Category / Communities, Cultures and Conflicts

New blog on Open Access publishing

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, student research, writing

authoraid-2016Some months ago Andy Nobes asked my colleague Prof. Padam Simkhada and I if we could write a blog about why we had so many papers in freely available online journals in Nepal.  Andy is the Programme Officer, Research Development & Support at INASP, which is an international development charity based in Oxford working with a global network of partners in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

We had a whole range of immediate answers to Andy’s question, including ones like: we both love Nepal; we are on the editorial board of a few journals that are part of the NepJOL group; and editors invite us to submit articles and/or editorials. Moreover, we feel reasons for Open Access publishing are very similar to our key reasons for working in a low-income country like Nepal. These principles are (a) conducting applied academic research in low-income countries for the greater good; (b) helping to build research-capacity; and (c) telling the world about our research through quality academic publications.  This week saw the publication of our blog ‘Publishing in journals of the NepJOL family’ on the AuthorAid website, click here to read the post.

Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research at Bournemouth University and Padam Simkhada, Professor of International Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University and BU Visiting Faculty.

Top three most accessed 2016 paper BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth

international, open access, Publishing, writing

bmc-media-luce-et-alIt is always nice to receive some good news just before Christmas.  The journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth informed us that our paper ‘“Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media’ was in the top three most popular papers [1].  This interdisciplinary paper crosses the boundaries between the study of maternity care & midwifery, sociology of health & illness, and that of the media.  With BU’s Dr. Ann Luce as first author, it is one of the top three accessed articles of nearly 400 articles published in 2016 (as of Dec 16th).     

 

Reference:

  1. Luce, A., Cash, M., Hundley, V., Cheyne, H., van Teijlingen, E., Angell, C., (2016) “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 40 http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-0827-x

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

Four new FHSS publications

open access, Publishing, writing

bond-ahmed-2016

Congratulations to Dr. Carol Bond and Dr. Osman Ahmed in FHSS on the publication of their latest academic paper ‘Can I help you? Information sharing in online discussion forums by people living with a long-term condition’ [1].    Further congratulations are due to Osman who recently had three other papers accepted for publication [2-4].

 

Prof Edwin van Teijlingen

 

References:

  1.  Bond, C., Ahmed, O., 2016. Can I help you? Information sharing in online discussion forums by people living with a long-term condition. Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics, 23 (3).
  2. West L.R., Griffin , S., Weiler, R., Ahmed,O. 2016 Management of concussion in disability sport: a different ball game? British Journal of Sports Medicine doi:10.1136/bjsports-2016-096767
  3. “Educating the masses: Suggestions for improving online concussion information via the mainstream media” in Concussion (not available online yet)
  4. “Do Neurocognitive SCAT3 Baseline Test Scores Differ Between Footballers (Soccer) Living With and Without Disability? A Cross-Sectional Study” in Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine (not yet available online)

 

 

Surveys at Avebury and Stonehenge on German TV

Collaborative research between Professor Tim Darvill in the Centre for Archaeology and Anthropology at BU and Professor Fritz Lüth of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin was featured in a short television programme made by ARD, the first German channel, first broadcast on 26 November. The programme focuses on the extensive high resolution geophysical surveys being undertaken within the Avebury and Stonehenge World Heritage Site, and was filmed during the 2016 fieldwork season in September. Click here to view the programme.

CFP: Special Issue on Gender and Mobility in Tourism

Knowledge Exchange, Women's Academic Network

Call for Papers: Tourism Review
Special Issue on Gender and Mobility in Tourism

Guest Editors:
Jaeyeon Choe, PhD
Centre for Events, Leisure, Society & Culture, Faculty of Management
Bournemouth University, UK

Cristopher Livecchi, PhD
Department of Geography
State University of New York, USA

Gender in/and tourism have been gaining an increasing attention from tourism scholars since the 1990s (e.g., Aitchison, 2005; Figueroa-Domecq et al., 2015; Ferguson, 2011; Ireland, 1993; Pritchard & Morgan, 2000; Munar et al., 2015; Swain, 1995). Despite growing interest and published works, the nexus of tourism and gender has not been thoroughly explored by researchers. Gender and tourism literature is fragmented, with a lack of communication and collaboration across disciplines even though there are overlapping topic areas and discussions. There has not been enough interdisciplinary research work carried out, leading to fragmented literature reviews, theorization processes and methods. Thus, the primary aim of this special issue is to thoroughly review the theories, theorization processes and methods/methodology of gender studies in tourism, by encouraging the incorporation of LGBT, queer studies and ‘White’ feminism concepts and theories.

Secondly, we are interested in exploring how migration and mobility in a globalising world have affected gender issues in relation to tourism, and implications of practices, politics and meanings of mobility for women (Porter, 2011). Migration theory had begun to include feminist theory in the early 1990s (Chant ,1992), and has provided insights into the connections and the mutually constitutive relationship between the construction of masculinities and masculinist ideologies; and migration, (im)mobilities and transnationalism and gender issues. As scholars interested in migration and mobilities work collaboratively and transnationally across different worlds (Yeoh & Ramdas, 2014), papers that address how migration and gender issues influence tourism research and practices are welcome. We also welcome papers that incorporate action research, as well as papers that develop future research directions.

In summary, this special issue, we seek papers related to issues about (im)mobilities, migration, LGBTQ, ‘White’ feminism, action research, social sustainability and the cultural geography of gender and tourism. We invite contributions from a variety of disciplines including anthropology, geography, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, leisure studies, tourism studies and education. We invite you to submit papers on topics that include (but are not limited to):

– Migration and gender (in)equality
– Gender politics, migration and (im)mobilities
– Action research in gender and tourism
– Research methods development
– LGBT/queer studies in tourism field
– ‘White’ feminism/ ‘White’ masculinity
– Cultural geography of gender and tourism
– Social sustainability and gender issues
– Gender and the Sharing Economy
– “Dangerous women” in tourism
– Implications of practices, politics and meanings of mobility for women
– Gender, migration and (im)moralities in developing worlds
– Brexit and its potential impact on immigrant women communities

Each article should be approximately 3000-5500 words long.
Submission Deadlines:

· 500 words abstract due: 20 December 2016
· Full paper due: 20 February 2017

Please send your abstracts/papers to Jaeyeon Choe, PhD (jchoe@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Civic Media Hub launches ‘Innovation Lunches’

 The Bournemouth University Civic Media Hub is hosting a series of ‘Innovation Lunches’ with invited guests from institutions across the UK. Bringing together BU faculty, PGR and UG students from different faculties and areas of expertise, the innovation lunches offer time to discuss new methodological practices and share interdisciplinary approaches to questions around data, digital media and society. With the aim of fostering collaborations for future grant bidding and strengthening our interdisciplinary connections, innovation lunches foster a space for inspiring research.

A catered lunch will be provided. Events are open to all staff and students, but places are limited. RSVP to attend an innovation lunch to afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk

Exploring Methods for Investigating Algorithms and Data Processes w/ Lina Dencik (Cardiff University)

Wednesday December 7th @ 13:00-14:00 F305 (Fusion Building, Talbot Campus)

As algorithms tell us what we want to watch and predict the years we have left to live, few aspects of our social, cultural and economic lives are left untouched from data processes. Despite popular claims, this datification of society is never neutral. What does it look like to study data as emerging sets of power relations?  How can we approach algorithms as social processes? Join us for an interdisciplinary discussion on methods for investigating algorithms and data processes.

 Bio: Dr Lina Dencik is Senior Lecturer and Director of the MA in Journalism, Media and Communication in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, UK. Her research is concerned with the interplay between media developments and social and political change, with a particular focus on globalization and resistance. She has recently been working on issues relating to surveillance, visibility, and the politics of data. Her most recent book is Critical Perspectives on Social Media and Protest: Between Control and Emancipation (co-edited with Oliver Leistert, Rowman & Littlefield International, 2015).