Decolonizing Research in Global Health & Environment Using Creative Methods

Decolonizing Research in Global Health & Environment Using Creative Methods: A Symposium of Practical Workshops.

20 June, 9.30-17.30 (followed by refreshments)

University of Glasgow, St Andrews Building Room 337

We invite colleagues to join us for a symposium of practical workshops which explore creative methods as ways to decolonize research in global health & environment. Our aim is to foster connections between researchers working in this area and nurture collaboration. Workshops will be delivered by researchers working across a variety of fields, including Art, Biodiversity, Cultural Policy, Cognitive Science, Drama, Education, Film and Literary Studies. This event will give participants tasters of research methods which serve as invitations and inspirations for future research design and project activity.

Any queries, please feel free to email the organizers: Dr Zyra Evangelista (Zyra.Evangelista@Glasgow.ac.uk) and Dr Dieter Declercq (Dieter.Declercq@Glasgow.ac.uk)

Kindly funded by the Global Health and Environment Interdisciplinary Research Theme in the College of Social Sciences and the Department of Film and Television in the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow. Hosted by the Medical Humanities Research Centre.

Programme

9.30-9.45: Welcome

• Dr Dieter Declercq and Dr Zyra Evangelista

9.45-11.15:

• Workshop 1: “Burn, flood, rebuild, repeat: Visualising the mental health impacts of living in Anthropocene harmscapes.” – Dr Anna Wilson
• Workshop 2: “Moving-image and Storytelling in Global Health.” – Dr Azadeh Emadi

11.15-11.45: Break

11.45-13.15:

• Workshop 3: “Interdisciplinary Research: Bridging Fields and Improving Health Outcomes.” – Raheema Chunara
• Workshop 4: “Caribbean Colonial Foodways.” – Dr Malica S. Willie

13.15-14.00: Lunch

14.00-15.30:

• Workshop 5: “A ‘Nameless’ Exercise: Hodological Spaces and Embodied Dramaturgies” – Dr Angelo Romagnoli
• Workshop 6: “Pre-Texts: A protocol for the cognitive, creative, and emotional development.” – Dr Valeria Pica

15.30-16.00: Break

16.00-17.30:

• Workshop 7: “A Material Argument.” – Dr Shaun Doyle
• Workshop 8: [Title TBC.] – Dr Sharifa Abdulla

17.30: Refreshments + networking

Workshop abstracts and facilitator bios are available here.

Symposium context and aims

Colonial frameworks continue to underpin academic work in many ways. We focus on creative methods as ways to investigate and challenge colonial frameworks in the governance of knowledge, e.g. how we engage in research, which methods count as valid, who gets to contribute, etc. At the University of Glasgow, this means addressing the legacy of Empire and the (Scottish) Enlightenment. Alongside our Gilmorehill campus sits Kelvingrove Park, which hosted several colonial world fairs. The imposing Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum – partly financed with proceeds of the 1888 International Exhibition and opened for the 1901 International Exhibition – serves as a material reminder of this history.

Intellectually, the empirical methods developed by enlightened scientists served the Western colonial project, e.g. by creating technologies for the extraction of natural resources or the treatment of tropical diseases. Scientific empiricism also devalued systems which do not generate knowledge through a process that is supposedly detached, objective, abstracted, reasoned, empirically grounded and universally valid – such as creative methods. In this respect, the trial, survey or analysis produce knowledge; not the performance, poem or oral story. That said, creative methods – from film to literature – were equally part of colonial propaganda and ‘education’ efforts. In other words, creative methods are not inherently anti-colonial, while scientific methods can be deployed for decolonial purposes.

We seek to explore these tensions and opportunities through this symposium, which we hope will contribute the building of a decolonial research culture around health and global environment – where creative methods are central, alongside scientific approaches. This symposium will contribute to the work of the Global Health and Environment Interdisciplinary Research Team in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow, who have kindly funded the event. At the same time, we are also connecting to strategic initiatives such as Glasgow Changing Futures (esp. Healthy and Equitable
Futures) and the narrative medicine initiative in the College of Arts and Humanities.

We hope to welcome many colleagues at the symposium!