PROGRAMME
Delegates had discussions in three research cohorts:
- Education in Conflict (Cohort 1)
- Gender, intersectionality and faith perspectives (Cohort 2)
- Peacekeeping, reparations and visions for the future (Cohort 3)
The timetable below can also be downloaded as a single page summary PDF .
Monday 16 November
Welcome and 'Keynote' introduction/overview
Opening Remarks: Dr Esther Dusabe-Richards (PRAXIS)
Chair: Dr Robyn Gill-Leslie (PRAXIS)
Asma Khalifa is a Libyan women's rights and peace activist. Her work has spanned across numerous countries including Libya, Yemen and Syria. She won the Luxembourg Peace Prize in 2016 and was named as one of the 100 most influential young Africans of 2017 by the Africa Youth Awards.
Ruth Daniel is the CEO of In Place of War. Over the past 15 years, Ruth has worked to make change with creativity in the most marginalised communities across the world working in 24 countries. Ruth has taken an organisation routed in research around the impact of arts in conflict zones, to an organisation supporting grassroots change-makers in 24 countries to amplify their socio-economic impact.
Dr Neelam Raina is an Associate Professor of Design and Development at Middlesex University, London, and the Security, Protracted Conflict, Refugee Crises and Forced Displacement Challenge Leader, UKRI. Neelam has been working in the region of Kashmir (both Indian and Pakistani) since the early 2000s, and has conducted participatory action research including design and enterprise training for women in the region focusing on material cultures, identity and representation of the people of Kashmir.
Film screening
Introduction: Prof Paul Cooke (Changing the Story)
Nicolas Salazar Sutil introduced Pas en Avant: Community Integration through Dance-based Pedagogy in the Lake Chad Region
Nicolas talked about the Pas en Avant project and introduced video material from the project's training programme. Find out more about Pas en Avant here.
The Tree of Love/ el árbol del amor
The Tree of Love, directed by Mat Charles, is a story of love, friendship and resistance, written, illustrated and animated by children and young people from the indigenous Nasa community many of whom were recruited by armed groups and forced to take up arms.
At first they don't believe
"At first they don’t believe", by Paul Cooke, Peter Manning, Keo Duong and Rachel Killean, tells the stories of two women who survived the violence of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, Sieng Chantei and Leay Kimchhean. How have these women tried to confront their past traumas? What has the country done to help? How have they tried to make sense of their treatment by a paranoid regime that abused thousands of people like the two we meet in the film? And what does the younger generation make of their story? Building on the work of Changing the Story in Cambodia, a four-year research project, and learning from, and with, the innovative work of Cambodian civil society organisations, the film illustrates the importance of young people learning about and acknowledging the stories of survivors.
Tuesday 17 November
Cross-cutting theme: Decolonial perspectives
Do projects overtly acknowledge this issue – if so, how? How does this feed into partner collaborations/co-production of knowledge? Is this an issue being explicitly funded, based on project proposals? If not, should it be? How does this perspective change or mould outcomes and impact?
Chairs: Evelyn Pauls, Jelke Boesten and Nicolas Salazar Sutil
Wednesday 18 November
Cross-cutting Theme: Movement/Change
Movement: displacement, migration, change - how do projects understand, build on, work through and grow from ideas of change in their research communities, home and away? How do ideas of movement and displacement differ in different projects and communities? Do projects acknowledge fluidity of research and if so, how? How does this change the way they conceptualise research in insecure / conflict settings? Could change and movement be harnessed as a tool to maximise impact of projects?
Chairs: Alison Phipps and Melis Cin
Thursday 19 November
Cross-cutting theme: Innovation
Innovation / challenging accepted orthodoxy: how are projects aiming to change or challenge established ideas? What aspects of challenging orthodoxy are more successful than others, and why? Can you “plan” for research innovation and how does methodology choice impact this? Is innovation “inevitable” when working in unpredictable and insecure contexts and with arts-based methods? Is something always innovative for both researcher and their in-country communities? If there is disparity here, is this an important learning for beneficiary considerations?
Chairs: Emma Crewe, Evelyn Pauls and Ananda Breed
11:00-12:30: Special event: Field research in the time of Covid-19
Chair: Robyn Gill-Leslie
Dr Margaret Ebubedike has over 13 years research, teaching and international development project delivery experience in the UK and across Sub Saharan Africa. Her research currently draws on the use of creative approaches to explore the educational needs across all levels in low-income contexts, including in protracted crises. As part of the COVID response, she is Co-I on a research project in partnership with the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) to support African university teachers with the tools and pedagogy they need to move their teaching online.
Dr Heather Flowe. Heather's research is centered on understanding episodic memory, particularly memory for criminal events, using both experimental and applied approaches. Heather is the Co-Director of the Centre for Crime Justice and Policing (Victims and Trauma), the Lead for Violence Prevention and Humanitarian Protection for the Institute for Global Innovation 21st Century Crime theme and a chartered psychologist.
Tuesday 24 November
Cross-cutting theme: Intervention/ Development
Moving from "intervention / action" to development: how are projects working on embedding change in sustainable ways? How do projects articulate this challenge of moving from intervention to sustained impact? What does sustained development or impact look like?
Chairs: Jane Plastow and Laura Hammond
Wednesday 25 November
Cross-cutting theme: The Arts as Method
The arts as method is subversive, co-productive, unpredictable. What kinds of methodologies are in play – are some more successful than others? Are these methods articulated in a pragmatic and replicable way? Are arts methods replicable? What kinds of critique can projects offer on arts as method, and how can these challenges be countered?
Chairs: Alison Phipps and Jelke Boesten
Thursday 26 November
Cross-cutting theme: Self-Reflexivity
Where does the spectrum of benefits reach? How do researchers reflect on issues of privilege, ownership of product, dissemination and use of product, post-research community engagement, co-production of knowledge? How are researchers acknowledging benefits to home institutions and personal career paths, and is this important to do for grant purposes? How are researchers doing reflexive work in the field – and could we learn from this for future work?
Chairs: Neelam Raina Stephen Stenning and Jane Plastow
12:00-13:00: Special Event: A Deep Listening Exercise + Phragma (a sonic experience)
Phragma is a film by Nicolas Salazar Sutil and Stuart Mellor. It is designed as a sonic and live experience, captured on binaural technology, to be led through deep listening tasks. The piece is about conflict surrounding the deviation of the mythic river achelous in Greece. Stuart Mellor will lead you through the deep listening tasks before we launch into the film.
Friday 27 November
Cross-cutting theme: Unintended Consequences
Unintended consequences and the opportunities and challenges these present: arts as method and working in insecure contexts provides opportunity for reflexive, creative and innovative responses to research challenges; this can influence the outcomes and impacts of projects. Can we reflect on how these opportunities and challenges (of both country context and methodological approach) have contributed to the growth, development or reduction of outcomes and impacts? What can be learnt from this?
Chairs: Neelam Raina and Kelsey Shanks
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