I am a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at Durham University. My PhD thesis is entitled as “Cultural Perceptions of Time and Space: On Negotiating Social Change in Rural Pakistan”. This research aims to investigate culturally perceived notions of time and space in a Pakistani village and to ascertain the extent to which these may have undergone changes in recent decades. The study will examine how the community has adapted to new temporal and spatial models, and determine the extent of such adaptations due to social change. I am particularly interested in the workshop’s themes related to community participation, self-reliance and resilience and sustainable community environments, places, spaces and institutions. Time is an important aspect of human experience which appears to be a universal phenomenon. In order to understand any cultural characteristics, it will be imperative to recognize the temporal organization of the community, essentially with reference to spatial models. Since culture is a process and change is inevitable so the changing models of time provide an insight into the mechanism of any socioeconomic change taken place in the community. Taking into account the community’s sensitivities to its culturally perceived models of time and space will help increasing the willingness of the community to actively participate in development programs to achieve sustainability.
I am in the first year of an MRes in Social and Cultural Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. My studies so far have focused on heritage walks around Manchester, critiquing official narratives and seeking alternative routes. I am also really interested in blurring the boundaries between academia, activism and my professional life. I founded and facilitate The LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement) a Manchester based interdisciplinary collective of artists, activists and academics interested in psychogeography, social justice and public space. It is a not-for-profit community group which curates walks and other events which reframe the neo-liberal city as a site of subversive play and critical engagement. The LRM seeks to unravel the myriad stories that contribute to the city and the historical, political and economic forces that shape space. Our work is also interested in emotional responses; how places make us feel and how active participation can positively transform its development. Our conception of history is rhizomatic and thus the derive is our favoured tool for exploration. The city is also a sensory experience and walking offers a direct connection to the ghosts under the pavement. I have worked as a Community Development Officer for the past eleven years and have been employed by GMCVO (Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation) since November 2007. My role involves providing training, consultancy, information and one-to-one support to a wide range of groups, specifically community hubs i.e. places that generate social capital. Morag's Pecha Kucha Presentation Audio: I am a PhD student in my third year at the School of Sociology of the University of Nottingham. My research project looks at so-called sub-Saharan African transit migrants in Morocco. The ethnographic fieldwork (2009-2010) included participant observation and interviews with over 40 migrants in Rabat, as well as documentary analysis and interviews with relevant policy makers. Before starting my PhD, I have worked for over 10 years as research assistant, evaluator and development worker in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Maghreb. My interest in theories on time and space is related to my attempts to explain the state of limbo that migrants in Morocco are experiencing. During my fieldwork I became aware of the negative consequences this has on migrants’ lives. I suspect that “feeling stuck” is a common feature of many migrants’ lives- and not limited to those that are so-called “transit migrants”. Social theories on time and space are helpful in explaining and describing what this actually means both for migrants and the communities they are part of. Through the workshop, I would like to learn more about the ways in which theories of time can be linked to mobility, migrants’ rights and transnationalism. I am also interested in finding out more about the gendered aspects of time and how they relate to migrants life. Inka's Lightning Talk During my time at Sheffield Hallam University (Centre for Education and Inclusion Research) I have been involved in a variety of research projects broadly connected with the wellbeing of young people and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities (regarding health inequalities, health related education/services, and so on). As a Sociologist, I am particularly interested in the social influences on wellbeing (e.g. experiences of heterosexism and homophobia, perceptions of ‘belonging’ and ‘acceptance’, etc.), and specifically the relationship between sexual identities and perceptions and experiences of ‘community’, and the implications of this for health and wellbeing. Within this, changing experiences over time become important: growing (legal) equality in the UK for LGBT communities contrasts starkly with experiences among older LGBT groups who may have experienced criminalisation and/or ‘treatment’ for their sexual identity and/or practices. How do these historical contexts (still) affect people’s ongoing identity development and expression, their wider wellbeing / ‘quality of life’, and the development and experience of ‘community’ and ‘connectivity’ more generally (including political activism, ‘scene’ spaces, and forms of social support)? I am interested in exploring these ideas with regard to broader social wellbeing – which my lightning talk will address – and within the context of wider debates about socio-cultural change, community connectivities, and temporal belongings. Slides from Eleanor's Lightning Talk I am a Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at Loughborough University. I joined the Department of Social Sciences on completion of my PhD in the summer of 2007 and have recently been appointed as Assistant Editor of the journal Media, Culture and Society. My research interests include the mediation of time and memory but extend more generally into cultural consumption, media reception and the politics of representation in everyday life. My concern with time and community emerges from the ongoing research project Media of Remembering (conducted with Professor Michael Pickering and Dr Nicola Allett) funded by the Leverhulme trust, which explores how people belonging to different social and cultural groups within local communities develop remembering practices using commonplace media technologies. This work has developed our thinking about time and community in a number of ways. Firstly, communication and representation seem to us to be at the heart of community’s construction and negotiation of time and their experiences of it. Secondly, in working with different ethnic minority and local communities, spatial and temporal disruptions and dislocations have frequently been central to their collective experience. Social remembering practices and cultural memory resources have emerged as crucial in navigating these experiences. Thirdly, even in what may seem to be the most personal of memories, the marks of social experience and notions of community seem to be in play. In this sense we have been thinking about the time of individuals and time of communities as mutually constitutive. Slides from Emily's Lightning Talk Educated in Russia and in England (Philosopher’s Diploma, St. Petersburg State University and PhD in Philosophy, Centre for Professional Ethics, UCLAN), Elena Fell has an insider’s view of two distinct cultures, which helps her to grasp the specificity of intercultural communication and communication between diverse communities. Elena’s research project which will explore the relationship between communities and the future (carried out jointly with Dr Johan Siebers as Principal Investigator) will naturally follow from her longstanding interest in the philosophy of time, self and communication. In her PhD thesis Elena explored Bergson’s theory of duration and prepared ground for its further development. After completing her PhD Elena has worked as a Research Assistant at the School of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Central Lancashire. She is also Editorial Assistant for Empedocles: European Journalfor the Philosophy of Communication. My involvement in the scoping study on Communities and Future has just began, so the workshop will be an opportunity to gain inspiration for myself and to share with others my previous research findings on time, history and selfhood. Elena's Lightning Talk I am a lecturer in political theory at the University of Leeds. My own research has focused on the problem of account for political community in conditions of moral and cultural diversity and conflict. To engage with this problem, I’ve tried in my work to elaborate a ‘narrative conception’ of community that conceives of communities as temporally extended shared lives that conform to different sorts of narrative patterns. I hope that the workshop will help me to broaden my sense of the connections between community and time and further to problematize the approach I’ve hitherto deployed. Derek's Lightning Talk I am an independent researcher whose academic training has primarily been in the area of Literary Studies and Critical Theory. In 2007 I began volunteering at a people’s history museum in Cardiff called the Butetown History & Arts Centre, where I learnt about life stories, oral history and the possibility of using museums as a vehicle for social change. Since then I have pursued an interest in public history and have recently curated an exhibition about feminism in Bristol called Sistershow Revisited. At present I am very interested in creating on and offline spaces where people and historical information can collide. My approach to this workshop will draw on these concerns, specifically exploring the issue of time within researching, documenting and disseminating vulnerable forms of material culture. As a case study I will draw on the Women’s Liberation Music Archive, a recently launched web archive of music from the UK feminist movements of the 1970s and 1980s. I shall be exploring how the creative actions produced by women in these communities, when digitised, has the capacity to transform the temporality of contemporary cultural memory. Deborah's Lightning Talk I am a post-grad student and part-time (philosophy) lecturer at Staffordshire University. By the time of the workshop I will have submitted by PhD thesis. This thesis is an attempt to explain the mergence of social order from the joint perspectives of contemporary French philosophy and complexity theory. I have had the opportunity to undertake a small research project (in partnership with my supervisor) that attempted to apply some of my researching findings to a practical situation – a local regeneration project. I also have been in contact with other research groups that have been researching community regeneration and sustainability from the perspective of complexity theory. Prior to undertaking this research I was employed in the social sector. My experience of working towards the last government’s ‘social inclusion’ agenda, and my realisation that it was not premised on any firm theory, greatly influence my research topic. The interconnection of time and the emergence of social order/structure goes to the very core of my research; I argue that ontologically they are the same – that order is born from the same repetitions that give birth to time – or more accurately times. From my perspective a singular, objective ‘time’ is a (pragmatic) codification of a plural temporality. Kelvin's Lightning Talk In addition to being a theme four member within CRESC I have also been involved in a group exploring issues of spacing, timing and organizing since 1999. This group has a keen interest in how ideas of repetition and difference and stability and change are conceptualised and in recent years there has been more of an emphasis on ideas of images and signs in relation to space and time. In particular, I am interested in how we understand intensities, affect, assemblages and acts of engagement with regards to the process and practices of organizing. My empirical research has been conducted within mental health care in order to explore certain information practices, standards and forms of organizing, as well as a national newspaper printing factory. Lightning Talk |
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