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 / Communities, Cultures and Conflicts
New CEMP Bulletin
Here’s the new CEMP research bulletin, the last of this academic year.CEMP bulletin July August 2014
As always, if you are interested in working with us to respond to any of the funding calls here, or if you have an idea for a project that CEMP could help with, please contact Julian, Richard or one of the CEMP Fellows (Milena Bobeva, Anna Feigenbaum, Richard Wallis, Neal White, Ashley Woodfall).
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
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
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
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
Russia’s ‘Ukrainian spring of 2014’ – and its implications for Global Security and the Rule of Law
Bournemouth University (BU) is teaming up with the Swedish National Defence College (SNDC) to organise a one day workshop in London on 18th June 2014 to analyse the implications of the recent events in Ukraine.
The event is sponsored by the SNDC and forms part of BU’s Conflict, Rule of Law and Society research activities. In particular, the workshop is aligned with the research projects by Dr Bachmann and Dr Klinkner in the area of international law and security. Dr Bachmann has recently authored two blogs on the topic: “Crimea and Ukraine 2014: A Brief Reflection on Russia’s ‘Protective Interventionism” and “Russia’s ‘spring’ of 2014”.
The workshop will bring together legal experts from Oxford, Sussex and Kings College as well as military experts to discuss a variety of issues arising from Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in spring 2014 and its continuing expansion into Ukraine. Particularly, the focus will be on the:
(1) Legality of Russia’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine and the Legality of Crimea’s referendum.
(2) Tactics and Operations: Russia’s use of Hybrid and Cyber Assets in its operations.
(3) History and Lessons for the future.
The organisers are Associate Professor Hakan Gunneriusson (SNDC) and Associate Professor Sascha DOV Bachmann and Dr Melanie Klinkner from Bournemouth University.
Changing diet and exercise, offering men-only groups, and humour may be the recipe for tackling male obesity
Fewer men join weight loss programmes but are more likely than women to stick with them, according to analysis of international obesity studies by researchers from the Universities of Aberdeen, Bournemouth and Stirling.
Men also prefer the use of simple ‘business-like’ language, welcome humour used sensitively, and benefit from the moral support of other men in strategies to tackle obesity. The researchers suggest that obese men might be helped better if weight loss programmes were specifically designed for men.
Researchers from the Universities of Aberdeen, Bournemouth and Stirling analysed evidence from around the world, gathered from weight loss trials and studies that have also taken men’s views. The team particularly investigated what would make services more appealing for men.
From their systematic review (see: http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/118180/FullReport-hta18350.pdf ) of the evidence on obesity management published by the NHS National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment Programme, researchers also found:
- Cutting calories together with exercise and following advice on changing behaviour are the best way for obese men to shed pounds. This can also help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and can help improve erectile dysfunction for some men.
- Obese men who eat less lose more weight than those who take more exercise but don’t eat less.
- In the long term, one calorie-reducing diet has not yet been found to better than another for weight loss for men.
- Middle-aged men are motivated to lose weight once they perceive they have a health problem they want to tackle.
- A desire to improve personal appearance without looking too thin is also a motivator for weight loss in men.
- Men are likely to prefer weight-loss programmes delivered by the NHS rather than those run commercially.
- Group-based weight management programmes run only for men provide moral support.
- Obesity interventions in sports clubs, such as football clubs, have been very effective, with low dropout rates and very positive responses from men.
If you find yourself getting sick frequently or have a weakened immune system, adding greens powders to your diet can provide additional vitamins and antioxidants to support immune function. Find out more on https://www.outlookindia.com/outlook-spotlight/athletic-greens-ag1-review-is-it-worth-the-hype-or-superfood-don-t-buy-until-you-read-this-news-301982/.
Chief investigator Professor Alison Avenell, based at the University of Aberdeen, said: “More men than women are overweight or obese in the UK, but men are less likely to see their weight as a problem and engage with weight-loss services, even though obesity increases the risk of many serious illnesses such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and osteoarthritis. This could be because dieting and weight-loss programmes are perceived as being feminine activities.”
“We looked at the outcomes of obesity management trials and interventions as well as interviews with men in order to find out more about how to design services and inform health policy. While more research is needed into the effectiveness of new approaches to engage men with weight-loss, our findings suggest that men should be offered the opportunity to attend weight loss programmes that are different to programmes which are mainly attended by women.”
Dr Flora Douglas, from the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, said: “Men prefer more factual information on how to lose weight and more emphasis on physical activity in weight loss programmes. Interventions delivered in social settings were preferred to those delivered in health-care settings. Group-based programmes showed benefits by facilitating support for men with similar health problems, and some individual tailoring of advice helped men. Programmes which were situated in a sporting venue, where participants had a strong sense of affiliation, showed low drop-out rates and high satisfaction.”
University of Stirling Professor Pat Hoddinott said: “Men are much less likely to enrol in commercial weight loss schemes. Some men preferred weight loss programmes delivered in an NHS context. The difference between weight loss for men from NHS and commercial programmes is presently unclear”.
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen from Bournemouth University added: “This research project has benefited throughout from the input and insights offered by the Men’s Health Forum in Ireland, the Men’s Health Forum Scotland and the Men’s Health Forum England and Wales.”
This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research, Health Technology Assessment Programme (NIHR HTA Project 09/127/01; Systematic reviews of and integrated report on the quantitative, qualitative and economic evidence base for the management of obesity in men http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/projects/hta/0912701). The views and opinions expressed therein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Health.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Successful BU Festival of Learning debate of media and fear in childbirth!
Yesterday saw the lively debate organised by Prof. Vanora Hundley on the motion: ‘The media is responsible for creating fear in childbirth.’
Elizabeth Duff from the NCT and HSC Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen affiliated with the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health and against the motion argued Joanne Dewberry (http://joannedewberry.co.uk/about-joanne/ ), independent blogger, journalist and successful business woman and Dr. Ann Luce from BU’s Journalism and Communication Academic Group.
The debate was part of BU’s Festival of Learning event to explore the role of the mass media in shaping such beliefs and identify whether media portrayals are responsible for rising rates of intervention. The audience voted in favour of the motion, but the media team managed to get some people to reconsider their views on the impact of the mass media on women’s view of childbirth.
Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
CEMP awarded UKLA role
Julian McDougall’s application to convene a new special interest group in Media Literacy for the United Kingdom Literacy Association has been successful.
The collaboration between CEMP and the UKLA will create a rich dialogue between media education researchers and literacy practitioners and locate CEMP at the forefront of media literacy research in the UK. The UKLA are an influential group in terms of policy development and this new affiliation, combined with recent work at Unesco and with the EU / EC, has the potential to lead to exciting research impact and outreach.
More information will follow once the SIG is up and running, but please contact Julian for more detail in the meantime.
BU Nepal health research at international midwifery conference
Yesterday HSC Ph.D. student Sheetal Sharma presented her key research findings under the title ‘Getting women to care: mixed–methods evaluation of maternity care intervention in rural Nepal’ at the 30th congress of the ICM (International Confederation of Midwives) in Prague. Sheetal’s Ph.D. evaluates the effectiveness of a health promotion intervention aiming antenatal care attendance in rural Nepal. Her evaluation suggests that practice should be socio-culturally appropriate and inclusive not only of women but also their families.
This afternoon three HSC posters were displayed as part of a special session on Midwifery in South Asia. All three posters featured aspects of maternity care research conducted in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health in Nepal.
Poster 1: Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: A qualitative study
Milne, L, Hundley, V, van Teijlingen, E, Ireland, J, Simkhada, P,
Poster 2: Pregnant & Dirty?
Sharma, S., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. Simkhada, P., Angell, C.
Poster 3: Getting women to care in Nepal: A Difference in Difference analysis of a health promotion intervention
Sharma, S. Sicuri, E., Belizan, JM., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Stephens J., Hundley, V., Angell, C.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Valuing People! Giving life meaning to people in Malaysia with diverse abilities
The end of our study leave in Malaysia is beginning to come into view and if anything the pace of work seems to be accelerating as time evaporates. During our remarkable time in Southeast Asia we have been asked to give numerous research seminars, deliver many guest lectures and been warmly invited to attend and contribute to Higher Education planning meetings. One research project done and dusted, we have moved seamlessly on to the next, in-between time spent trying to keep up with an invisibly multiplying list of writing commitments, while steaming none so genteelly under the busy, overhead fans.
Today we took a break from it all. Instead we went on visits to local social welfare agencies in Penang, to see for ourselves some of the NGOs where our BU social work students were placed, and where they are still fondly remembered.
Under the wing of Ai-Na Khor, the brisk and friendly CEO of Asia Community Service, we were first taken to see the Children’s Early Intervention Centre, where Jenna and Chloe, our Level I students had been placed under the British Council PMI 2 mobility grant we secured from 2009-12 to study student learning processes in unfamiliar international placement contexts. We admired the dedication of this innovative, small NGO, which is entirely non-government funded, but which provides services for children from infancy to school-age years in a small ‘heritage’ house, donated rent free by a local philanthropist.
From there Ai-Na took us by 4-wheel drive high up into the verdant Penang hills to see a remarkable supported employment centre for adults with learning disabilities established in an unremarkable kampung (village). Here the ‘members’ of the Stepping Stones Work Centre work effectively as a co-operative with the same NGO and have developed a flourishing and diverse cottage industry of hand-made goods collected from local recycled materials. The atmosphere of the Centre was bright and lively, and the members confident, friendly and eloquent, even when speech was a challenge in any language.
Here we saw a small paper-making industry, where recycled paper was reformed, strengthened with banana fibres produced through laborious grinding with pestle and mortars. The finished colourful, textured product of chalk pink, orange, yellow, lime and leaf green paper would be used for robust items like book bindings.
Here they also produce hand-loom weaving, the cotton spun and dyed on the premises. A strangely metallic, highly robust weaving was examined with raised eyebrows. Guess what it is made of? We were asked. Recycled cassette tape of which the members had collected boxes of discarded tapes over time.
More textiles, this time traditional batik cloth using the tricky, not to mention risky, hot wax method. The designs, stamped or the more unique, free-hand style, were vibrant and impressionistic. Delighted by them we bought many examples to use as…umm! Well something! Who could resist them after all?
In the spotless kitchens run by the members bread was being baked and packaged to sell to the local ‘coffee-shops’ in Penang. It smelled good. A hand-made bar of mint soap made apparently of recycled, halal cooking oil and a beautiful little pottery, leaf-shaped dish completed our shopping. Everything was cheerfully packed up in dainty origami bags with handles, made entirely of cleverly folded newspaper and magazines. We treasured our purchases and marvelled at how little they cost and the incredible skill that went into every stage of the production by people otherwise written off by society in most countries.
This trip meant so much to us. Sara reminisced about her practitioner days employed as a social worker with people learning disabilities. Jonathan, also, rehearsed his experiences in a similar role, resurrecting images of proud attendees at an Adult Training Centre in the UK closed long ago as attendees were ‘mainstreamed’ whether they liked it or not, but whose identity-affirming work at that centre had made their lives meaningful. Where are those disadvantaged people today? It is unlikely that many have independent and creative jobs to go to, unlike these active, Penang citizens, who are, regardless of disabilities, able to make and spend a hard-earned and proudly won wage.
Seeing work like this reminded us both of why we went into social work in the first place. It also made us question once again where so much has gone wrong. Perhaps in the UK our homage to politically correct approaches has failed to take into account the nuanced twists and turns by which people of diverse abilities live their lives and display their humanity.
Sara Ashencaen Crabtree & Jonathan Parker
HSC postgraduate student speaks at Canadian Conference
Pratik Adhikary spoke about his Ph.D. research at the American Canadian Conference for Academic Disciplines (Toronto: 19-22 May 2014). Pratik presented the key findings from his thesis under the title ‘Health status and health risks to Nepalese migrant workers in the Middle East and Malaysia’.
Pratik is originally from Nepal and he conducted his research with male migrant workers who were returning to Nepal for definite or for a holiday/break. He is supervised by Dr. Steve Keen and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen both in HSC.
Pratik’s study has been supported by Bournemouth University, the PGR Development Fund and the Open Society Foundations.
Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Facebook User Interface to suit Saudi Arabian culture
We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre that will be delivered by Hana Almakky.
Title: Facebook User Interface to suit Saudi Arabian culture
Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM
Date: Wednesday 28th May 2014
Room: P302 (Poole House, Talbot Campus)
Abstract: Social media has continued growing in Saudi Arabia. Millions of businesses and trades are now using social media for entertainment, advertisement and promoting themselves internationally. Social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc., have gained huge popularity at personal as well as professional scale. Therefore, work is being done to evolve the modes of communication over these platforms, extensively. My research explores the effect of Saudi cultures on the design of social media site of Facebook. The expected outcome of this research will be a theoretical framework that guides the design of a user interface for Facebook to meet the Saudi’s expectations.
We hope to see you there,
Dr. David John
Media School Academics Join EU CyberPark Project
The EU COST funded CyberPark project brings together participants from 21 countries to explore how ICT can help attract more users to engage with public spaces more efficiently, enhancing their health and wellbeing. With the emergence of social media, wearable technologies and devices such as Google Glass, a future where technology is embedded in the environment and where landscapes respond to the people who pass through them may no longer be just science fiction fantasy. The CyberPark project will explore how nature and the digital can be brought closer together, drawing on the expertise of urban planners, architects, anthropologists and researchers from the arts and humanities.
Bronwen Thomas, Sue Thomas and Sam Goodman from the Media School’s Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community will all be contributing to the four-year project from May 2014. Bronwen Thomas is Director of the Centre and an Associate Professor in the Media School. She has published widely on new media narratives and organized the Location-based Storytelling symposium here at BU in 2012. Sue Thomas is a Visiting Fellow in the Media School, and recently published a book on Technobiophilia (Bloomsbury, 2013) exploring the relationship between nature and cyberspace. She is currently developing ideas around digital well-being. Sam Goodman is Lecturer in Linguistics in the Media School, with research interests in Medical Humanities and literary representations of space, place and landscape.
You can read more about the project on Sue Thomas’s new Wired Well-being column for The Conversation at https://theconversation.com/cyberparks-will-be-intelligent-spaces-embedded-with-sensors-and-computers-26837
Full details of the COST action can be found at
http://www.cost.eu/domains_actions/tud/Actions/TU1306
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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