Reframing Infrastructure: Artivism, Access, and the Politics of Space

This seminar explores how marginalized communities transform both digital and physical infrastructures into contested terrains of identity and resistance. We move beyond seeing infrastructure merely as roads and wires, viewing it instead as a structural mechanism that defines who belongs and who can move. The session brings together two cutting-edge research projects by Global Majority researchers from Coventry University and Birmingham City University.

Creating New Identities through Artivism in Social Media: An Ethnographic Study of Sri Lankan Muslim Women, ShameelaYoosuf Ali (Doctoral Researcher Birmingham City University)

This project explores how Sri Lankan Muslim women use art and activism (artivism) on Facebook to establish spaces of belonging, resistance, and memory. Facing exclusion from dominant narratives and threats like surveillance, these women employ digital storytelling, poetry, and visual art as political gestures, transforming the social media platform into an "intimate archive." The research uses blended methods (ethnography, conversations, workshops) to analyze how these creative, everyday acts—revealing a "silent defiance"—foster solidarity and serve as a form of collective memory and healing for a marginalized community. The work also reflects on research as a decolonial act and a reclamation of voice.

The Streets We Don’t See: How Urban Design Creates Inequality, Dr Arun Ulahannan EngD (PhD), Associate Professor (Coventry University)

Over a billion people, 15% of the world’s population, live with a disability, yet transport remains one of the biggest barriers to inclusion. In the UK, disabled people make up to a third fewer trips than non-disabled people, with inconsistent street design and poor first- and last-mile accessibility limiting education, employment, and social participation despite equality commitments. The design of streets directly shapes who can travel, and who can belong. In this talk I’ll take you through some of the cutting-edge mixed methods research we ran and how we went about getting the work presented in both the House of Commons and Lords