The Centre Communities and Social Justice organises a variety of events including annual conferences and regular seminar series, research and training workshops.
An exclusive screening of From Where We Stand, a documentary film by acclaimed filmmaker Lucy Kaye
Tuesday 4th June 2024, 5:00-8:00pm
Location: Greenwich University Stockwell Street Building 11, Room 11_0004
The Centre for Communities and Social Justice, part of the Institute for Inclusive Communities and Environments presents: An exclusive screening of From Where We Stand, a documentary film by acclaimed filmmaker Lucy Kaye.
60 min screening followed by Q&A with Lucy Kaye (London Film School) and Andrew Wallace (University of Greenwich)
https://fromwherewestand.co.uk/
With a direct and spontaneous approach, filmmaker Lucy Kaye creates intimate portraits of diverse individuals living in three post-industrial English towns. Bini is a former asylum seeker from Eritrea trying to root himself in Middlesbrough; Stella is a Polish woman stuck in the UK after a relationship breakdown, making a life for herself and her daughter; whilst Yan is a former power station worker enveloped in nostalgia for the past. Yubi, reflects on his Pakistani heritage with the passing of his father in Wakefield; whilst Lisa, is a Halifax resident determined to make sure the voices of her community are heard. The film represents an engagement with people, places and stories all too often marginalised by 'left behind' and hostile environment policy agendas. The film premiered at the Leeds International Film Festival in November 2023.
From Where We Stand was made in collaboration with the ESRC-funded Northern Exposure research project. The research explores identity, place and disaffection in post-industrial towns amid Brexit, the 2019 'red wall' collapse, and the dubious promise of 'levelling up'. https://northernexposure.leeds.ac.uk/
Bio:
Lucy Kaye is a freelance documentary filmmaker based in London. She graduated from the National Film and Television school in 2009. She has worked for the BBC, Channel 4, Vice, The Guardian with subjects ranging from PTSD to Horse Whispering. Her First Cut film for Ch4 received critical acclaim and she was recently awarded the prestigious Pears Short Film Award for her film Memory Songs. Her passion lie’s in making creative, character-driven films that can have a universal appeal.
Critical Reflections on Lived Experience: A Roundtable Discussion
Wednesday 12th June 2024, 5:30-7:30pm
Location: Greenwich Campus, Queen Anne Building, Room 063
The PGR group at the Centre for Communities and Social Justice is inviting you to a roundtable discussion critically engaging with the concept and practice of ‘lived experience’. Speakers from different sectors will share their reflections, followed by a discussion with the audience.
Institutions across society are increasingly interested in demonstrating their involvement of people with ‘lived experience’. From charities and governmental institutions establishing ‘Experts by Experience’ boards, to an increased interest in the academic sector in researching and understanding the concept of ‘lived experience’, the attention is on how organisations and institutions can benefit from insights into lived, rather than learnt, experiences. Although greater inclusion is one of the motivations for various initiatives in the academic and public sector, the risk of reducing individuals to their subjective lived experiences needs to be carefully evaluated, considering contemporary critical discussions on both the potentially useful and harmful aspects of ‘lived experience’.
This PhD event aims to bring together perspectives on the use of the term ‘lived experience’ in different sectors and academic fields, ranging from experiences concerning criminal justice, mental health, migration, and sex work. The format will be that of a roundtable discussion, where a diverse panel of speakers will initiate critical reflections on the benefits and harms of ‘lived experience', with the aim of fostering a participatory atmosphere with the audience, as well as opening potential routes for social and political empowerment.
Consent: Gender, Power and Subjectivity – Book Launch
Thursday 22nd February 2024, 6-8pm
Hybrid: Greenwich Campus, Queen Anne Building, Room 180, and Online
Join us for the book launch of Consent: Gender, Power and Subjectivity as the co-editors, Professor Roisin Ryan-Flood and Dr Laurie James-Hawkins, present the important project that challenges the often overly simplistic, narrow and binary definitions of consent. The book examines the concept of consent in different contexts with the aim of exploring the nuances of what consent means to different people and in different situations.
Hear from the four of the contributors behind the book as they share insights on consent.
- Alex Fanghanel: Revealing the problematic use of consent in murder cases involving claims of rough sex gone wrong.
- Chrissie Rogers: Presenting the lives of criminalized disabled men and asking "no means no, but do we need to understand what has gone wrong"
- Ej-Francis Caris-Hamer: Challenging cultural norms regarding young peoples' agency over names and pronouns.
- Helen Rand: Unravelling how consent is used in the political and legal frameworks surrounding sex work and trafficking for sexual exploitation.
The evening offers to be an informative, thought-provoking and engaging discussion on consent, thinking about how it is used in legal settings, as a political tool, within education, and in sexual situations.
Procedural justice, mental health, and the criminal justice system
Wednesday 6th March 2024, 2-5pm
Hybrid: Greenwich Campus, Stephen Lawrence Building, Room 007, and Online
What is procedural justice? How is it relevant to people in the criminal justice system with mental illness? What do voice, trust, respect, and neutrality mean?
The Centre for Communities and Social Justice is hosting a hybrid symposium to explore these questions and launch the ENGAGE Study - a research project that will ask patients and staff in forensic mental health care about their experiences of procedural justice.
We will hear from people with lived experience, clinicians, and academics.
This event is funded by the British Academy, Leverhulme, and the University of Greenwich.
Previous Events
Event Series 2021/22
January 2022 - Student Sex Work Seminar, Dr Jessica Simpson
December 2021 - Lunch & Learn Series - Student Sex Work Toolkit for Staff, Dr Jessica Simpson
November 2021
- Book Launch - Death, grief and loss in the context of Covid-19, Panagiotis Pentaris (Applied Sociology, Greenwich, in partnership with the Institute for Lifecourse Development (ILD))
- FINDING STRENGTH: STORIES OF UK HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT WEBINAR
- LAUNCH OF ONLINE EXHIBITION ‘LET OUR LEGACY CONTINUE’
- Exhibition and Talks: ‘FOOD FOR THOUGHT MEMOIRS / TALES FROM MAMA’S AND PAPA’S KITCHEN'
October 2021
- AFRICAN FUSION DANCE WORKSHOP
- RMeF CONFERENCE 2021: PAR methods for civic engagement and local action organizing in migrant communities to improve their wellbeing
Event Series 2020/21
July 2021 - Centre for Applied Sociology Research Launch event
June 2021 - Death Affairs, Panagiotis PentarisMay 2021
- Conference - ‘We Move!’: Perseverance under the pandemic and beyond, Professor Louise Owusu-Kwarteng
- Book Launch - Black Resistance to British Policing, Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper
April 2021 - Sonic Intimacy: Reggae Sound Systems, Jungle Pirate Radio and Grime YouTube Music Videos, Malcolm James (Media and Cultural Studies, Sussex University)
March 2021 - Sounds dangerous: Black music subcultures as victims of state regulation and social control, Lambros Fatsis (School of Applied Social Science, Brighton University)
February 2021 - Stories of Injustice: The criminalisation of women convicted under joint enterprise laws, Becky Clarke (Criminology, Manchester Metropolitan University)
December 2020 - Asim Quereshi (CAGE) and Fatima Rajina (Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, De Montfort University)
WATCH: I Refuse to Condemn: Resisting racism in times of national security
Event Series 2019/20
July 2019 - Conference - Creative and Collaborative Imaginations
The focus was on the practical and intellectual experience of using creative and collaboration approaches in both the collection and the presentation of research data. The day included a keynote presentation by Professor Maggie O'Neill, University College Cork; panel-based presentations; workshops focusing on the 'world café' approach to research debate and discussion; auto/biographical collage making and an open-mic session to enable participants to share small stories from the field (which can be told 'traditionally' or through song, poetry, art etc.).
June 2019 - From Mother's Land to Mother Country: A Windrush Day Celebration
Event Series 2018/19
May 2019 - Symposium - 'Livin Your Best Life' Autobiographical Reflections on Navigating Lives in Current Times
This autobiographical symposium included students' reflections on a diverse range of life experiences, perspectives on their identities and how they construct them and their views of life in current times. Presentation was in the format of student papers, drama enactments, research posters, spoken word and poetry.
January 2019 - Me? I Just put British!
A performance based on black women's experiences of belonging and homemaking. After contributing to British society for many years, like their families before them, their postcolonial links and rights to citizenship have been offensively disregarded. They are categorised as migrants and pushed to the margins of society. This performance used improvisation, live music and spoken word to bring alive experiences and was followed by thought-provoking discussion.
October 2018 - Intergenerational Legacy of Windrush Nurses: Exploring the impact on successive generations of African-Caribbean people in the UK
To mark 2018 Black History Month, we celebrate 70 years of valuable contribution and legacy that Windrush nurses have made and continue to make to the NHS workforce. This event provided a range of activities including presentations, roundtable discussions, performance pieces and an exhibition of archive and memorabilia showcased by the Retired Caribbean Nursing Association.
Event Series 2017/18
July 2018 - Methodological Imaginations Symposium
May 2018 - Livin' an Learnin' - Critical reflections on diverse educational journeys in relation to social identity
November 2017 - Conference - Connecting Communities: Participatory Arts and Social Action Research
This international multidisciplinary conference looked at how participatory and creative research methods create a space for exploring, sharing and documenting processes of belonging and place-making that is crucial to understanding migration, citizenship and belonging. Academics from a range of social science, humanities and arts disciplines including sociology, social policy and applied theatre, alongside policymakers, artists and practitioners (including in migration, families, arts and performance) exchanged knowledge on related fields of research and the use of participatory arts methodologies to explore broader sociological and policy issues.
Keynote speakers: Professor Michelle Fine, City University of New York; Professor Deirdre Heddon, University of Glasgow; Sanjoy Ganguly, Centre of Theatre of the Oppressed and International Research and Resource Institute, India.
October 2017 - Community Cohesion Workshop
Community cohesion and radicalisation are issues that have been concerns for a long time. However, recent events (e.g. Brexit, terrorist attacks in London and Manchester, etc) have made these issues much more significant. This workshop explored the potential for using music and poetry to facilitate community cohesion and discuss whether community cohesion is an effective tool to deal with radicalisation.
Event Series 2016/17
June 2017
- Making it Count: Presenting impact and quantifying 'soft' outcomes
- Sociological Imaginations: Theory, Methods and Practice - A University of Greenwich Symposium
Event Series 2015/16
April 2016 - Does my face fit?
Exploring the experiences and the likelihood progression, considers the experiences of BME academics, the extent to which they are being valued in the higher education sector, and their progression to more senior positions in the profession. The presence of BME staff in higher education can have a bearing on BME students' experiences, aspirations and outcomes. The Keynote Speaker will be Dr Gurnam Singh. Principal Lecturer, University of Coventry.
November 2015 - Symposium - 'Telling it like it is: Analysing Black and Minority Ethnic students' experiences at the University of Greenwich'
The event centred predominantly on the perspectives of current undergraduate and postgraduate students from Black and Minority backgrounds, The keynote speaker was Hakim Adi, Professor of the History of Africa and the African Diaspora.
July 2015 - Brighter Futures Symposium
The one-day event was highly stimulating, with much positive discussion around the issues mentioned above. It began with a thought provoking and detailed keynote speech from Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon. She spoke of her own personal relationship with the University of Greenwich as a student and staff member, and then applied this to the broader issue of institutional racism faced by Black and Minority Ethnic students at all levels in the education system. She also highlighted the lack of representation of BME as senior academics, and in senior management positions were issued that needed to be addressed. She also called for Universities across the UK to do more to embed racial equality into all their practices.
