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Creative and participatory approaches to reduce alcohol harm in Nepal

Image shows women in Nepalese clothing entering a religious space.

Source: Sushma Bhatta

In this blog post Dr Ranjita Dhital presents creative and participatory approaches to reduce alcohol harm in Nepal.

Though most people in Nepal do not consume alcohol, but those who drink do so in increasingly harmful ways. This has become a worrying trend in Nepal, leading to increased health and social problems for the drinker, their families, and communities. Alcohol has a long historic and cultural significance in Nepal. It is used in religious ceremonies, community festivals and other activities (see picture). In particular, the harmful custom of consuming locally made alcohol is concerning (usually made from grain and ranging from 10% to 40% of pure ethanol). There is also a growing harmful illicit market in the sale of this unregulated alcohol, and many poor communities rely on this as their main household income.

Image shows a bottle of coke filled with locally produced unregulated alcohol, which is often produced from fermented or distilled grain.

Source: Sushma Bhatta

Of the limited alcohol research and policy development in LMICs, very few have explored perspectives, contexts or experiences of individuals and communities. There is also no known intervention which has led to significant reduction in alcohol harm in Nepal. In LMICs’ health systems, resources including healthcare staff are limited. Therefore, alternative approaches are needed to increase availability and access to care by harnessing existing community assets more effectively. The use of cultural and community assets in public health can reduce stigma, raise awareness, and enable engagement of diverse communities. Such public health approaches would require participatory and co-design methodologies to examine cultural and community assets, including the arts, cultural heritage sites, natural environment, and community groups on their potential to reduce alcohol harm and associated risks.

First steps to exploring alcohol use in Chitwan District of Nepal:

We first scoped the breadth of existing cultural and community assets and how these were perceived by alcohol users and community health workers. The study was conducted in Chitwan, south-central Nepal, known to have considerable alcohol problems. Participatory asset mapping was conducted using field notes, photography, and through engaging with communities to explore how community assets affect alcohol consumption.

Semi-structured photovoice interviews were conducted with harmful drinkers (n= 12) (assessed through the validated Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) screening questionnaire) and community health workers (n= 6). During the interviews, participants used their photographs to reflect on how community assets influenced alcohol consumption and their relationship with alcohol.

Following thematic framework analysis three themes were produced: ‘influences and impact of families and communities’; ‘culture and spirituality’; and ‘nature and the environment’. The community mapping generated five factors which increased alcohol consumption: (1) availability; (2) advertising; (3) negative attitudes towards users; (4) festivals/gatherings; and (5) illiteracy/poverty. Six assets that discouraged consumption were: (1) legislation restricting use; (2) community organisations; (3) cultural/spiritual sites; (4) healthcare facilities; (5) family and communities; and (6) women’s community groups.

Those from certain ethnic groups consumed more alcohol, experienced family discord, or felt stigmatised due to their drinking. Assets such as ‘festivals/gatherings’ and ‘negative attitudes toward users’ and the theme ‘family and communities’ concerned with relationships and community activities were perceived to both promote and reduce alcohol use.

This was one of the first known studies in Nepal to explore alcohol use within the context of cultural and community assets. This research identified new possibilities to build on participatory and arts-based research methods.

This study was funded by Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF; grant no. 48304AY). See open access link to study publication: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/17579139231180744

Current Alcohol Co-design and Community Engagement (ACE) study

Following the study in Chitwan our interdisciplinary researchers and collaborators from Nepal and UK are co-producing the first known Critical Realist Review to examine a range of evidence (Dhital et al, forthcoming). The review will include published research from Nepal which have incorporated creative or participatory approaches in their methodology, policy documents and cultural resources considered to be assets by communities to reduce alcohol harm. To understand the value these cultural assets our research team conducted sensory ethnographic work around the study area Patan (an area known for its significant cultural heritage near Kathmandu). This involved exploring possible connections between culture, health and social consequences of alcohol use through regular observations (note taking, photography and filming) and through engaging with local communities.

We also plan to host an interactive community festival with local communities, artists and stakeholders to enrich our study findings. This includes identifying possible training and support needs with local communities, make recommendations to inform policy and plan future research. This study will support WHO Nepal’s work to reduce alcohol harm and strengthen its implementation roadmap in line with WHO’s Global alcohol action plan 2022–2030 and Sustainable Development Goals.

The ACE study is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC, Grant Reference AH/X003973/1) and UCL Arts and Sciences Department Research Development fund awarded to Ranjita Dhital.

Dr Ranjita Dhital is a Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Health Studies in the Arts and Sciences Department (UASc), Director of Research and Graduate Research Tutor. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health (FRSPH), a registered pharmacist and a sculptor.

Her public health research is informed by creative and participatory methodologies. Her research applies arts and community-based approaches to reduce alcohol harm and promote mental wellbeing in high- and low-income countries. She is also using creative Participatory Action Research and Experience-based Co-design methods to optimise community pharmacy spaces (PRUK Leverhulme Fellowship) – The Architecture of Pharmacies.

She has practised as an addiction specialist pharmacist for the NHS, a community pharmacist and worked in public health. She founded and leads the ‘Creative Nepal: Arts-Health Community’ and the ‘International Arts in Pharmacy network’ . She is Chair of the ‘Royal Society for Public Health’s Arts Health and Wellbeing SIG’ and co-leads the ‘Neurodiversity In/& Creative Research Network’. She is the Director of Research and Graduate Research Tutor.

Ethics and Practice As Research with Children and Young People

In this blog post Julia Dobson and Hattie Lowe report on the Ethics and Practice As Research conference:

On Tuesday 11^th June, a group of interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners gathered at the UCL Institute of Education to discuss and share insights on the ethics of researching with children and young people. As two doctoral candidates, Julia and Hattie, conducting research with young people, we reflect on the day’s sessions and emerging themes.

In the first presentation, Professor Jenny Parkes reflected on the ethics of researching violence with young people in the CoVAC (Contexts of Violence in Adolescence Cohort) study, which used the River of Life method with adolescents in Uganda to narrate their experiences through metaphor, drawing and discussion. The method supported adolescents to convey meanings on a difficult topic, co-constructing a narrative that reflected what they wanted to present to the world. The presentation illuminated stimulating discussions on the assumptions that appear inherent in the participatory methods discourse. Participatory methods aren’t always more ethical – they don’t automatically eradicate power imbalances and they are not devoid of the potential to re-traumatise participants. Doing participatory research in meaningful and ethical ways with children requires flexibility, creativeness and time investment, and Jenny ended with a thought-provoking quote from Spyros Spyrou (2011) who states “the quick and easy way is not necessarily the most ethical way; the ethical way necessities time for reflection”.

Dr Amanda McCrory began her presentation by posing a similar provocation: “it is dangerous to assume that just because a piece of research has been passed by an ethics committee then it is ipso facto an ethical piece of research”. She then introduced a series of thought-provoking ethical considerations when involving children as active researchers. She called on us to start with ourselves: asking, for example, how can we be a ‘critical friend’ to young researchers, rather than a ‘controlling expert’? She then invited us to consider different ways in which children become more involved in both the ethics process and the research. It was inspiring to learn from Amanda’s approach to ethically – and dynamically – engaging young people in research, including: accessible explanations of the research process, checking in regularly with students, offering sufficient training, and thinking carefully about what will be meaningful and beneficial for the young people involved.

Dr Jessica Hayton’s presentation centred on the language we use in research ethics processes and how this impacts the meaningful engagement of children. Terms that researchers take for granted, such as ethics, consent and honesty, can mean entirely different things to children, demonstrated through audio clips from Jess’ 5-, 7- and 11-year-old nieces, one of whom initially confused ‘ethics’ with ‘Essex’ (a town in England) though also understood the term as “something to do with science”. Without a shared language through which to discuss ethics, we stumble at the first hurdle. There was interest from the audience in how we invest more into slow and iterative ethical engagement with children in the face of time, funding and institutional constraints. Jess concluded with the argument that doing ethics well with children doesn’t have to be complicated, we can ask children and families what they need, and we can be creative in how we present information, but we must build these processes in from the very beginning.

In their joint presentation, Dr Ruolin Hu and Dr Sara Young shared findings from their pilot study exploring postgraduate students’ views towards research ethics and the ethics approval procedure. They began by inviting us to reflect upon how we can present ethics as a way of learning, rather than a tick box exercise. Although there is growing awareness that ethics goes beyond the approval procedure, fear of the form can still be dominant in students’ perceptions of research ethics. Sara and Ruolin’s research suggests that students may start their course with little understanding of research ethics. Embedding ethics throughout research training programmes, rather than having separate sessions, could support students to develop their conceptualisation of and confidence in ethical research. Taking part in this pilot research also helped students to develop their understanding of research ethics, so it is great that more students will be able to benefit in the wider scale study.

The final session of the day was a Q&A with Dr Nicole Brown, Nishita Nair and Dr Nicolas Gold, who between them have a wealth of experience sitting on research ethics committees and conducting participatory and creative research with children and young people. Discussions explored how we classify vulnerability, the need to be accountable with dissemination, AI in research, the importance of relationship building with parents and caregivers when doing research with children, safeguarding training for student researchers and avoiding editorial bias. Our thoughtful and thought-provoking panellists closed the Q&A by emphasising the university’s responsibility to protect researchers and participants, and get people interested in ethics through capacity building alongside procedures.

Personal reflections

Hattie: The discussion during the Q&A about how we can generate more interest in research ethics, rather than seeing it as a procedural hoop we have to jump through, resonated with my own doctoral research which explores adolescents’ perspectives on violence against women through participatory peer-research. If we re-centred our perspective on ethics procedures and saw them as an opportunity, could the ethics process add to our projects in transformative ways? Through the questions that research ethics encourages us to interrogate, we could work towards optimising children’s engagement, enjoyment and empowerment, rather than focusing on how we need to protect them through limiting their participation in ‘sensitive’ research as ‘vulnerable’ participants.

Julia: Discussions in both Jenny’s talk and the Q&A about ethical research endings were particularly timely for me, as my doctoral fieldwork draws to a close. As Jenny reminded us, thinking carefully through how we end research is so important. I was struck by the complexity of endings, and what they might bring up for both researchers and participants. For me, this process has brought up emotional and practical considerations, including how to: deliver feedback to schools; give thanks to students and staff; draw our activities to a satisfactory end; and meaningfully honour our research relationships. The conference discussions offered support, ethical grounding and solidarity, as I grapple with these ethical questions.

To conclude, it was brilliant to have the time and space to engage in ethical dialogue with colleagues from diverse positions across UCL. Such interdisciplinary dialogues hold the potential to be transformatory for ethical research procedure and practice – we look forward to continuing the conversation!

Thank you to Dr Sara Young for leading the organisation of this fantastic event, and thank you to Dr Ross Purves and Dr Giuliana Ferri for their excellent facilitation.

Funding was awarded from the IOE Faculty Research Budget, and by the IOE Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment (CPA).

Introducing the ‘Evaluative Performance’ Research Method and Approach.

Source: Joel Gibbs

Recent developments such as the global pandemic, gender violence, Black Lives Matter, and not least the climate crisis, have accelerated the search for participatory methods of engagement, participation, and impact across a number of research disciplines. Within these disciplines, citizen voice and lived experience are sought to deepen understanding behind behavioural change as a result of policy or project intervention strategies. Within this there are limitations, for example, the UK Civil Service in 2021 recognises that ‘most policymakers do not consistently have the skills, incentives, or infrastructure to find new evidence about citizens’ (Knight, 2021). It is also argued that policy solutions are too often based on stakeholder opinion, and rarely are the voices and experiences of citizens used to evidence policymaking (UK Civil Service 2020, p.63). Therefore, policy engagement methodologies as the basis of evidence gathering are themselves generating ‘marginalised groups’, ‘the seldom heard’, and creating barriers to access for citizens. The report goes on to argue that this is due to policymakers not being ‘confident or effective at talking to diverse groups of people, whose background and culture differs from their own’ (UK Civil Service 2020, p.65) because it is ‘easier for officials to turn to groups which represent these people than it is to contact them individually’ because this can ‘whip up emotions, making it harder to actually do their job’ (UK Civil Service, 2020, p.65). Further, evaluations of any given policy may not take place until up to five years after its introduction, whereby ‘policymakers rarely find out whether their ideas have delivered meaningful change for citizens’ (UK Civil Service 2020, p.63) until a significant amount of time has passed.

Given these concerns there has been a recent burgeoning of interest in new forms of data gathering for project evaluations. In response to these challenges, a practice research methodology has been developed by Dr Charlie Ingram during his PhD studies called ‘Evaluative Performance’.

Briefly, Evaluative Performance is a collaboration between headphone verbatim theatre (HVT) arts practice and social science evaluation frameworks. It is a method of data gathering that involves a performance created solely from the words spoken by interview participants, combined with a post-performance contextual discussion. Interview data is collected by the researcher and then edited into a performance based around a theme, subject matter, or event. In the context of policy evaluation, the research data collected can be framed around the policy aims and objectives of an intervention with questions being asked of the beneficiary and/or participant – such as a citizen or stakeholder.

The process of conducting this method is as follows:

Participant selection and question schedule creation.
Interview process.
Edit of collected audio into short clips or soundbites through content analysis.
Allow participant to have final ‘sign off’ on their personal edit.
Arrange clips alongside other participants’ voices to build narrative and create an ‘audio-script’.
Rehearse audio-script with actors.
Perform to (and record for) project evaluators, stakeholders and/or the general public (where appropriate).
Conduct a roundtable/Q&A following the performance.

This approach has already been tested, with successes in both cultural and urban policy interventions through an evaluation of civic pride during Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 (Ingram, 2023), and energy policy innovation consultations with young people (Ingram et al., 2023).

Explore some of the examples of this method in practice below:

Capturing Citizen Experience
https://youtu.be/14_PGrwd2_Y

Capturing Social Change Attribution by Citizens
https://youtu.be/P5DLO6PpCgo

Young People and Smart Local Energy Systems
https://youtu.be/GcZ5mkOdi8Y

Further testing of this method is currently taking place, within Ingram’s postdoctoral research project. Innovative Approaches to Evaluating Impact: Testing The ‘Evaluative Performance’ Method and Approach in Transdisciplinary Environments.

If you would like more information on the method, or would be interesting in collaborating on future research, please get in touch with Charlie Ingram.

References:
Ingram, C. (2023). Theatre arts in UK City of Culture evaluation practices: the case for headphone verbatim. Arts and the Market, 13(3), 159-173. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAM-08-2021-0033
Ingram, C., Halford, A., & Gaura, E. (2023). Cyber-physical Advances in SLES: Resource pack for school workshop participants. EnergyREV. https://tinyurl.com/bpaufvy6
Knight, A. (2021) 11 Things Policymakers Need to Improve Outcomes for Citizens – Public Policy Design [online] available from [Feb 27, 2022]
UK Civil Service (2020) Policymaker Perspectives on Reform. Online: UK Civil Service.

Treatment of loved ones with mental illness unveiled through body mapping: A collective workshop

Image of a body outline with photographs and writings on top. This is an example of body mapping from the workshop.

Source: MPizzolati

PAR network member and sociologist Micol Pizzolati designed and facilitated a workshop to explore the lived experiences of people whose close family members underwent mental illness and disorder treatments through body mapping.

Body mapping is a visual, narrative, and participatory approach which offers unique strengths and a wealth of ways to engage participants, that are considered knowledgeable, reflexive individuals who can articulate their complex life journeys and social circumstances by drawing, collaging, and writing in the shape of their life-size body.

The surfacing of mental troubles in a family circle presents tough challenges in maintaining interconnectedness and relationships among family members in the face of unconventional behaviour and stigma, as they negotiate their needs and those of loved ones. Family members grieve for the person their mentally ill loved one has become and long for the person he or she once was, with a keen awareness of two distinct phases – pre- and post-illness personal life – and their connection to interpersonal relationships.

To explore these nuanced, varied aspects of mental illness in a family context, Micol involved activists from an association working in northern Italy to raise awareness of mental distress. A small group of mothers, sisters and nieces participated in a half-day collaborative workshop, developing individual body maps to generate and share stories.

Micol explains that engaging the sensory body through drawing and talking about emotional experiences via embodiment allows participants to consider these experiences intuitively, thus opening insights into the research process. The embodied research experience provided the opportunity to draw closer to the density of the participants’ lives. Active imagination, images, and words prompted new perspectives to the understanding of remarkably different and vivid experiences of obligations to care for family members with mental distress.

The participants’ body maps are moving expressions of the afflictions and powerful challenges they have encountered and continue to face.

Click here to read an article based on the workshop and/or contact Micol to find out more about body mapping.

Micol Pizzolati is an associate professor in sociology and co-head of the Creative Methods Open Lab Research Group at the University of Bergamo, Italy. She engages in participation and co-production in the social sciences, particularly through inventive epistemologies and embodied approaches.

Ethics in Practice As Research: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Call for contributions

Ethics in Practice As Research: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Editor: Dr Nicole Brown

For any questions or queries, please email Nicole Brown.

Research has seen significant developments towards more egalitarian, participatory, embodied, Indigenous, feminist, and phenomenological paradigms (see Kara, 2015; Mannay, 2015; Pink, 2015). Within the scope of these developments, research approaches now focus on ‘doing and making’ as part of the research process. Although different forms of Practice As Research have gained traction and practitioner research becomes more generally acknowledged and valued, there is still very limited literature available on the practicalities of navigating such research projects. Many studies and processes resemble what constitutes practice as research within the context of creative, performing and fine arts (Barrett & Bolt, 2007; Nelson, 2013). They may be described as practice-led research (Smith and Dean, 2009), practice-based enquiry (Whiteford, 2020), or close-to-practice research (Wyse et al., 2018). Within the wider literature relating to Practice As Research, there are numerous publications regarding what constitutes practice-based/led research, or how such research can be assessed and evaluated. Similarly, there are many guidelines available that suggest a framework for how to do research ethically with some being more closely aligned with practitioner-research than others. However, there are no publications that relate specifically to how researchers navigate the special ethical conundrums they are encountering when planning, carrying out and disseminating their Practice As Research work.

This edited book aims to fill this gap in the market relating to Practice As Research, practitioner-research, close-to-practice research, practice-based and practice-led enquiries. The book will focus on ethics and ethical considerations in Practice As Research, whilst offering practical strategies and food for thought for how to navigate some of the most typical ethical issues throughout all stages of research from planning, data collection and analysis through to dissemination. And it aims to do that by presenting case studies of ethical concerns and conundrums from a range of disciplines in four broad themes:

The research process
In what ways is the methodology (re)designed by the participant? To what extent are they credited with the process? Who has the final say in matters of design? This speaks to questions of power and expertise: the researcher may be an expert through their work, and in effective methodologies; yet the participant is the expert in their lived experience, else why would they be approached?
Relationship between researcher and participant
Positionality: how is this negotiated? How does the researcher see/position themselves? Does this change during the project, and in what ways? The participant may become more of a co-researcher as the project develops; who then has the final say on the presentation of the data, editorial issues etc?
The researcher’s view of the (ongoing) ethical process
Including challenges experienced in the field, which had not been anticipated by the original ethics form. What are the responsibilities of the researcher, who is arguably more aware of potential ethical issues (e.g. children want to give their names, but adult researchers are perhaps more aware of the potential for harm later in the children’s lives)? Dilemmas – how were these addressed?
The institutional ethics process
Is this outdated? Are policies designed more to protect the institution and the wider academy, than to facilitate innovative and robust research? This speaks to issues of decolonising ethics and recognising different forms and conventions of consent, and how this is negotiated. Yet how is this recognised from an institutional standpoint, and what are the negotiations involved?

Each chapter will deal with the specificities of ethical considerations during a particular phase of the PAR research, whilst offering insights that will be more generally applicable and relevant and therefore transferrable to new research settings and contexts. In order to emphasise and focus further on the interdisciplinary perspectives of and within the edited book, each chapter will be followed by two critical, reflective, analytical responses from contributors working in disciplines other than the one presented in the chapter. Thereby, we aim to provide further insights into applicability, relevance and transferability of methods and approaches, as well as to enter a dialogue with one another, from which the readers will glean food for critical thought in relation to their own research practices.

Proposals will be considered in relation to the following criteria:
Practice As Research:
Do the ethical issues in the abstract/project/research link with and relate to Practice As Research, practice-led or practice-based enquiries, or close-to-practice research? We do not impose a particular definition or interpretation, but would like to see practitioner-researcher elements addressed.

Range of ethical issues, disciplinary contexts, and phases of research:
To ensure balance in the book, we will try to cover a variety of ethical issues in different phases of research, and more specifically across a wide range of disciplinary contexts.

Timeline:
Deadline for abstract submissions: 25 August 2023
Notification of acceptance: 15 September 2023
Submission of full manuscripts: 31 January 2024

Word limits:
The word limit for abstracts is 350 words.
Full chapters will be 7,500 words in length (incl. references), responses to chapters will be approx. 1,200 words (incl. references).

To submit your proposal, please complete this form:

Women in Music and Research: an Interdisciplinary Feminist Research Hub

Source: MPotočnik

On 25 May 2022, the F-List launched its new Gender in Music Research Hub, which aims to connect feminist researchers from all disciplines, who share an interest in music. The doors are now open: all researchers, wishing to join other feminist researchers, who investigate the under-representation of women (including all who identify as women) and gender minorities (women*) in the music sector, can create an F-Listing, under the category “Music Researcher.” The community will share everyone’s research, meet to discuss relevant issues, and explore opportunities for collaboration.

How did it all start?

In 2020, Vick Bain launched the F-List for Music, which builds is activism, advocacy, and drive for change on research, “into gender inequality for female and gender minority musicians,” to pursue the vision of “women in the music industry will be able to more successfully start and sustain their careers in music for longer because of The F-List.” Since 2021, the idea of an inclusive research community, connecting feminist and practice researchers start to emerge, and it all came together on 25 May 2022, with a rich demonstration of the synergies in research and music practices coming together.

What kind of research?

Through an inclusive approach (avoiding the narrow reading of academic research in REF terms), we combine feminist and practice research, across many disciplines. To illustrate the richness of the research community, we started the day with talks from the women on the Hub’s Steering Group (all of whom can be contacted, if you are interested to learn more about their research, or want to explore collaborative opportunities):

Vick Bain on Gendered Precarious Working in the UK Music Industry
Dr Jo Collinson-Scott on Songwriting-as-Research as/into Feminist Methodology
Sophie Daniels on Non-commercial Applications for Songwriting: Searching for Equality
Dr Laura Hamer and Dr Helen Minors Introducing WMLON: Women’s Leadership Online Network
Dr Linda Jankowska and Katherine Young on Co-composition in Boundarymind as a Feminist Methodology
Professor Samantha Parsley on In the Key of She: Women, Technology and Cultural Production and
Dr Metka Potočnik on Defining Music: a Feminist Critique of IP Law.

Just another conference?

It was a community-making day. In the afternoon, we heard from the community of Selextorhood, and musical talent at the School of Performing Arts, who will need our support now, more than ever. This hybrid event connected the audience in the Black Box Theatre, with audiences at home, through music and sharing of the lived experience. In two musical sessions, we heard music and origin stories of the women, across the globe:

On the piano, playing from her “Train on Fire” Annabelle Revak was accompanied by Lottie Grey, Lauren Paige Harding and Emily Sandford (all with SoPA).
On the guitar, Hannah Rose Platt.
On the piano, Anjali Perinparaja, aka Pokkisham.
On the piano, Sophie Daniels, aka Liberty’s Mother.
Recorded, and multimedia, Eva Petrič.
Recorded, and via link, Dr Catherine Davies, aka The Anchoress.

The golden thread was music, written by women*, for women*, to be shared with all. The lived experience driving the music includes women fighting for equal rights under the law, violence and sexual assault, baby loss, connection with the world and fight for individual voice and freedom. As researchers, we draw on this music, and its power, to build an inclusive, accessible, and equal world for all women*.

How does law connect to feminist or practice research?

Researching intellectual property (IP) law through a feminist lens is not a traditional route. As such, it can be an isolating path. More than that, researchers in the field do not use language, which is accessible to the community: the artists. This excludes the artists from fully participating in any inquiry into IP law (does it work, should it be changed, or how is it to change). To change that, I am combining the feminist inquiry into IP law, in particular the concepts of music and authorship in copyright, with an interdisciplinary method: working with practice research and music, to add a multi-dimensional inquiry into IP law.

What’s next?

If anything, that has been written here, interests you: please reach out! Connect with us via Twitter, email or by creating a Music Researcher F-Listing. By growing our community, we will support our advocacy for change.

References and links to follow up

The UK Directory of Female+ Musicians (with over 5,000 listings): https://thef-listmusic.uk.
The F-List Gender in Music Research Hub: https://thef-listmusic.uk/what-we-do/the-f-list-research-hub/.
Vick Bain: https://vbain.co.uk.
Research Excellence Framework is used in the UK, to assess the academic quality and rigour of research done at Higher Education (HE) Institutions: https://www.ref.ac.uk.
Includes: Bain, Daniels, Collinson-Scott, Hamer, Jankowska, Parsley, Mimi Harmer (https://twitter.com/mirandaharmer) and Potočnik.
Academic profile: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/busman/staff/phd/profiles/vick-bain.html.
Dr Jo Collinson Scott: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/jo-scott.
Sophie Daniels: https://www.icmp.ac.uk/about-icmp/tutors/sophie-daniels.
Dr Laura Hamer: https://www.open.ac.uk/people/lah529.
Dr Helen Minors: https://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/dr-helen-julia-minors-39/
Project website: https://fass.open.ac.uk/research/projects/wmlon.
Dr Linda Jankowska: http://lindajankowska.com.
Katherine Young: http://music.emory.edu/home/people/biography/young-katherine.html.
Project website: https://www.boundarymind.com.
Professor Samantha Parsley: https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/persons/samantha-parsley.
Project website: https://inthekeyofshe.org.
Dr Metka Potočnik: https://researchers.wlv.ac.uk/m.potocnik.
A feminist DJ collective, based in Birmingham: http://selextorhood.com. We were joined by the founder Holly Hollister and Jae Tallawah.
We were joined by Teegan Crawford (https://thef-listmusic.uk/listing/teegan-rose/), Naomi Cunningham, and guided by Dr Maren Hancock (https://twitter.com/marenhancock).
SoPA is based in Walsall, part of the University of Wolverhampton: https://www.wlv.ac.uk/schools-and-institutes/faculty-of-arts-business-and-social-sciences/school-of-performing-arts/.
Hanna Platt: https://www.icmp.ac.uk/about-icmp/tutors/hannah-rose-platt. Artist’s website: https://www.hannahroseplatt.com.
Anjali Perinparaja: https://www.icmp.ac.uk/about-icmp/tutors/anjali-perinparaja.
Twitter: @PokkishamSongs.
Artist’s website: http://www.sophiedanielsmusic.com.
Artist’s website: https://www.eva-petric-evacuate.com.
Dr Catherine Davies: https://www.icmp.ac.uk/about-icmp/tutors/catherine-anne-davies.
Artist’s website: http://theanchoress.co.uk.
For several publications on Fem-IP, see: https://researchers.wlv.ac.uk/m.potocnik/publications or email m.potocnik@wlv.ac.uk.
If you are interest to collaborate on this, please do reach out (Twitter: @drmpWOLF or email: m.potocnik@wlv.ac.uk).
F-List (@theflistmusic) or any of the individual researchers, named in the blog (@vickbain, @SophieDMusic, @drmpWOLF).

Image info: from left to right: Sophie Daniels, Dr Metka Potočnik, Vick Bain, taken at the F-List Gender in Music Research Hub launch on 25 May 2022, at the Performance Hub Walsall, the University of Wolverhampton (with the courtesy of Sophie Daniels and Ben Mantle)

The Pursuit of Excellence: The Hacked Barbie

Images of Barbie dolls that have been manipulated and changed.

Source: FManfredi

PAR network member Federica Manfredi shares The Hacked Barbie.

This post is based on the project ‘EXCEL – The Pursuit of Excellence. Biotechnologies, enhancement and body capital in Portugal’, founded by the Foundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (PTDC/SOC-ANT/30572/2017) at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais – Universidade de Lisboa with the PI Chiara Pussetti.

“La Barbie hackerata” [The Hacked Barbie] is a workshop series and a dissemination activity from the project “Excel – The Pursuit of Excellence” (www.excelproject.eu) that investigates non-therapeutic and long terms body interventions aiming to enhance the social performativity in the Portuguese society.

Research shows that cosmetic and body practices are connected with pressures and logics of excellences following hegemonic and post-colonial models of beauty, based on discriminations of gender, age, sexual orientation, the color of the skin or the shape of the eyes.

The Hacked Barbie has been organized for the first time at the World Anthropology Day 2021 as methodological experiment to interrogate participants about body’s perceptions, its modifications and body-performances in daily life. The goal was to stimulate an anthropological gaze on daily practices directed to bodies, inviting participants to re-created their corporeality on a doll in a guided-process: which body-interventions can make the Barbie, a symbol of gendered perfection, more similar to me? In other words, how do I manipulate and construct my self through my body? What models and social pressures guide my choices, mould the relationship with my body and intervene in my bodily social performance?

From the first workshop, other 5 editions collected over 63 voices of participants from Italy, Portugal, Germany, United Kingdom and Brazil, during online and in-person meetings. We discussed cosmetic surgery, tattoos, anti-aging treatments, epilation, clothing choices and diet regimes under the entanglement of social excellence and personal well-being. Working sessions revealed gendered, aged, political, cultural and hide meanings related to body interventions, as well as fragilities and emotional negotiations with perceived social pressures on how to properly perform through the body.

Recent Covid-experiences crossed childhood episodes in participants’ narrations: through our works on the metaphorical plastic-flesh, the dialogue focused on disparities for the access of body treatments, gender discriminations and the pressures we experienced as teenagers, women, workers and members of a society supposed to pursuit idealistic colonial and hierarchical models of beauty, perfection and excellence.

For more information check out the following links:

The Pursuit of Excellence
Excel YouTube channel
Excel Facebook page

Federica Manfredi is a doctoral researcher in Medical Anthropology at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. She explores contemporary extreme body interventions, especially body suspensions, with co-participated and experimental methodologies that allow to go beyond a logo-centric logic of communication. She is interested in pain, biohacking, tattoos and altered state of consciousness, explored through practice-based qualitative methodologies.

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Ageism and the mature professional dancer

Image of a dancer wearing red pointe shoes in red dust. Photograph taken whilst filming in the outback of SW Queensland.

Source: SYork-Price

In her “Ageism and the mature professional dancer” research PAR network member Dr Sonia York-Pryce, a mature professional dancer herself, investigated the role of professional dancers who extend beyond the industry expectations of acceptable age and analysed the contribution that they are making to current dialogues relating to ageism within Western dance culture. Sonia collaborated with mature professional dancers to produce dance films celebrating their craft and gathered data through a survey and interviews with practitioners working in the field, nationally and internationally.

Sonia says: “Putting an ageing woman’s body on film is a challenging thing to do, considered a negative thing by some, but there is a lack of this in the media, dance, or film so there is a need to make this more mainstream and acceptable. It has prompted many interesting conversations. Much of my practice as research goes on in the ballet studio where I experience ageing physically on a daily basis which gives me great insight into how many of the mature dancers in my research have adapted their practice to accommodate their ageing bodies in order to keep performing.”

For more details about here work, check out her web site.
And here are links to Sonia’s dance films:
Interprète/Inappropriate Behaviour
Utterly (in)appropriate
āj

Dr Sonia York-Pryce studied classical ballet at Elmhurst Ballet School, UK and the Royal Ballet School UK, and contemporary dance at the London School of Contemporary Dance and the Laban Centre, in London, UK. She has enjoyed artist residencies with Red Gate Gallery, Beijing China, photographing Beijing LDTX Contemporary Dance Company; and an interdisciplinary residency with Hospitalfield House, Arbroath Scotland. She has also photographed London Studio Centre’s Images Ballet Company.

Poetry As Research on SAGEMethodspace

Venn diagram outlining practice, teaching and research as three distinct areas and the section that overlaps in the middle is called Practice as Research

Source: NBrown

The founders of the Poetry As Research group Áine McAllister and Nicole Brown were invited to contribute to the SAGEMethodspace website. The SAGEMethodspace currently focuses on practitioner research and creative research practices. Áine and Nicole were asked to offer a brief introduction to Practice As Research and to Poetic Inquiry, as well as to highlight the community of poetic practitioners that we have established.

Here is our core argument:

There are now many terms in use to describe the research-practice nexus. […] In sum, practice as research is research that is carried out as part of practice or that is practice. […] Poetry writing has established itself as one such method of analysis and as a viable research output in itself, although it is still struggling free from the margins.

Click here to see the full blog post on SAGEMethodspace.