“This is the first cohort I will be supporting in my role as Brigstow Director and am excited to learn more about their plans and see how their research journeys unfold. We have a wonderful selection of eight projects that have been funded incorporating a wide range of disciplinary knowledges and community partners and artists. The topics range from exploring laundry justice for vehicle dwellers through circus, co-constructing peace and stability in Colombia through feminist activism and the creation of fictional artworks with non-professional actors (and much more!). These are all exciting vibrant areas of exploration which address the Brigstow focus on what it means to be human in the 21st century in challenging, creative and imaginative ways. I am very much looking forward to meeting our teams at our cohort meetings and hearing more!”
Prof Debbie Watson, Brigstow Institute Director.
The Brigstow team are delighted to announce the funded seedcorn projects for 2022/23:
Coproducing Culturally Competent Scenarios for the Teaching and Training of Health Professionals. Simulated patient sessions are a core part of health professional training and rely on actors playing the role of a patient in a prepared scenario. There is little official guidance on these scenarios, and many institutions create their own. These have the potential to be problematic and reinforce stereotypes. This study will be the first step on a journey to coproducing a culturally competent teaching resource that reflects patient experiences and needs with materials from a range of communities, facilitation guide, and example videos.
Involving Nilu Ahmed and Christina Worle (Bristol Dental School), Huzaifa Adamali (Southmead Hospital), Shahnaz Chowdhury and Fiona Spence (Sirona Health).
Peasant and Popular Feminism: Co-constructing sustainability and peace in Colombia. Collaborating with the women of the region, this research team will explore the conceptual utility of Peasant Popular Feminism (PPF) in supporting socio-political activism and agroecological transitions for women peasants in the Peasant Reserve Zone of Valle del Rio Cimitarra, Colombia. The aim is to understand how these rural communities can live peacefully and ecologically.
Involving Jaskiran Kaur Chohan (Geographical Sciences), Natalia Fernandez (Congreso de Colombia), Jeimey Lorena Tellez Gonzalez (Corporacion Universitaria Minuto de Dios) and Alvaro Saul Perez Pena (Colectivo 71).
Cultivating interdependence between land and people. With a sensitivity to both to the biology and ecology of land and human systems and to the politics and history of the relationships with land that are distinctive to the UK, this project explores the question ‘how can people living in Britain today be supported to relearn interdependence with land?’.
Involving Keri Facer (Education), Katherine Wall, Rob Owen and Miriam MacDonald (Woven Earth / Holistic Restoration).
Laundry Justice. While using a washing-machine is a highly routinised domestic practice, its environmental implications have extensive detrimental environmental effects. At the same time due to sharp rises in energy prices, falling real wages, and ruinous levels of economic disparity, doing laundry in this way is becoming unaffordable for a growing proportion of the people in the UK. For the vehicle dwelling community of Bristol – who are living in the most part off-grid in urban and semi-rural areas within and around the city – the lack of easy access to laundry facilities, running water or wastewater drainage is nothing new. This research seeks to gather and celebrate the evolving knowledge and wisdom of Bristol’s vehicle dwellers around laundry practice, to expand the horizons of what is possible in relation to living well with our clothing and the environment.
Involving Keir Williams (Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship), Jessica Paddock and Katarina Richter (School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies), Lara Luna Bartley and Lizzie Harrison (University of the West of England), Rhiannon Craft (University of Cardiff) and Josh White (Vehicles for Change CIC).
The Wounds we Keep: Youth, trauma and otherness in the 21st Century. This work examines the process of collaborating with non-professional actors in the creation of fictional audiovisual artworks representing forms of embodied vulnerability. Specifically it explores how non-professional actors and filmmakers can creatively and ethically utilise actors’ lived experience in the process of creating characters who themselves experience forms of trauma in the fiction similar to those experienced by the actors in their lives.
Involving Miguel Garcia Lopez (Modern Languages), Miguel Gaggiotti (Film and Television), Simon Brownhill (Education), Owain Astles (Artist) and Xenia Glen (Sleepwalker Studios Ltd).
Memory Work and Migration: Exploring the body as a living archive of intergenerational memories. This research project aims to forge a novel way to approach ‘memory work’ for migrants beyond first generational cognitive-based trauma, for the benefit of memory, migration scholars, policymakers and migrants themselves, by asking the questions: How does a perspective on the body as a living archive of intergenerational memories inform approaches to migration and memory? How can an embodied and creative approach to ‘memory work’ that transcends the cognitive help uncover, archive and work through such memories? How can this type of ‘memory work’ help migrants themselves redefine a sense of identity to live a better life?
Involving Negar Elodie Behzadi (Geographical Sciences), Nariman Massoumi (Film and Television), Ingrid Keusemann (Artist), Lizzie Minion (University of Gloucestershire), and Susanne Franco (University of Venice).
Climate Change Craftivism in the Classroom. There is a pressing need for new cross-curricular educational practices and approaches to supporting young people to engage with and be active in developing their own individual and collective responses to living in a warming world. This project brings together educators, learners and community artists to develop education-based and cross-curricular ‘craftivist’ activities that aim to enable young people to explore and express their thinking and feelings around the issue of climate change through hands-on creation in school settings.
Involving Michelle Graffagnino, Nicola Warren-Lee, Alison Oldfield and Lauren Hennessy (Education), and Kirsty Hammond (Heart of BS13).
Ethical Storytelling of Psychoactive Substances and Drugs Policy in Bristol. This research team believes that storytelling can shed light on the structural conditions that drive people into contact with illegal drug markets in the first place. Through this project the researchers aim to start a dialogue about the effectiveness of different policy responses to tackle drugs-related issues in Bristol, to inform how we can live well with drugs in our communities.
Involving Mary Ryder (Education), Neil Carrier (Anthropology and Archaeology), Matthew Brown (Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies), Jane Slater (Transform Drug Policy Foundation).