Making Waves: 2nd Annual PGR Symposium from the Institute for Social Justice

The Making Waves Symposium is a free event taking place on Tuesday 14th June 1pm-3pm via Microsoft Teams.

Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and equal opportunities. At the Institute for Social Justice we aim to engage people, partners and communities in a manner that sees participation, implementation and change as vital parts of its mission. The team chose the name ‘Making Waves’ to reflect the action that Postgraduate Research can generate. We believe that by sharing, collaborating and listening we can achieve more.

All the speakers at the symposium will talk for 10 minutes about their area of postgraduate research. Their topics all relate to ‘Social Justice and Relationships’ and we envisage connections to be made between researchers and academics. The symposium will run in two halves with questions after 4 speakers and a short break in-between. We currently have 8 speakers who are:

Dr Daniel McCulloch – In this presentation, Dan will offer some critical reflections on the relationship between participatory visual methods and voice. Drawing on research which aimed to explore this relationship from the perspective of researchers, participants and audiences; as well as critical reflections on his own research practices, Dan considers why it matters that we ask critical questions about this supposed relationship in our own research.

Rory Wells – Rory’spresentation will examine Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) as a strategy for enacting the political imperative of community music in research whist working alongside marginalized communities and people with experience of involuntary displacement.

Matthew Green – A sociological analysis of young people’s social interactions in Physical Education and school sport. Matthew will explore how secondary school pupils differentiate bullying from banter in sporting environments.

Lucy Hurst – Lucy will be presenting a talk on Khairani Barokka’s poetry collection ‘Ultimatum Orangutan’, exploring how disability and race intertwine within the text, and how poets can push readers to challenge how they approach texts.

Nicola McAteer – Nicola will discuss how the Covid-19 pandemic triggered contested values in community music practice. Influenced by her own experiences as female freelance practitioner, Nicola will share how her global participatory action research through black feminism is needed for a world in crisis.

Lauren Hall – Lauren’s presentation explores the experience of one learning disabled audience member, and their opinion on theatres’ and venues’ attempts to address disability and engage disabled audiences using research obtained during the UK’s Covid-19 lockdowns.

Emma McKenzie – Emma’s presentation will explore the impact of mental health systems on individual identity and experiences of both staff and patients living and working within those systems.

Amanda Faber – Amanda’s research attempts to explore and measure the changes which veterans undergo while engaging with theatrical productions as a form of recovery for past trauma during military service.