Tag: #Arts

Introducing the American Studies Research Group

Posted on by George Thomas

To celebrate American Independence Day, we caught up with Dr Stephen Mawdsley and Dr Sam Hitchmough, Co-Directors of the Faculty of Arts’ American Studies Research Group, to find out more about the Group, its activities, successes and plans for the future.

 

What is the American Studies Research Group? 

The American Studies Research Group is an interdisciplinary collaborative partnership based in the Faculty of Arts, which brings together PGRs and academic staff members from History, English, Creative Writing, History of Art, Music, and Liberal Arts, as well as researchers from other allied programmes, including Geography, SPAIS, and Education.  

What are the key objectives of the American Studies Research Group? 

Our group has a broad and inclusive programme of events and activities designed to strengthen local research culture. We nurture not only existing staff, but the next generation of researchers by supporting the graduate student experience through colloquia, workshops, and funding initiatives. Our group not only draws on well-established academic communities and programmes, but also contributes to a range of national and global networks. We maintain a shared research agenda around a set of core themes: Race, Gender, Protest, Health and Medicine, and Decolonisation. These themes encourage and maximise opportunities for collaboration, impact, and grant capture, working together in creative ways, and alignment with university goals. 

What successes have the American Studies Research Group had? 

We had an extremely productive first year. Our group is helping to make Bristol an important player in academic publishing, postgraduate recruitment, grant capture, and impact on topics related to America. Our members have fostered American Studies networks and collaborative initiatives, attracted external funding from the British Association for American Studies, established an external partnership with a local museum, the American Museum in Bath, held a series of stimulating speaker sessions, and organized training sessions for our graduate students.  

Could you tell us a little more about your partnership with the American Museum? 

Last autumn two members of the American Studies Research Group were invited to join a new consultation group. A small group of experts in Native American history, American literature, museology and decolonisation, were invited to join museum staff and consider how to rethink and reframe the permanent exhibitions as well as engage with planning for future exhibitions. This work has included editing existing museum literature, text accompanying artefacts and rooms, layout, and website material and commentary.  

What plans do the American Studies Research Group have for the next 12 months? 

We have a dynamic set of plans for next year. In addition to continuing our regular initiatives, some of our members will continue to work closely with the American Museum in Bath as part of the consultation group reconsidering current and future exhibits. We are excited to grow our membership – please do get in touch if you’d like to join or have ideas that you’d like us to engage with.  

What research have members of the American Studies Research Group recently produced? 

Some of our most recent research outputs include: Lorenzo Costaguta, Workers of All Colors Unite: Race and the Origins of American Socialism (2023); Victoria Coules and Michael J. Benton, “The curious case of Central Park’s dinosaurs: The destruction of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ Paleozoic Museum revisited,” Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association (2023); Thomas M. Larkin, “The Global American Civil War and Anglo-American Relations in China’s Treaty Ports,” The Historical Journal (2022). 

The American Studies Research Group launched in 2022 with the aim of making Bristol a leader in all aspects of study related to America and its history. To find out more about the American Studies Research Group and to get involved, please contact stephen.mawdsley@bristol.ac.uk and sam.hitchmough@bristol.ac.uk.

Queer Methodologies in Creative Technologies Conference, 29-30 June 2023 – Centre for Creative Technologies

Posted on by George Thomas

The Centre for Creative Technologies have organised a two-day conference which explores queer methodologies used by artists and researchers interested in creative technologies. We caught up with Katy Dadacz and Dr Francesco Bentivegna, from the Centre, to find out more.

What is the conference?

This two-day conference on the 29-30  June will be an opportunity for methodological reflection and collaboration around queer practices in creative technologies. We will be asking; what methods do queer researchers and artists use when they engage with creative technologies such as virtual reality, creative computing, and animation? What identities are privileged when technologies are imagined, narrated, designed, and used? How can practices be queered (using methods and processes that resist binary and hierarchy, and subvert heteronormative structures)?

Participants will re-think and recalibrate research methods to not only understand the complexity of queer approaches but to imagine alternative creative technology practices. The two-day conference will consist of a workshop and micro-talks. On the first day, MELT, (Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paeh), will run an online workshop. Their work focuses on arts-design research to generate material and infrastructural transformations that intersect Trans* feminism and Disability Justice. On the second day, speakers including queer artists, creative technologists and University of Bristol and University of the West of England researchers will give micro-talks, sharing their own practices and methods. This will range from reflecting on queer phenomenology as a potential way to critique dominant narratives of the Metaverse, to a project on inclusive design processes prioritising older queer people and their experiences. Over the course of the two days, we encourage imaginative, open, curious, and messy ways of working with creative technologies.

What inspired this project?

This project blossomed from a long-standing interest in creative collaboration between humans and technologies which has been explored at the Future Speculations Reading Group run by us at the Pervasive Media Studio. Beginning in October 2022, academics, artists and creative technologists from the University of Bristol, University of the West of England, Pervasive Media Studio, Control Shift Network and Queer Tech Meet Up discuss texts exploring themes such as artificial intelligence, algorithmic creativity, machine learning and feminist hacking. We critically engage with artist practices, as well as film and literary responses.

The reading group has challenged and envisioned just and equitable futures for human and machine collaboration, centred around trans feminism, disability justice and queer transformations. The discussions inspired us to think about the value of knowledge-exchange between artists, creative technologists, and researchers (whose identities often crossover) and how we can explore and build queer resilience within the emerging practices of creative technologies.

In the foreground is a smart phone in landscape orientation on a selfie stick. Someone's left hand is holding onto the selfie stick. The phone screen displays a blue and white digital image of the scene in front of the phone's camera viewfinder, which is blurred in the background.
Billennium, by Uninvited Guests and Duncan Speakman. Photo by Paul Blakemore.

Why is this research important?

Our project will be a response to the marginalisation and erasure of trans and queer folx in conversations and speculations surrounding the future of creative technology. We will re-think what resilience means with different contexts of creative technologies and emphasise the importance of collaboration between artists and researchers. It will be an opportunity to experiment and envision alternative ways for these connections to have different impacts with and for the queer community, in Bristol and beyond.

How will you go about researching, including partners involved?

We are working with artists-in-residency at the Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio and creative technologists at Ctrl Shift Network and Queer Tech Meet Up. The interactive workshop will explore queer metaphors and materials that can help to expand creative technologies, as well as teaching low-tech solutions such as DIY servers. The symposium invites creative technologists at the Pervasive Media Studio and researchers at UoB and UWE from a range of disciplines to share their work, and a ‘thought experiment’ or question set. After each presentation, the participants, in small groups, will have time to engage with what has been proposed.

What impact do you expect this research to have?

We aim to see a network of queer researchers, artists and creative technologies grow, creating new relationships with which projects inspired by sustainable and equitable queer methodologies for resilience will begin. This project will also be an opportunity for public education around queer identities within creative technologies.

What are the next steps for the project?

Building from this pilot project, we aim to kickstart a standing series of workshops and meetings framed around Queer Resilience through Arts and Creative Technologies. Our idea is to develop regular, affordable, playful, and critical workshop-based meetups and a standing hub to share ideas, trajectories, and strategies for resilience.

The Centre for Creative Technologies launched in 2022 with the aim of facilitating collaborative research on creative technologies between disciplines within the Faculty of Arts and across the University. To find out more about the Centre’s activities, research and to join the mailing list, please contact artf-cct@bristol.ac.uk. 

Girls on the Pitch: Making Change Happen for Women’s Football in Brazil

Posted on by George Thomas

Dr Mark Biram tells us about his project to empower young girls in Brazil through participation in football. Mark is working closely with Brazilian NGO Meninas em Campo (Girls on the Pitch), as well as leading academic on women’s sport in Brazil, Silvana Goellner, to achieve this aim. The project has recently received an AHRC Impact Acceleration Account award, aligns with the University’s efforts to achieve social justice both at home and abroad, and is yet another example of how arts and humanities research can influence change for the better.

Logo for Meninas Em Campo, which features the words in large yellow typeface against a dark background with a silhouette of a girl heading a football in the air in the middle of the picture.
Meninas Em Campo, translates as Girls on the Pitch in Portuguese

With help from the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account, in collaboration with a Brazilian NGO Meninas em Campo and leading academic on women’s sport in Brazil, Silvana Goellner, we are designing a project aimed at the empowerment of young girls through participation in football from a young age. Our project will raise awareness of crucial social, economic and logistical barriers which currently discourage or prevent girls from participating in football, providing practitioners with a blueprint to replicate the work of Meninas Em Campo (Girls on the Pitch), a project which uses football as a vehicle for the empowerment of girls and to help them negotiate the difficulties of adolescence.

Meninas Em Campo has proved itself to be a highly successful proactive example of promoting gender equality through both discourse and practice. It is a non-profit organisation located in Butantã, São Paulo which offers a space for 9-17 year old girls to develop as footballers. The project is financed by Colégio Santa Cruz and supported by the University of São Paulo. Meninas Em Campo is the largest grassroots socially motivated girls football project, outside of those of the big clubs.

Why is this research important?

Whilst carrying out ethnographic research with Santos FC Women in 2018 & 2019 I became aware of the lack of formalised spaces for girls to play the game from an early age. At present, all major Brazilian clubs have a women’s team, in order to comply with national and international regulations. However, there is still a lacuna in provision for younger girls. Projects like Meninas em Campo provide a blueprint which can be replicated elsewhere.

What does the research project involve?

The project involves producing and disseminating materials which practitioners can use to attract girls to playing the game in the first instance, and to engage them with the wider issues attached to gender and other inequalities through the lens of sport. The project intends to engage with secondary schools across Brazil showcasing the best practices of Meninas em Campo and providing the schools with a range of materials which they can use to develop their own provision for girls’ football.

What are the next steps for Girls on the Pitch?

After the initial scoping trip in January, we have already applied for a further round of funding with a view to producing a guide for practitioners on how best to optimise opportunities to raise issues of gender inequality, problems faced by girls during adolescence and how best to engage the public and private sector into investing in the women’s game. This guide is led by the findings of Dr. Mark Biram’s PhD thesis Women’s Club Football in Brazil and Colombia: A Critical Analysis of Players, Media and Institutions and by the work of Hispanic, Portuguese & Latin American Studies PhD candidate Júlia Belas Trindade, who has published a series of Guardian articles on the growth of the women’s game.

We wish Mark every success with Girls on the Pitch and look forward to seeing how the research project develops.

Dr Mark Biram is an early career researcher and teaching associate in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies. To find out more about Mark’s research, please email mark.biram@bristol.ac.uk.

‘It’s hard to think…’: Introducing the EPIC project studying better ways to hear patient voices

Posted on by George Thomas

By Professor Havi Carel, Department of Philosophy

A fellow patient was talking about a consultation that followed an examination, when she was still wearing the hospital gown. She felt that it was hard for her to offer her opinions, say what she wanted, and ask questions about her condition, because, as she poignantly put it, ‘it’s hard to think without your pants on!’. 

How do we think, speak, ask questions and convey our views in different situations? This brief account opens questions about how patients are listened to, and how we can work together with health professionals to ensure that they are not only listened to but that what they say plays a key role in decision making processes in healthcare contexts. 

Some patients have reported that their testimonies and perspectives are ignored, dismissed, or explained away by the healthcare profession. These experiences are classified by philosophers as ‘epistemic injustices’ because, in some cases, they are based on prejudice and can jeopardize patient care and undermine trust in healthcare staff and systems.  

A new project I am leading with collaborators from the universities of Nottingham, Birmingham, and Swansea – ‘epistemic injustice in healthcare’ (EPIC) – will study this problem is its general form: why some patient voices are ignored and what healthcare systems can do to overcome this problem. The project is funded by a Wellcome Discovery Award, and will run for six years, with a budget of £2.6 million. 

The project will include case studies from a range of illnesses, theoretical research, events, focus groups, the creation of a network with patients and health professionals, postdoctoral positions, summer schools, and publications. The project aims to identify practical measures for the benefit of patients and healthcare practitioners alike. 

The core team also includes Professor Sheelagh McGuinness (Bristol), an authority on gender and the law in relation to healthcare, Professor Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham), an expert in philosophy and psychiatry, Professor Matthew Broome (Birmingham), an academic NHS psychiatrist, and Dr Ian James Kidd (Nottingham) whose joint work with me pioneered the study of epistemic injustices in healthcare. 

The EPIC team will be completed by eight postdoctoral researchers and a range of other researchers and collaborators from Swansea, City and Aston Universities, and the Universities of Bologna and Ferrara in Italy, making a team of around 30 researchers. 

The six case studies will include labour pain, vaccination in immigrant children, young people and mental health, neurodiversity, cancer and depression, and dementia. 

Professor Broome will lead a case study on youth mental health. He said: “This project will help young people with psychosis develop better relationships with clinicians, and to gain agency in determining their treatment, and ultimately improve outcomes.” 

EPIC will also work closely with patients and service users. Professor Bortolotti added: “It is especially important for people with a mental health diagnosis to contribute to shared knowledge concerning their symptoms and treatment. We will challenge the assumption that they are irrational or disconnected from reality, and so not worthy of being listened to.” 

Dr Kidd said: “EPIC will also involve theoretical work elaborating on the concept of epistemic injustice. We have greatly expanded resources for conceptualising the variety of epistemic injustices. EPIC will contribute to that enrichment as well as benefitting from it.” 

The project will begin in September 2023 and we wish Havi and the rest of the team every success.

Professor Havi Carel, Department of Philosophy, is a philosopher of medicine and an expert on the experience of illness. 

The Centre for Health, Humanities and Science: Who we are and what we do

Posted on by George Thomas

By Professor Ulrika Maude, Director of the Centre for Health, Humanities and Science

The Centre for Health, Humanities and Science (CHHS) focuses on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research at the intersection of the humanities, health, medicine, and science. The CHHS was inaugurated in 2017 and it has almost two hundred members from across Bristol University’s six Faculties and from the NHS. It runs a regular research seminar with speakers from across the UK as well as from abroad, and hosts workshops, an annual lecture, public debates, mentoring lunches, funding workshops, postgraduate-led activities, and university-wide networking events.

CHHS members are at the forefront of developments in medical humanities research, disseminating their results through academic publications, events and public engagement activities. With the support of the Wellcome Trust and the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute, the CHHS has provided seed-corn funding for a diverse range of research projects, including grief and mourning; the senses; chronic conditions and their narratives; and health and illness in colonial film archives.

One CHHS seedcorn-funded project, Becoming Elizabeth Blackwell, centres on the Bristol-born doctor and social campaigner Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) – the first British woman to be registered as a doctor by the General Medical Council, in 1859. The project has brought together Bristol academics, a playwright and theatre director, medical students and others to produce a playscript that will re-tell and celebrate Blackwell’s life and achievements.

Several CHHS members are currently involved in collectively writing a book on Key Concepts in Medical Humanities (forthcoming, 2024), which will provide a critical introduction to concepts such as ‘health’, ‘illness’, ‘contagion’, ‘feeling’, ‘neurodiversity’, ‘disability’, and ‘dying’, as well as offering chapters on key methodologies such as ‘Black Health Humanities’, ‘Graphic Medicine’, ‘Medicine and the Arts’ and ‘Narrative Medicine’. ‘Health’, for instance, is by no means a transparent concept, and the CHHS’s former Benjamin Meeker Professor, Alexandra Parvan, argues that ‘health cannot be taken merely as the outcome of biological tests or a clean medical sheet, nor should it necessarily be understood as a state restricted to the those designated as clinically healthy.’ Rather, Parvan argues for a nuanced conception of health, one that is ‘accessible to all’.

Current large-scale research initiatives at the CHHS include Sensing Spaces of Healthcare, led by historian Victoria Bates. Poor hospital design has a negative impact on healthcare outcomes, and the project seeks to rethink the NHS Hospital through the body and the senses, focusing on the lived experience of patients, visitors, and hospital staff with the aim of improving hospital design. And a multidisciplinary team led by philosopher Havi Carel has recently won Wellcome Trust funding for a six-year project on Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare (EPIC), which aims to address inequalities. Havi says,

‘Some patients have reported that their testimonies and perspectives are ignored, dismissed, or explained away by the healthcare profession. These experiences are classified by philosophers as ‘epistemic injustices’ because, in some cases, they are based on prejudice and can jeopardise patient care and undermine trust in healthcare staff and systems.’

EPIC aims to identify practical measures that can be taken for the benefit of patients and healthcare practitioners alike.

The Good Grief Festival, inaugurated in 2020, focuses on supporting those affected by the shared experience of bereavement and grief – topics that have for too long been considered taboo. Led by Lesel Dawson (English) and Lucy Selman (Bristol Medical School), ‘Good Grief’ regularly organises talks, interviews, webinars and workshops for the general public concentrating on the ways in which the crushing experience of grief can be shared and managed.

Notable projects from recent years include The Heart of the Matter exhibition, which toured the UK in 2018. The exhibition grew from artist Sofie Layton’s residency at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and was co-organised by CHHS Advisory Board member and bioengineer Giovanni Biglino. The artworks in the exhibition were inspired by young patients with heart conditions – as well as their families and doctors – and it invited visitors to discover the extraordinary complexity, intricacy and beauty of the heart as an organ.

For many years now the Centre has been involved in medical education through the Intercalated BA in Medical Humanities, an optional one-year degree for students of Medicine and Veterinary Science, taught jointly by English and Philosophy and directed by Advisory Board member, John Lee (English). With a wide range of international collaborators and an International Advisory Board, our members are also active in public engagement work through collaborations with the NHS, patient groups, and charities as well as museums, public gardens, libraries, and other cultural organisations.

For more information about the CHHS, please contact the Centre’s administrator, Elizabeth Gourd (e.c.gourd@bristol.ac.uk).

Professor Ulrika Maude, Centre for Health, Humanities and Science Director

Black Lecturer – Philip Leverhulme Prize

Posted on by George Thomas

By Dr Josie Gill, Associate Professor in Black British Writing, School of Humanities

With thanks to The Leverhulme Trust for their consent to republish piece in February 2023 newsletter on ArtsMatter platforms.

Fewer than 1% of professors at UK universities are black. The implications of this startling statistic have been much debated, and sociologists and educational researchers are increasingly studying the experiences of black academics. As a literary scholar and a black woman, I am interested in exploring narratives about black people in higher education in literature, memoir and life writing. While many such accounts exist in the US, there are far fewer literary and autobiographical representations of black British academic life, no doubt a reflection of the fact that there are, and have historically been, so few of us. Black British writing about UK education has tended to focus on the school level; for example, E.R. Braithwaite’s To Sir, With Love (1959), Dillibe Onyeama’s Black Boy at Eton (1972) and Beryl Gilroy’s Black Teacher (1976). 

Photograph of Josie Gill, smiling, looking off to the left.
Image Credit: Artur Tixiliski

I am using my Leverhulme Prize funds to write a book called Black Lecturer, which will bring my own experiences of working in higher education into conversation with fictional and non-fictional writing about black British experiences of education. I aim to illuminate the ways in which black academics move through university life, as a means to examine the institutional and research cultures that characterise twenty-first-century UK academia. This project includes a close look at the politics of race in my own discipline, literary studies, and how black British writing has been historically addressed within it. Using the history of the English department at the University of Bristol as a case study, my book will connect personal reflection with literary, disciplinary and institutional analysis to explore the significance of race in higher education.  

My approach to writing this book differs significantly from my previous work. I aim to draw parallels between the strategies, structures, affects and language that characterise my everyday experience as a black lecturer; literary methodologies; and the characteristics of institutional culture. The book will be organised around a series of themes which traverse these areas and will model, in its approach and structure, a methodology for literary research in which the archive is expanded to include my emails, where textual analysis includes institutional statements and departmental strategy, and close reading moves beyond text to include bodies and interpersonal interactions. I hope my research will contribute to ongoing discussions about how we study English Literature and demonstrate how accounts of the black British experience can inform this debate. 

The Centre for Medieval Studies: Examining the Past into the Future

Posted on by elle.chilton-knight

By Professor Ad Putter and Professor Kathleen Kennedy, Co-Directors of the Centre for Medieval Studies and Professor Marianne Ailes, former Co-Director of the Centre

The Centre for Medieval Studies is a leading centre for research and training in all aspects of medieval studies, providing an ideal research environment for staff and graduate students in an area that is inherently interdisciplinary. With more than 30 Centre staff members from across the Faculty of Arts and beyond, we have an exceptionally broad range of specialists learning from the different methodologies of our individual disciplines. 

Internally, the Centre nourishes excellence in research, promoting interdisciplinary research and training in medieval studies, facilitating grant capture, and providing a network for mutual support and exchange of knowledge and expertise. Lecturer, Dr Steve Bull, comments: 

‘As an ECR still finding my place in the wider academic community, the advice, support, and connections that I have gained through the CMS have been invaluable. There is a genuine feeling of collegiality amongst the centre’s members.’

We are raising the profile of Bristol’s medieval research community nationally and internationally. We have an extensive network of partners, including local heritage organisations, facilitating impact, and offering student placements (e.g., Bristol Cathedral and Berkeley Castle), and national and international research partners. Professor David Wallace (University of Pennsylvania), a frequent visitor to the Centre, comments:  

‘Bristol’s Centre for Medieval Studies has great medievalists across the range to sift the secrets of Bristol (a great medieval city), of Europe, and of the global Middle Ages.  A truly exceptional centre for student education and international scholarly collaboration.’

We lead several externally-funded projects. A recent project we initiated is the Marie-Curie Doctoral Training Network ‘Re-mediating the Early Book: Pasts and Futures’ (REBPAF); it will support 13 PhD researchers at the universities of Bristol, Galway, Antwerp, Alicante, Vienna and Zürich, enhancing our already strong postgraduate cohort and international reach. PhD applications for the REBPAF project close on 10 January.

We offer exceptional support to our postgraduates, integrating them into our research community with regular social events and research seminars, some tailored to meet their needs, including seminars on ‘what every medievalist needs to know about…’ (useful for us all, but especially early career researchers) and an annual ‘student choice’ seminar with a speaker nominated by the students. We also host on our Blackboard site a constantly upgraded ‘training hub’ with online resources and run a range of reading groups, notably for medieval languages, such as Old French and medieval Latin. Our successful MA in Medieval Studies, with its unique placement unit, attracts students from different disciplines and diverse backgrounds with a high conversion rate to postgraduate research, here and elsewhere. 

A highlight is the annual postgraduate conference, the longest-running of its kind; this brings to Bristol, and now also online, an international group of postgraduates. PhD student Maria Rupprecht, from Germany, who chaired last year’s organising committee, notes: 

‘It is the perfect environment for postgraduates to present their research in progress and connect with medievalist peers and leading scholars from Bristol and beyond in a most benevolent, constructive, and supportive framework. The conference is an absolute highlight in the CMS. It is conceptualised, organised, and managed by Bristol’s postgrads and with this approach allows for discovering and developing organisational and managerial skills as well as teamwork in a committed and friendly environment.’

In the year ahead, in addition to our regular programme, we look forward to strengthening local ties through the research of our BA Global Professor, working with Bristol Central Library on their early books, including a planned public workshop. Visiting professors enrich our research environment: we are currently hosting a specialist in Old French from Stockholm, and we look forward to welcoming a Newton International Fellow next year. Our research into the past always looks to the future. 

Professor Ad Putter and Professor Kathleen Kennedy, Co-Directors, and Professor Marianne Ailes, former Co-Director, Centre for Medieval Studies

Supporting digital literacies in Brazil through videogame design

Posted on by Kathryn Pintus

From digital inclusion to digital literacies

Associate Professor Ed King tells us about his latest project to develop a science-fiction videogame to raise awareness of the dangers of social media disinformation in Brazil. To do this, he’s been working with local Brazilian organisations. It is an example of how arts research can address societal challenges. The project has recently received an AHRC Impact Acceleration Account award.

With help from the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account, I am currently collaborating with artists and non-profit organisations in Brazil to develop a videogame which will improve digital literacies. Our videogame will raise awareness about the dangers of disinformation by providing them with an accessible, engaging, free and enjoyable educational resource which will encourage young people to think critically about these issues through the medium of digital play.

In the early 2000s, during the first administration of the left-wing Worker’s Party President Lula da Silva, the Brazilian government invested heavily in ‘digital inclusion’ initiatives as a way of reducing social inequalities in the country. The ‘Pontos de Cultura’ project, for example, which funded media centres based in community spaces across the country, including in favelas and socially deprived neighbourhoods, became a model for approaches to free software among policy makers in Europe and North America.

‘Future calls’ by Rafael Coutinho, Cachalote Produções

However, now that there are extremely high levels of smartphone ownership and social media usage in Brazil, it has become clear that access to digital networks is not a guarantee of social inclusion but can entail exposure to manipulation and data surveillance. As a result, the focus among governmental and non-profit organisations working in this area has shifted from increasing digital inclusion to supporting digital literacies across the social spectrum.

Why is this research important?

Through my research, it has become evident that a digital literacy skill in need of particularly urgent support is the identification of disinformation online. This emerged as an important issue during the last presidential elections in Brazil in 2018 and was cited by many reports as a key factor in the rise to power of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro (who is seeking re-election in October 2022). It was also an important factor in the consolidation of cultures of denial during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, government and non-governmental organisations (such as Global Network Initiative and Direitos na Rede) have been attempting to tackle the issue at the levels of policy and law, including through the regulation of content.

Over the last few years, I have been working with a network of organisations that have been working with communities across Brazil to develop digital literacies as a way of expanding social inclusion.

  • In 2020-21, with support from an ESRC-IAA grant, I collaborated with the Ubatuba-based Instituto Neos to produce the ID21 report, which provides a survey of the major challenges facing these organisations.
  • With funding from a Bristol Digital Futures Seed Corn grant and the Participatory Research Fund, we used this report as the basis for developing an online repository of educational resources to be used in constructing new community digital inclusion initiatives and policies.
‘Future calls’ by Rafael Coutinho, Cachalote Produções

What does the research project involve?

Our project aims to support those organisations looking to tackle disinformation at the level of its reception, particularly among marginalised communities. ‘Futuro Chama’ is a videogame that uses a science fiction plot to encourage young people to think critically about the spread of disinformation through social media. It was developed in collaboration with a group of digital artists led by Rafael Coutinho and members of non-profit organisations based across Brazil that contributed to the ID21 report. These include: Instituto Neos (Ubatuba); Instituto Procomum (Santos); Coletivo Digital (São Paulo); Casa de Cultura Tainã (Campinas); and Associação Thydewá (Olivença).

We developed a prototype of the game with ESRC-IAA funding and have recently received AHRC-IAA ‘Proof of Concept’ funding to complete the game’s development and carry out beta testing. We will also start looking for potential users of the game beyond Brazil. This will involve translating the game into English and approaching organisations that support creative technological approaches to the challenges of democratisation.

Who will the game’s initial users be?

The first users will be the same organisations that contributed to the ID21 report and collaborated in the development of the game. They will use ‘Futuro Chama’ during the digital literacy workshops they run to support the development of digital literacies among marginalised communities. However, we will also distribute the game more widely through the same social media networks that the game critically engages. The aim here will be to raise public awareness of the dangers of misinformation, particularly in a context of social upheaval such as the current political crisis in Brazil.

The Centre for Black Humanities: Who we are and future directions

Posted on by Kathryn Pintus

By Dr Saima Nasar and Professor Madhu Krishnan, Co-Directors of the Centre for Black Humanities

The Centre for Black Humanities is an international hub for Black Humanities research in the heart of Bristol. The Centre aims to foster the broad range of research currently being done at the University of Bristol around the artistic and intellectual work of people of African descent. Some of our current interdisciplinary projects include Dr Josie Gill’s research on ‘Black Health and the Humanities’, Dr Elizabeth Robles’ work on Black British Art, and Dr Justin William’s project on UK Hip-Hop. Other research projects include those relating to ethics and social justice, literary activism, and slavery and its legacies.

The Centre is committed to reaching audiences outside the traditional university through a diverse programme of film screenings, reading groups, performances, and research collaborations with local communities. Such activities enable our research to generate impact in other areas including the cultural industries and higher education policy.

Our main priorities as a Centre are: collaboration, interdisciplinarity, engagement, exchange, and internationalism. The Centre works with academics, artists and practitioners – nationally and internationally –  to produce world-leading research in Black Humanities. We work across disciplines in the Arts and Humanities but also beyond, with researchers in the Sciences and Social Sciences. Centre members also facilitate a wide range of public engagement activities based on our research in local, national and international settings, working with museums, charities and other organisations to deliver high-quality, non-academic outputs.

Additionally, we have active research partnerships with local writers, artists and grassroots organisations in Bristol. These help create high-profile opportunities for mutual exchange and collaboration on issues of local and national importance. We also have academic and creative partners in Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Angola, Portugal, Brazil, and the US, amongst others. A list of our international board members can be found on our website.

The Centre has had a series of visiting scholars join us. In 2021, we were delighted to host Professor Nicola Aljoe. Professor Aljoe’s research is on Black Atlantic and Caribbean literature with a specialisation on the slave narrative and early novels. She described her time in Bristol:

‘Despite the ongoing COVID pandemic, my sojourn at the Centre for Black Humanities in Bristol during the fall term of 2021 was an incredibly productive and intellectually engaging experience. I conducted research in the Bristol archives on two related projects. The first was the creation of a digital map of the various locations associated with Black people in 18th – century London through the lens of Ignatius Sancho. The second project was my book manuscript on representations of women of colour from the Caribbean in fictional European texts between 1790 and 1830. Such data productively challenges notions of absence of Black people in the archives of Britain at this time, and provides more details about the complexities of their lives.’

The Centre offers exciting opportunities for our early career and postgraduate community, through cutting-edge research and dialogue with arts and community activists. This year, Adriel Miles, Alice Kinghorn and Francis Asante are coordinating a programme of events. Francis explained:

‘The Centre plans to organise a number of postgraduate research (PGR) seminars and reading groups. Two seminars are planned for the first teaching block on topics related to the exploration of racial communities in online spaces, and the relationship between race, music, and cultural politics. These events are designed to encourage a sense of community in the Centre, and to provide a space for learning and socialising. Preparations for the seminars are still ongoing, and further information about them will be shared soon.’

Dr Saima Nasar and Professor Madhu Krishnan

(Centre Co-Directors)

Introducing the Faculty Research Centres

Posted on by Kathryn Pintus
By Hilary Carey, Faculty Research Director

We are delighted to launch five Faculty Research Centres (FRC) for a new cycle of five years of funding at the University of Bristol. They are:

  • Black Humanities
  • Creative Technologies
  • Environmental Humanities
  • Health, Humanities and Science
  • Medieval Studies

We like to think of the FRCs as the crown jewels in the Faculty’s glittering treasure chest of activist, interdisciplinary research. The five Centres showcase arts and humanities research at the cutting edge of new knowledge, asking key questions about themes and issues critical to the city of Bristol, the people of the West of England, and the world.

Each Centre has developed a diverse programme of activity including public lectures and debates, workshops and seminars, conferences and collaborations that engage colleagues and the public beyond the University.

Here is a sneak preview of some of the many Centre activities and opportunities that we can look forward to this academic year:

  1. The Centre for Black Humanities has a postgraduate research (PGR) group planning a series of seminars, reading groups and away days.
  2. The Centre for Creative Technologies will co-design sandbox events (isolated testing environments) with civic partners – the Pervasive Media Studio and Knowle West Media Centre – to explore social applications of arts and technologies.
  3. As part of the Centre for Creative Technologies, Bristol Common Press will host a global summer school on Technologies of the Book, which will run for three weeks in summer 2023.
  4. The Centre for Environmental Humanities has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the environmental humanities ‘Greenhouse’ at the University of Stavanger, demonstrating the positive potential for partnership working.
  5. The Centre for Environmental Humanities plans to host a ‘Future of the Environmental Humanities’ workshop that will bring together researchers to think about the question of what comes next for the field of environmental humanities.
  6. The Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS) has a regular seminar series including one session on ‘What every medievalist should know…’.
  7. The Medieval Studies Global Professor, Kathleen Kennedy, has developed links with the Bristol Central Library, and is planning an ambitious exhibition of medieval manuscripts in Bristol libraries and archives.
  8. The Centre for Health, Humanities and Science plans a symposium on ‘Hoarding’, convened by Andrew Blades.
  9. The Centre for Health, Humanities and Science is planning its first collaborative book, Key Concepts in Medical Humanities (Bloomsbury Academic), to be published in 2023.
  10. Each Centre will have its own site on the Bristol Blogs platform through which they can showcase their research and activities.

There is a lot more to look forward to, so find out more about our five fantastic Faculty Research Centres.

The entrance lobby and hallway in the Faculty of Arts, with pillars, brick wall and red furniture
The Faculty of Arts. Photo by Nick Smith.