Soc and Pol Research Festival 2019

Fri 22 February 2019, NUI Galway

9:15-10:00am Registration/Tea and coffee (Hardiman Lobby)

9:30am Welcome address by University President Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh (G011)

9: 30-2.00pm Poster Display (Hardiman Lobby)

Ciara Boylan & Charlotte Silke: Empathy, Social Values, and Civic Behaviour Among Early Adolescents in Ireland
Anne Byrne: Making the case for biographical sociology
James Griffiths: The Material Basis of Basic and Relational Equality
Mark Curry: Social protection initiatives in Brazil and the Philippines
Danielle Kennan: Child and Youth Involvement in the Research of the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre
Allyn Fives: Value Pluralism and Freedom

Martin Javornicky: 4-D Model of Power
Declan Coogan: Standing Strong in Solidarity with Non Violent Resistance
Padraig Ó Sabhain and Brian McGrath: Traditional sailing boats, embodied knowledge(s) and dwelling in coastal rural communities: the case of the ‘Galway Hooker’ in South-West Conamara, Ireland

Áine Macken-Walsh, Mary Clancy, Anne Byrne, Deirdre O'Mahony: Rural Women of 1916 - what did they say?

10.00-11.00am Panel 1: G011
Roundtable on Participation in research and practice (UCFRC)

• Rebecca Jackson
• Carmen Kealy
• Danielle Kennan

11:00-12.00pm Panel 2: G011
Roundtable on Making Noise! For gender equality (GWS)

• Lennita Ruggi
• Aine Macken Walsh
• Nata Duvvury
• Charlotte Amrouche
• Mary Clancy
• Stacey Scriver

11.00 – 12.00pm World Café 1: G010

World Café style is an opportunity for voices to be heard and shared in small groups around tables. Once the bell rings, after 15 minutes participants get up and move to the next table. In small groups you have the chance to listen to individual researchers talk about what they do.

Cormac Forkan and Tanja Kovacic: ‘What does the “Alternative” mean in Education?’
Bernadine Brady: ‘Empathy, social values and civic behaviour among early adolescents in Ireland’
Paul Frecklington: ‘Supporting Migrant Families in a Super Diverse Community’
Mark Haugaard: ‘Researching Power’
Eibhlín Seoighthe: ‘The REaL (Research Experience and Learning) Project: An undergraduate’s real-world involvement in social scientific research’

12:00-1:00pm Panel 3: G011
The Pleasure and the Pain of Applied Social Research (UCFRC)

John Canavan
Carmel Devaney
Caroline Mc Gregor

12:30 -2:00pm Lunch

1:00-2:00pm Panel 4: G011
Feminist/Queer Discussion Space

Charlotte Amrouche
Máiréad Casey
Zania Koppe
Lennita Ruggi
Temmuz Sureyya Gurbuz

1:00 – 2.00pm World Café 2: G010

Stephen Gaffney: ‘Scarred Youth – Problematizing youth (un)employment in Ireland’
Anita Naughton: ‘Sensory exploration of everyday racism’
Judith O’Connell: ‘Nationalism in everyday life'
Peter Doherty: ‘Contentious IRA Funerals’
Carmel Martyn: ‘Iron Fist or Justifiable Force: Policing Civil Rights

2:00-3:00pm Panel 5: G011
Roundtable on Neoliberalism and the University (PCI)

Liam Farrell
James Griffiths
Eilis Ward
Stephen Gaffney
Kathy Powell

3.00-3.10pm Closing Remarks: G011

Titles and Abstracts

World Cafes (G010):
World Café 1:
Cormac Forkan and Tanja Kovacic: ‘What does the “Alternative” mean in Education?’ Mapping alternative provision of education in Ireland: who, how and why? The role of fostering soft skills in learning and education; What lessons for policy and practice?

Bernadine Brady: ‘Empathy, social values and civic behaviour among early adolescents in Ireland’. Quantitative and qualitative findings from a two year IRC funded study exploring empathy, social values and civic behaviour among 12-16 year olds in Ireland and the factors in young people’s social context that are important in shaping these values and behaviours.

Paul Frecklington: ‘‘Supporting Migrant Families in a Super Diverse Community’. High levels of diversity and interplay between residents in many urban communities are considered by many academics to be a new social construct. As the ratio of host population residents reduces and the migrant population increases it is argued that previous assimilation theories no longer provide a suitable framework.

Mark Haugaard: ‘Researching Power from Sociological Theory and Normative Perspectives’

Eibhlín Seoighthe: ‘The REaL (Research Experience and Learning) Project: An undergraduate’s real-world involvement in social scientific research’

World Café 2:
Angela Feeney: ‘Exploring the interface of child protection and family support’. Exploring the interface of child protection and family support. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this research explores the interaction between child protection and family support policies, practice and services with a focus on concepts such as inter agency working and collaboration, professional disciplines, identity, social representations, power and boundaries.

Stephen Gaffney: ‘Scarred Youth – Problematizing youth (un)employment in Ireland’. This project critically interrogates the policy response to the issue of youth unemployment by Ireland and the EU. He will ask what key assumptions are held regarding this issue? What is the impact of the resulting problematization? And what is then left silent?

Anita Naughton: ‘Sensory exploration of everyday racism’. This presentation uses photos and objects to explore everyday racism based on narratives of interview participants who experienced everyday racism in the West of Ireland.

Judith O’Connell: ‘Nationalism in everyday life'. This session will examine national Identity, maps and cultural differences. It looks at how Nationalism is filtered through our daily lives and lived experiences.

Peter Doherty: ‘Contentious IRA Funerals’. This presentation uses photographs of IRA funerals in the 1970s and 80s to help explain what made the funeral processions so contentious.

Carmel Martyn: ‘Iron Fist or Justifiable Force: Policing Northern Ireland and American Deep South Civil Rights Protests in the 1960's’. Police brutality is a dominant theme in our understanding of civil rights marches in the 1960s. This session explores evidence that police negotiations with demonstrators behind the scenes often employed discretion, flexibility and compromise in an effort to prevent and/or defuse violence.

Roundtables (G011):

Panel 1: Roundtable on Participation in research and practice

Presently there is a move towards research subjects being increasingly involved in the research process. This movement is being driven by theoretical, methodological and policy developments, as well as funders expectations. This roundtable will discuss these developments and map the UNESCO Child and Family’s Research Centre’s journey to increasingly involve children and youth directly in its research. The term ‘involving children and youth in research’ is viewed as all-encompassing, spanning a spectrum from children and youth being the research participants, to being consulted about the research, to co-producers of research, to child and youth-led research. Examples will be provided of the Centre’s research across the participatory spectrum with a particular focus on the challenges presented.

Panel 2: Making Noise! For gender equality

Invisibility and silence have been, and continue to be, barriers to achieving gender equality. This session aims to draw attention to/make noise about aspects of gender research that are often overlooked, silenced, or difficult to present. In the session, short films created by researchers at NUI Galway and Teagasc will be shown to highlight novel ways of 'making noise' with/about gender research. Space will be opened for interactive discussions about the challenges of conducting research on 'silent' inequalities and issues. The films presented include staff/student collaborations and draw on research by members of the Gender Research Cluster that has taken place in Ireland, Ghana, Pakistan and South Sudan.

Panel 3: The Pleasure and the Pain of Applied Social Research

For many years academics at the UCFRC have been involved in research on Child Welfare and Protection, formerly with the Health Service Executive, now the Child and Family Agency, Tusla. Our research and evaluation activities have been varied – from parenting and training programme evaluations, through research needs analysis, through narrow studies considering the justifications for gathering data on ethnicity, to major analysis of system change relating to early intervention, prevention and Family Support. Such applied social research activity demands strong conceptual and theoretical work, and sophisticated research designs. The work can be extremely satisfying as it is geared to services’ improvement and ultimately, improving the wellbeing of children and their parents. But it also brings multitudinous challenges. Included among these are the ethical and practical challenges of gaining access to and researching with vulnerable populations, understanding and dealing with complex organisational structures and the politics therein, intellectual property / ownership of data and dealing with the reality that our research is often not a high priority of busy managers and frontline practitioners. In the roundtable, we identify and discuss the pleasure and pain of this important work.

Panel 4: Feminist/Queer Discussion Space

The Feminist/Queer Discussion Space for Postgraduate Students has been meeting regularly for the last year. We read and share current feminist/queer research from across disciplines, whilst also creating space to support fellow feminist researchers and, importantly, creating a place in which to discuss the experiences of being a postgraduate feminist/queer researcher. Over the past year we have discussed many themes: home, memory, space, kinship, motherhood and emotional labour, deconstructing whiteness and decolonial theory, haunting and the act of living a feminist life as it intersects with our research. During these conversations a central theme has emerged in our discussions around the disruption of spaces that exclude, or have been experienced as hostile, and the creation and construction of ‘refuge’ (Haraway), or places that make possible a supportive environment in which to think. In this context the idea of refuge becomes an act of political assemblage. This central theme also appears in many of our individual research projects. Five of our members will be introducing themes from their individual research and collective thinking alongside a multi-media dimension, including film and hospitality. Our speakers come from the School of Political Science and Sociology, as well as the Department of English and Film. We will be actively replicating the experience of our Feminist/Queer Discussion Space by rethinking the usual set up of a presentation and instead, organising a room with chairs around a table – reminiscent of the theme of home/refuge/kitchen table politics that is central to our collective work – and inviting the audience to engage with us on the themes that are presented.

Panel 5: Neoliberalism and the University

Viewing neoliberalism as ‘a governing rationality that disseminates market values and metrics to every sphere of life’, this round table will discuss the implementation of its logic within the University. We will each bring our own research and theoretical focus to the theme, in order to offer a broad sociological and political analysis of those practices which shape both accommodation and resistance in the University. Examining, among others, themes of competition, responsibilization, sacrifice, and audit culture, we will consider the implications for scholarship, knowledge and subjectivity, the impact upon labour across the University, and the prospects for restoring the concept of public goods.

NUI Galway Soc and Pol Research Festival