BU Research Blog | social sciences | Bournemouth University

17 September 2015

Joint project with Tribhuvan University

Awarded & submitted bids, Public engagement Edwin van Teijlingen

Today I attended a contract-signing meeting at the Department of Health, Physical and Population Education at Nepal’s oldest university, Tribhuvan University (TU).

BU, TU and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) have been awarded a Tropical Health & Education Trust (THET) grant for health partnerships to carry out training and capacity-building projects in low-income countries, such as Nepal.

The new BU-led THET project will bring highly experienced UK volunteers to train some 100 maternity care providers, such as Auxiliary Health Workers (AHWs) and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) about the key mental health issues in pregnancy and in the months after birth. A local charity Green Tara Nepal (GTN) will support the work through some of the curriculum design, sensitising UK volunteers to live in rural Nepal, assisting in translating, as well as helping to recruit the local health workers. The two UK universities have a long history of working with GTN as well as its sister organisation Green Tara Trust (GTT), a Buddhist charity based in London. The new project will be based in Nawalparasi in the sub-tropical part of the country bordering India. The target population consists of grassroot health care practitioners since there are no doctors in these rural villages.

The pictures accompanying this post illustrate the inequalities and the mix of modern and traditional in Kathmandu today. The city crowded with motorbikes and then occasionnally one sees a couple cows been driven through these busy streets. The green house is in the street in front of where I am staying and the shanty town building are the backdoor neighbours. The picture with text is the price-list ourside the main infectious diseases hospital informing patients about the costs of certain treatments, tests and drugs. A reminder that health care might be free in name for the poorest people, there are still many costs involved in gettiong treated in hospital!

This project is supported by the Tropical Health & Education Trust (THET) as part of the Health Partnership Scheme, which is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The following people make up the international project team: Edwin van Teijlingen, Padam Simkhada, Bhimsen Devkota, Padmadharini Fanning, Jillian Ireland, Bibha Simkhada, Lokendra Sherchan, Ram Chandra Silwal, Samridhi Pradhan, Shyam K. Maharjan, Ram K. Maharjan

9 September 2015

Your most popular paper this week was ….

BRIAN, Publishing, Research themes, Training Edwin van Teijlingen

Every week I receive an email telling me what my most accessed paper is on Academia.edu. As a research-active academic I would like this ‘top paper’ to be one of my research papers based on primary research or perhaps a systematic review. My second preference is that I would like it to be one of my few more theoretical papers and, if not that, then at least one of many methods papers I have published with colleagues over the past decade. But no, every single week a fairly basic ‘how-to-do’ paper is my most accessed paper. This week’s message is typical: “Your most popular paper for the week was Writing an academic paper for publication, which had 142 views.”

This how-to-write-an-academic editorial has been my most read paper for months now. It is a paper Prof. Vanora Hundley, Prof. Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University & BU Visiting Faculty) and I wrote in an attempt to help budding academics and postgraduate students in a low-income country to think about the process of drafting and writing a scientific paper.

Perhaps this paper is popular because there is a global need for it (Academia.edu also gives break down from where in the world the paper has been accessed). It is also possible that it is on course reading list or perhaps it is recommended on webpage somewhere. The paper is,of course, Open-Access which helps in terms of providing more people across the globe easy and free access!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2013) Writing an academic paper for publication, Health Renaissance 11(1): 1-5. healthrenaissance.org.np/uploads/Pp_1_5_Guest_Editorial.pdf

21 August 2015

My experiences of the undergraduate research assistantship

Research assessment, student research zsheppard

I’m an Occupational Therapy student at BU, just going into my third year. This summer I have been working with HSS Impact Champion, Zoe Sheppard, on the endeavour to monitor and measure the impact of research. This has involved exploring methods of dissemination, investigating the demonstration of impact, and working on two research impact case studies. As a result I have come to understand the value of reciprocal public engagement, and learnt that some of the best impact examples don’t happen by chance, but are within reach and in our control. I have collated my findings into a toolkit which will hopefully support you to plan and pursue your own research impacts.

I have really enjoyed the opportunity to explore the difference research can make, and this has inspired me to think about my own post-graduate research options. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Zoe in particular, and everyone else who have been so supportive of me over the last few weeks.

Jo George

11 August 2015

New publication by BU PhD student Jib Acharya

Publishing, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to FHSS Ph.D. student Mr. Jib Acharya, whose paper ‘Study of nutritional problems in preschool aged children in Kaski District in Nepal’ has just been published in the Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Healthcare [1]. The academic paper, based on his Ph.D. thesis, reports on his mixed-methods Public Health study addressing attitudes and knowledge of mothers of young children (pre-school aged) in one particular district in Nepal. The research comprises a quantitative survey and qualitative focus groups. Jib Acharya, who is originally from Nepal, compares and contrasts the attitudes, knowledge and behaviour of poor rural and poor urban women (=mothers) in that district. The research is supervised by Dr. Jane Murphy, Dr. Martin Hind and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Acharya, J., van Teijlingen, E., Murphy, J., Hind, M. (2015) Study of nutritional problems in preschool aged children in Kaski District in Nepal, Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Healthcare 1(2): 97-118.

11 August 2015

Consider the editor!

Publishing, Research Integritiy Edwin van Teijlingen

The most recent edition of the international journal Women & Birth includes a discussion paper highlighting the role of the academic journal editor, an often misunderstood ‘job’ in academic scholarship [1]. The Bournemouth University authors of this paper are all three active as journal editors and sit on several editorial boards of scientific journals. The role of the journal editor may not be well known by budding authors. The purpose of this article is to explain the editor’s role in order to encourage future participation in reviewing and publication.

This latest paper is part of a series of articles written by staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on academic writing [2-4]. These ‘how-to-do’ papers offer advice to junior researchers and postgraduate students. Several of the papers in this series are co-authored with Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty, including Dr. Brijesh Sathian (based in Nepal), Prof. Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University), Ms. Jillian Ireland (Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust), Prof. Debra Bick ( King’s College, London), Dr. Bibha Simkhada (Inter, Nepal) and Dr. Emma Pitchforth (RAND Europe, Cambridge). The range of publications includes papers on advice for article titles [5], tricky issues such as authorship and author order [6-7], selecting the most appropriate journal for your paper [8] and writing up qualitative research [9]. Whilst a further paper offers advice on writing an abstract for a scientific conference [10].

Edwin van Teijlingen, Vanora Hundley & Jenny Hall

CMMPH

Twitter: @EvTeijlingen @VanoraHundley @hallmum5

References:

Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth 28(2): e26-e29.
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2013) Writing an academic paper for publication, Health Renaissance 11(1): 1-5.
van Teijlingen, E., P.P., Simkhada, B., Ireland, J. (2012) The long & winding road to publication, Nepal Journal Epidemiology 2(4): 213-215.
van Teijlingen, E., P.P., Rizyal, A. (2012) Submitting a paper to an academic peer-reviewed journal, where to start? Health Renaissance 10 (1): 1-4.
van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(1): 344-347.
van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.
Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2013) Academic authorship: who, why and in what order? Health Renaissance 11(2): 98-101.
van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, Journal of Advanced Nursing 37(6): 506-511.
Pitchforth, E., Porter, M., van Teijlingen, E.R., Forrest Keenan, K. (2005) Writing up and presenting qualitative research in family planning and reproductive health care, Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care 31 (2): 132-135.
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, B.D. (2013) Writing an Abstract for a Scientific Conference, Kathmandu University Medical Journal 11(3): 262-265.

24 July 2015

New BU Research Methods paper

Knowledge Transfer, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday the journal Health Prospect published another of our research methods papers. This latest paper on cross-national comparative research has been written by five sociologists from Northern Europe and North America: Ray De Vries (University of Michigan USA & Hogeschool Zuyd, Maastricht University, the Netherlands), Cecilia Benoit (University of Victoria, Canada), Jane Sandall (King’s College London), Ivy Bourgeault (University of Ottawa, Canada), Sirpa Wrede (University of Helsinki, Finland) and Edwin van Teijlingen (Bournemouth University). We have been working together on cross-cultural and cross-national issues in maternity care and midwifery since the mid-1990s. Our collaborative research led to the edited volume Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe (Routledge, 2001). The book was short-listed for the British Sociological Association’s (BSA) Medical Sociology Book Prize in 2004.

The paper in Health Prospect is the latest in a series of papers addressing issues around the method of doing cross-national research. We highlight some of the specific contributions the discipline of sociology can make to cross-national comparative research in the public health field. Sociologists call attention to often unnoticed social and cultural factors that influence the way national reproductive health care systems are created and operated. The paper is published in an Open Access journal so it is easily and freely available to anybody across the globe.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

van Teijlingen, E., Benoit, C., Bourgeault, I., DeVries, R., Sandall, J., Wrede, S. (2015) Learning from health care in other countries: the prospect of comparative research, Health Prospect 14(1): 8-12. info/index.php/HPROSPECT/article/view/13036/10525

23 July 2015

UK Nepali community research dissemination event

Public engagement, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

BU and UKNFS jointly presented some of the key findings of their study into the UK’s Nepali community. The meeting (22 July) in the EBC was attended by local representatives of the NHS, the CCG and Healthwatch Dorset. BU Prof. Vanora Hundley, Deputy Dean for Research (FHSS), who herself has published several academic paper on Nepal or English-language academic journals in Nepal, welcomed the audience. She highlighted how the research fitted into the wider health and soial care research portfolio of the Faculty.

BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen’s presentation highlighted the issues of access the health and social services in growing Nepali community in the UK. The reports highlights health and lifestyle issues, help-seeking behaviour and the influence of culture on health-related decision making. He mentioned barriers such as language and knowledge about services (or lack thereof). The findings of this study relate to previous studies in the field of ethnic minority communities int he UK. Mr. Alan Mercel-Sanca, Chairperson of the UK Nepal Friendship Society thanked the key researchers Dr. Bibha Simkhada (BU VIsiting Faculty) and Dr. Rajeeb Kumar Sah for conducting this mixed-methods research to such a high standard. He also thanked the Big Lottery Fund for making this ground-breaking piece of work possible, and the NHS England Equality and Health Inequalities team for their interest in final report and advice on the research.

The Report offers a unique opportunity for local health crae providers and commissioners to improve their understanding of this particular ethnic minority group. In the long run the report may lead to more effectively service delivery, especially in terms of health and social services that are sensitive to the needs of the Nepali community. Moreover, the report’s findings have direct relevance to other South Asian and broader Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) communities in the UK.

Finally, the audience heard how the report has been widely reported among the Nepali-language media to the Nepali community in the UK as well as in Nepal. This include coverage by the BBC World Service in Nepali, who interviewed Dr. Bibha Simkhada about the study.

The report is available online here!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

21 July 2015

Improving Nepali’s health & social care in the UK: Presentation of key findings 22 July at BU

Public engagement, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Bournemouth University presents some of the key findings of the first study of its kind of the Nepali community in the UK. The report also shows the way forward for improved UK Nepali community NHS and social care provision. The research is a joint initiative between the UK Nepal Friendship Society, Bournemouth University in collaboration with the South East London Nepali community and funded by the Big Lottery Fund.

Key findings from the report suggest in particular that the elderly Nepali population struggle to access cultural appropriate health and social care. This results in people accessing health services too late. Further research is needed on mental health, especially on loneliness and social isolation in the elderly, but also on minorities within the broader community as well as those with limited English language skills. Its recommendations have potential transformational value for the relationship between this ethnic minority, most well-known for its Gurkha community, and the NHS and social care providers.

Many Nepali people evidenced that they struggle with accessing and navigating NHS services, and that there are significant confidence-building requirements that need to be addressed concerning a revealed need for experiencing more equitable NHS customer service provision. The lead author Dr. Bibha Simkhada is Visiting Faculty at BU.

Ruth Passman of NHS England, Head of Equality & Health Inequalities commented:

“This report and its findings indicate the scale of the need for the NHS to have a better understanding of the needs of the Nepali community accessing in an effective and equitable way, and through its profile of health and wellbeing seeking behaviour of the community for the NHS to have the opportunity to better address in partnership with the Nepali community, its particular needs.”
Prof. Gail Thomas the Dean of the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences added: “Bournemouth University has a long-standing history of health and health promotion research in Nepal. This study amongst the Nepali community in South London reminds us of the importance of addressing health and well-being issues in ethnic minority communities in the UK.”

Mr. Tej Bahadur Chhetri, the Acting Ambassador and Charge D’Affaires at the Embassy of Nepal sent the following message:

This report is a most helpful contribution, to promote much needed change in healthcare provision for the Nepali community, especially with the fast approaching 200 years of special friendship and diplomatic relations between Nepal and the UK. The link between the two countries started with the Gurkha regiments becoming part of the British Army, and having been so to this day. The UK Nepali community will clearly benefit from the report and its recommendations’

Alan Mercel-Sanca, the Chairperson of the UK Nepal friendship Society added: “We particularly appreciate Dr Bibha Simkhada and Dr Rajeeb Kumar Sah’s dedication and high quality research in the Nepali community. We would also like to thank the Big Lottery Fund for making this ground-breaking piece of work possible, and the NHS England Equality and Health Inequalities team for their great interest in the value of the research. The Report offers a unique opportunity for our evolving NHS and the Ministry of Health to better understand and more effectively meet the needs and hear the Voice of the Nepali community – it clearly has direct relevance to other South Asian and broader Black & Minority Ethnic communities using and seeking to access an NHS that is equitable and effective.”

The presentation will take place tomorrow Wednesday 22nd July at 15.00 in the Executive Business Centre on Holdenhurst Rd. The meeting will be introduced and opened by Prof. Vanora Hundley, Deputy Dean for Research & Professional Practice in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences. Prof. Hundley herself has published several academic paper on Nepal or English-language academic journals in Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

@EvanTeijlingen

16 July 2015

Prof. Judy Wajcman LSE speaking this evening in FoL

Festival of Learning Edwin van Teijlingen

Prof Judy Wajcman will be the second speaker in the Distinguished Social Scientists Public Lectures Series tonight in Festival of Learning. The lecture is based on her new book Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism.

Those who attended Prof. John Holmwood’s presentation on last Monday on ‘The University, Democracy and the Public Interest’ will agree that the Distinguished Social Scientists Public Lectures Series started with a great and challenging presentation.

Tonight’s session is free and will be in the Barnes Lecture theatre at Talbot Campus starting at 18.00.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

15 July 2015

Introducing Jo George, Undergraduate Research Assistant

Fusion, REF Subjects, Research assessment, student research zsheppard

Hello, I will be working within the Health and Social Sciences Faculty with Impact Champion, Zoe Sheppard, over the next six weeks on the endeavour to monitor and measure the impact of research.

My work will involve:

Exploring methods of dissemination
Conducting literature searches to investigate the demonstration of impact
Working on two research case studies from the Health and Social Social Sciences Faculty

I can be found in R613 and contacted at jgeorge@bournemouth.ac.uk if you have any ideas or challenges you’d like to discuss. I will be sharing my findings towards the end of my six weeks here.

I look forward to meeting you,

Jo

25 June 2015

Distinguished Social Science Public Lectures Series at BU

Edwin van Teijlingen

Presenting for the first time at this year’s Festival of Learning: the first two Distinguished Social Scientists Public Lectures at Bournemouth University. The inaugural lecture will be given by Professor John Holmwood on Monday 13th July at 18.00. John is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham and founder of the Campaign for the Public University.

His lecture will centred on ‘The University, Democracy and the Public Interest.’ Following the election of 2010, the nature of the university was dramatically changed following the introduction of tuition fees and the removal of direct public funding from arts, humanities and social science subjects. This reduced public spending on higher education by 82%, shifting the costs on to students with increased revenues going into higher education. The lecture will suggest that the university has shifted from being at the service of democracy to being at the service of markets and their associated inequalities, such that it is now integral to a democratic deficit at the heart of wider public policy.

Tickets for John’s lecture can be booked at no cost here.

The second public lecture will be presented by Professor Judy Wajcman, Anthony Giddens, Professor of Sociology, at the London School of Economics on 16 July, 6-8.30 pm. Her lecture is based on her new book Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism.

More, better, faster. That’s modern life. And it’s all driven by the very devices that were supposed to make our lives better—our communication devices, which, rather than easing our work and social lives, instead impinge, leaving us no refuge from our responsibilities. But what if it’s not the devices that are to blame? What if we turn that around, and remind ourselves that they’re just tools—and that we can decide how to design and use them. It is only by bringing a social science lens to such issues that we can begin to understand how we have remade time and remade ourselves in digital culture.

Tickets for Judy’s lecture can be booked at no cost here.

The Distinguished Social Scientists Public Lecture Serie is facilitated by BU Professor Ann Brooks.

23 June 2015

Collaborative ethnography and undergraduate learning

Fusion, Public engagement, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, student research Rosie Read

The value of providing undergraduate students with experience of conducting first hand, empirical research is widely recognised. As a social anthropologist, I’ve long been interested enabling students to discover and engage in ethnographic research. I’m presently developing a new taught unit in which for our BA Sociology and BA Sociology and Anthropology students will carry out ethnographic projects developed in collaboration with local community organisations. This endeavour necessarily poses challenges. One of them is time. Undergrad students’ learning is divided into units delivered over semesters, but a semester is very short time frame in which to design, carry out and write up an ethnographic project. The other is the nature of the collaboration with the non-academic partner, whether that be an NGO, community group, local government partner etc. How can this collaboration be shaped in a way which is beneficial to both parties?

IUPUI students visiting a housing redevelopment scheme in a lower income neighbourhood, Indianapolis, February 2015.

This term I have visited IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis), USA. IUPUI is a public university in which dialogue and engagement between faculty and students, on the one hand, and citizens, organisations and businesses, on the other, is a priority for both teaching and research. My visits have provided me with an opportunity to see a diverse range of ways in which this dialogue is promoted and sustained. Here I will summarise some of the strategies I have seen in action at IUPUI which are most pertinent to the kinds of collaborative, community-engaged student ethnographic projects I hope to develop at BU.

1. Investing time
The importance of investing time in developing relationships with local organisations which will have a stake in the research cannot be overstated. Whoever the partner is and whatever the nature of the collaboration, the project is enormously enhanced when both parties make time to talk to each other, arrive at a suitable, realisable aim of the project, and figure out how they are going to achieve it within the fixed timescale. This is of course easy to state and much harder to realise, as it involves all parties investing a very scarce resource, time, into the process. I followed an ethnographic research methods course closely during my visits, a project exploring urban regeneration within a low-income neighbourhood. This made clear the benefits of that early investment of time. Both the academic course leader and management, staff and volunteers at the community development organisation in the local area set aside considerable time in identifying the possibilities and foci of student research projects, long before the teaching proper started. This communication and collaboration also continued throughout the course itself, adjusting to changing and contingent circumstances as the student research projects progressed.

2. Framing the question
Central to the process above is negotiating the research question; what is it that the students will research and why? The question needs to address the interests and priorities of both partners. It must contain the potential for students to formulate their empirical focus and interpret their data in the light of theories and critical questions within their disciplines, and to produce findings which are of some benefit or use to non-academic partners, organisations and citizens. At IUPUI, I found out about series of student projects on urban development issues such as poverty, homelessness, housing, city regeneration strategies, gentrification and food production and consumption, to name some of them. These kinds of topics resulted in findings and interpretations which had both critical value as pieces of academic work and practical value to local people and organisations.

3. Moving teaching to community settings
I closely followed two courses which were taught off-campus in community settings – one in a church / community centre, the other in a women’s correctional facility. The success of any ethnographic project hinges on proximity and familiarity and so establishing this sense of closeness is obviously of enormous value to students. Teaching in a setting within which students will find an immediate mutuality of interest in their engagement with the people and organisations they are going to study helps students think of themselves as ethnographers. It provides the basis for developing relationships, trust, access and cooperation within the community, and for fostering local understanding of what the project is about. This is also a valuable experience that students take with them into their future careers.

4. Finding (new) ways of disseminating the research findings
Academics at IUPUI employed many different means of disseminating their students’ research projects and findings, enabling it to reach audiences within but also well beyond the city itself. Students were strongly encouraged and sometimes financially supported to attend national and international conferences. Funding was raised for publishing pamphlets, books and eBooks about their empirical studies and findings. Time was invested in developing impressive academic blogs and websites about their research. I provide a few links to just some of this fantastic work below.
I have gained many insights, ideas and sense of possibilities from my visits to IUPUI, and I’d like to extend my warm thanks to all colleagues and students whom I had the pleasure of meeting. Special thanks to Professor Susan B. Hyatt, whose scholarship inspired my visits and who made the whole thing possible in a practical sense.

Links to some online examples of IUPUI collaborative student research and scholarship:

– The ‘Neighborhood of Saturdays’. Student research project about urban multi-ethnic neighborhood in Indianapolis.

– ‘Eastside Story: Portrait of a Neighborhood on the Suburban Frontier’: Student project exploring historical change and community identities in a suburban area of Indianapolis.

– ‘Urban Heritage? Archaeology and Homelessness in Indianapolis’. A student project using archaeological methods to explore experiences of homelessness.

– ‘Ransom Place’ project: Collaborative project on culture, consumption and race in an African American neighbourhood in Indianapolis: http://www.iupui.edu/~anthpm/ransom.html

– ‘Archaeology and Material Culture’: blog of Professor Paul Mullins.
https://paulmullins.wordpress.com/author/paulmullins/

15 June 2015

5th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies at The University of Edinburgh attracts Global Academics including BU’s Professor of Sociology, Ann Brooks.

Women's Academic Network Edwin van Teijlingen

By Professor Ann Brooks, Professor of Sociology

The 5^th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies hosted by The University of Edinburgh was set against the stunning backdrop of Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags at The University of Edinburgh’s John McIntyre’s Conference Centre.

The conference attracted 250 international academics from a wide range of disciplines including sociology, geography, literature, cultural studies, art, archeology, anthropology, urban studies, gender studies, tourism and many more. Delegates came from US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil among others. The conference chair was Professor Liz Bondi from the University of Edinburgh and teh conference was supported by Elsevier publishers, who publish the conference journal Emotion, Space and Society and hosted a superb pre-conference welcome and reception.

The Conference streams reflected an international and interdisciplinary research profile combining theoretical and applied work as well as implications for policy debates at the local and national level. For example in one of the Conference Themes: Persisting Selves: the Practices and Politics of Keeping Going and Carry On (divided into I Selves; II Time and III Recovering) papers included: ‘How does “a day at a time” work? Patience, Persistence and Proaction in Everyday Sustained Alcoholic.’(Julia Mills, University of Manchester) and ‘Persistence, Insistence and Endurance in Pregnancy Loss Grief.’ (Abigail McNiven, University of Oxford).’ A Conference Theme: which showcased a wide range of doctoral, postdoc and Early Career Researchers’ work was Childhood Youth and Intergenerationality: Relational Geographies of Emotions /Affects, Childhood and Youth, papers included: ‘The Emotional Geographies of Children of Prisoners’(Helene Oldrup, The Danish National Centre for Social Research) and ‘Slovenia’s Izbrisani (‘Erased’) Youth, Transitional Spaces and Radical Ethical Acts’ (Stuart Aitken, San Diego State University). Other Conference Themes included Creative Spaces, Emotions in Fieldwork, Urban Life in Theory and Practice, Time and Space, Liminal Spaces, and Connecting across Space: Tourism.

I presented a paper in the Urban Life in Theory and Practice stream as one of three papers discussing the impact of the urban environment and landscape on emotional well-being. My paper looked at the impact of gentrification in cities in the US including San Francisco and New York City, where long term city dwellers and migrants are being forced out of their homes because of the gentrification of traditionally ethnic parts of the cities by corporate investors and wealthy foreigners. I also explore the growth of the Occupy Movement as a collective expression of anger at the increasing disparities of wealth in US cities. This work is part of the work undertaken for a forthcoming book on Emotions and Cities.

One of the high points of the conference was the presentation of one of three keynotes –Professor Lauren Berlant, George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, the University of Chicago. http://english.uchicago.edu/faculty/berlant

Berlant is a foremost contributor to feminist and literary discourse in the US and it is a unique opportunity to have her appear at a UK conference. She is author of a number of outstanding books including: Cruel Optimism (2011), The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture (2009), Desire/Love (2013), Our Monica, Ourselves: Clinton and the Affairs of State (2001), Intimacy (2000), The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (1997).

Berlant describes her work as follows:

My work has focused on politics, emotion and intimacy in the U.S. nineteenth and twentieth centuries – now the twenty-first in particular, in relation to citizenship, to informal and normative modes of social belonging, and to affective attachments and fantasies that take shape through ordinary practices. These scenes zone and disturb the relations between public and private, white and non-white, straight and non-straight, and /or citizen and foreigner –along with providing settings for other, inventive kinds of social bond through which people imagine and practice world- making.

Presenting her keynote address: ‘On being in Life without Wanting the World: Living in Ellipsis’, Berlant captured the imagination of delegates with an erudite and amusing presentation of concepts around emotion and affect. Berlant sought to define a range of new ‘affective’ states for addressing sex, democracy and belonging. Drawing on one of the classical social theorist Georg Simmel’s work on Metropolis and Mental Life, Berlant explored the concept of ‘disassociation’. Her ability to communicate with a wide range of academics using complex and imaginative frameworks of analysis is inspiring both on pedagogical and substantive issues.

Other keynotes included Professor Jane Speedy, University of Bristol and Associate Professor Joyce Davidson, Queens University, Canada.

This was a conference which not only provided outstanding networking opportunities and an opportunity to develop research synergies with international and national delegates but in addition it was a great opportunity for me to reflect on a chapter I have just completed on Lauren Berlant’s work for my upcoming book Genealogies of Emotion, Intimacies and Desire (Routledge, New York 2015). More food for thought from this exceptional academic.

This was a conference to inspire the intellect, engage the senses, to enrich international networking and to light the way for doctoral, postdoctoral and Early Career Researchers on the best of interdisciplinary research and to showcase this on the world stage.

31 May 2015

New book for Centre for Social Work, Sociology & Social Policy visiting fellow Assoc Prof Dr Maria Luisa Gomez Jimenez

Knowledge Exchange, Women's Academic Network Jonathan Parker

It is our great pleasure to announce the publication of a comparative sociological, economic and social administrative study of social service provision in Spain and Costa Rica.

Visiting fellow's new book

Our visiting fellow from the Centre for Social Work, Sociology & Social Policy, Assoc Prof Dr Maria Luisa Gomez Jimenez from the Universidad de Malaga in Spain, is a legal sociologist who works with BU Profs Sara Ashencaen Crabtree and Jonathan Parker concerning housing provision and its meaning in times of austerity in Spain. She has also edited Active Ageing: Perspectives from Europe on a vaunted topic with Centre director Prof Jonathan Parker.

Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

26 May 2015

Religion as Resistance: Problematising and eulogising contemporary faith positions – Islam and Buddhism

Fusion Investment Fund Jonathan Parker

The crisis of the Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar through perilous sea routes reminds us of our visit to Myanmar, as part of our Fusion Fund study leave last year, where we discussed the newly formed assistance centre in Penang, Malaysia, set up for such people, with our Southeast Asian colleagues. The city of Yangon, formerly Rangoon, in Myanmar is graced by the golden pagodas of the national religion, Buddhism, and is also where Christian churches of past colonial times and new ‘mega-churches’, and mosques stand within easy reach and visibility of one another. Seemingly, then, based on this rich and historical bricolage of spiritual phenomena, Myanmar is a jewel of multi-faith tolerance. Underneath this thin and brittle surface, however, boils a crucible of ethnic, religious and nationalist violence.

At Schwedegon in Yangon

Our ingrained Westernised hegemonic partiality, in which we are presented with images of Buddhism as symbolising peace, compassion and contemplation, in contrast with Islam as the font of world terror, is seriously challenged in the Myanmar context. We experienced religion here as a form of resistance in respect of the revivalist religiosity of Baptist Christian groups amongst the Chin tribes during our short visit, which was also a time of curfew and riot, although not one generated by these groups who found an outlet for their dissatisfaction in their ‘born again’ philosophies and the construction of a sense of belonging through ‘otherness’. At that time the curfew was ordered in parts of the country because of the increasing discord and physical violence between nationalist Buddhist groups, including (bizarrely to some maybe) Buddhist monks, and the minority Islamic peoples, the Rohingya, who, although officially robbed of citizenship status and therefore stateless, also claim autochthonous status in Myanmar.

Indigeneity, itself, is a much-contested concept, more so when we consider theories of human evolution or when we excavate the historical migratory patterns employed by human groups. Indigeneity offers a powerful discourse that has been applied by all sides of the political spectrum: the oppressed and disenfranchised, and also those who seek, by means of violent ethno-nationalism, to protect their state borders, or to impose a particular ideology which is put forward as legitimisation owing to the prerogatives of precedence.

The Buddhist majority exert the forces of ethno-nationalism as a means of purifying modern Myanmar from this Islamic group, a use of state religion to justify oppression and to forge a single state religion. What we witnessed last year in Myanmar and what is happening to the Rohingya currently represents an uglier face of our working analytical concept of ‘religion as resistance’, creating the overt challenge of supremacist politics.

We have seen some of the worst of humanity in dealing with the crisis of the Rohingya fleeing from Myanmar. With Thailand policing its physical borders more rigorously, the people have turned to people smugglers, traffickers and to the seas, in particular the dangerous waters of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. We have witnessed Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia’s attempt to remove the ‘problem’ from their national boundaries but also then adopting a more humanitarian response under international pressure, and we have witnessed the shock of individuals when the full horror of trafficking and death is revealed. Yet we have not seen the international community mobilise in support of the Rohingya people perhaps for some immediate reasons. Firstly, the Rohingya are Muslim, and a stereotype of contemporary terrorism as located in faith ideologies prevails. These prejudices may be strengthened further by Western applaud of the economic, rather than political, raising, of the formerly impenetrable bamboo curtain of Myanmar. Finally, Western eyes may view the state religion in Myanmar through lenses of prior assumption of Buddhism as fundamentally and prima facie incompatible with aggressive oppression of others.

The plight of the Rohingya echoes, to varying degrees, that of many other displaced or disenfranchised indigenous peoples: dislocation, diminishment of economic, political and religious rights, and the precariousness of marginal existence. To exploit terms that the sociologist, Max Weber, coined, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) offers the rational-legal authority to battle their cause. However, there is also a need to call upon traditional authority to reinforce beleaguered identities and it is here that we see the contemporary development of religious resistance. This has its positive aspects in creating a sense of belonging, of purpose, of transcendence but it may also have a downside in creating active resistance not to oppression but to the rejected Other – and together forms another important plank in our exploration and theorisation. Our continuing work with the experiences and voices of indigenous peoples throughout Southeast Asia, MENA and now Central America will further develop this deeply intriguing concept of religion as resistance.

Jonathan Parker & Sara Ashencaen Crabtree

20 May 2015

New paper by PhD student Sheetal Sharma

PG research, Publishing, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

Sheetal Sharma, PhD student in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH), published her latest paper this week in the Asian Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities [1]. The paper ‘Nepenglish’ or ‘Nepali English’: A New Version of English? raises the question whether we are beginning to see a new variant of English.

The paper is co-authored with Mrs. Pragyan Joshi from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kathmandu and BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. Sheetal’s PhD research focuses on the evaluation of a large-sclae maternity care improvement intervention in rural Nepal.

The paper is based on listening to people in Nepal speaking English and reading their writing in English. English is a living language and different native and non-native speakers develop English in slightly different ways. This paper argues that it is time to consider whether we should study the English spoken by native-Nepali speakers (Nepenglish) as a separately developing variant of English. The question is particularly intriguing since Nepali English bears such a similarity with Indian English, as both are largely based on originally Sanskrit-based languages. The focus is particularly on how native-Nepali speakers express themselves in English.

Reference:

Sharma, S., Joshi, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) ‘Nepenglish’ or ‘Nepali English’: A new version of English? Asian Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences 4(2): 188-193. www.ajssh.leena-luna.co.jp/AJSSHPDFs/Vol.4%282%29/AJSSH2015%284.2-21%29.pdf

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

11 May 2015

Seminar on political violence today

brichards

The Politics and Media Research Group in FMC has a very stimulating guest speaker lined up for this afternoon (Monday). Dr. Jeffrey Murer is Lecturer on Collective Violence at the University of St. Andrews, in the School of International Relations. He is unusual for an IR specialist in that he draws deeply on ideas from psychoanalysis in his studies of violent political conflict. The title of his talk is “The Politics of Splitting: Anxiety, Loss and the Anti-Semitic, Anti-Roma Violence of Contemporary Hungary”. While focussing on the situation in Hungary, his talk will illustrate how an interdisciplinary, psycho-social approach can be applied to generate insights into violence in many other contexts.

The talk will be in P406. It will start at 5.00 and be followed, until 6.30, by questions and discussion.

All staff and students are welcome.

10 May 2015

Paper by BU academics used as example in Dutch university newsletter

Publishing, Research Integritiy Edwin van Teijlingen

The March 2015 newsletter of the Dutch University of Groningen’s School for Behavioural & Cognitive Neurosciences dedicated two pages to the question: ‘How to pick the right journal?’ The author of the English-language newsletter contribution, Liwen Zhang, offer its readers a brief introduction on journal selection for a scientific manuscript. The newsletter piece is based on two papers which both share their submission stories and suggestions of journal selection. We were pleased to see that one of these two papers is by two Bournemouth University professors: Hundley and van Teijlingen. Their paper which gives advice on one specific aspect of academic publishing is called ‘Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper’ [1]. It was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing in 2002.

Reference:

vanTeijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, Journal of Advanced Nursing 37(6): 506-511.

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