian Evans and Anita Diaz. See which bulbs here – bulbs-for-fusion-building-planting

Join us if you can and if you’d like to get involved with campus biodiversity creation and monitoring in some other way please contact Damian Evans devans@bournemouth.ac.uk

WTM eTourism: Disrupting innovations for Tourism and Hospitality

Fusion, international

Join Professor Dimitrios Buhalis on Monday 7 November, as part of the World Travel Market 7-9 November, in London.This discussion will take place in our Inspire Theatre, in Fusion, between 10:30am-12:15.

The event will host a series of speakers including: Kevin May, Tnooz.com; Mario Hardy Pacific, Asia Tourism Association, Thailand; Nathaniel Green, DUETTO Research, USA; Richard Hatter Hotel Icon, Hong Kong; Andy Owen-Jones, BD4Travel, Germany; and Matthew Gardiner, UnderTheDoormat, UK.

This session will  discuss how disrupting innovations generate significant market structure changes, modifying the operating practices, industry structure and dominant logic. This structural change is affecting the organisational networks and the services tourism players are supposed to use to perform well in markets. Both opportunities and challenges emerge for the whole tourism and hospitality industry. Relationships between players change as their respective roles change; this is driven by e-commerce / e-business and disruptive innovation. For instance hotels, thanks to e-business technological platforms, can now use algorithms to set yield and revenue management strategies, monitor competition in real time and allow consumers to use mobile devices to access several services. In the tourism industry, many innovations have been initiated from companies in the information technology sector. Generally, Information technology is revolutionizing products, services and markets.

For more information please click here.

The session is free however, to attend you must join the World Travel market, please click here.

CIPPM’s AHRC-funded Project Copyrightuser.org publishes Episode II of the Award-Winning ‘Game is On!’ Film

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Transfer, Post-award, REF Subjects, Research themes, Student Engagement

Copyrightuser.org – is a collaboration between the Law Department’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) at Bournemouth University (BU) and CREATe, University of Glasgow, has produced Episode II of the ‘Game is On!’ Series.

The project led by the Principal Investigator for Bournemouth University, Dr. Dinusha Mendis, Associate Professor in Law and Co-Director of CIPPM was initially funded by BU’s Fusion Investment Fund in 2012. Since 2013 the project has been successful in securing AHRC funding under the leadership of Dr. Mendis and in November 2015, won the AHRC Innovation in Film Award.

Game is On! by Copyrightuser.org is a s a series of short animated films that puts copyright and creativity under the magnifying glass of Sherlock Holmes, providing a unique, research-led and open access resource for school-aged learners and other creative users of copyright. Drawing inspiration from well-known copyright and public domain work, as well as recent copyright litigation, these films provide a springboard for exploring key principles and ideas underpinning copyright law, creativity, and the limits of lawful appropriation and reuse.

Episode I of the ‘Game is On!’ Series titled The Adventure of the Girl with the Light Blue Hair  won the AHRC Innovation in Film Award in November 2015 and was shortlisted for a BUFVC Learning on Screen Award in April 2016 and has been recently used by Into Film to develop the educational resource ‘Exploring copyright for clubs’.

The accompanying Case Files – an important feature of the ‘Game is On!’ series – for Episode I was authored by CIPPM’s Co-Director, Dr. Dinusha Mendis and CIPPM PhD Candidate, Ms. Hayleigh Bosher.

Episode II titled The Adventure of the Six Detectives is also accompanied by a number of Case Files, authored by CREATe researchers Megan Rae Blakely and Andrea Wallace and offer points of discussion around many of the most pressing copyright questions and concerns faced by screenwriters: http://copyrightuser.org/the-game-is-on/episode-2/

The short films are written, directed and produced by Professor Ronan Deazley (Queen’s University Belfast) and CREATe producer Bartolomeo Meletti (currently seconded to the British Film Institute) with Art Direction / Design by Marco Bagni, illustrations by Davide Bonazzi and music by SFX:Sarco.

game-is-on

13th Asian Confederation of Physical Therapists – Kuala Lumpur

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund

Physical activity is one of the five priority interventions for the prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). NCDs include; cardio vascular diseases (strokes, dementia, heart disease), diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and some Cancers. NCDs account for almost two thirds of deaths globally and are major contributors to ill-health in the elderly. Physiotherapists are well placed to enable and empower people to initiate and sustain adequate levels of physical activity as they are aware of the challenges and opportunities throughout the life span. As an invited speaker this is one of the key messages that will be conveyed at the 13th Asian Confederation of Physical Therapists in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 7th-8th October.

 

I will also have an opportunity to attend an academic conference at INTI International University aimed at strengthening ties between INTI and BU. Professor Narasimman Swaminathan (Deputy Dean – faculty of Health) and I will collaborate in a joint session for physiotherapy students to inspire their interest in public health initiatives. Professor Narasimman Swaminathan is a visiting professor in the FHSS at BU and is leading research initiatives at INTI which link closely to those in the Department of Human Sciences and Public Health at BU.

Fusion funding and HSS faculty conference funding has contributed to making this trip possible.