Engaged Research

Showcasing some curent research projects

City at the Time of Crisis

Dimitris Dalakoglou

City at the Time of Crisis is a research project that seeks to trace and research the effects of the ongoing financial crisis on urban public spaces in Athens, Greece.  It will comprise a holistic, cross-disciplinary study of changing notions of the 'public', with urban public spaces as its main research subject extending into areas related to ‘public interest’, ‘public security’, ‘public provision’ and the ‘public good’. Although Greece might be an extreme example of an ongoing transnational transformation, the consequences of this global financial and political crisis nevertheless extend beyond the debt-ridden state. The Greek experience exemplifies an emergent mode of governance that is suggestive of a generalised state restructuring across substantial sections of the world: as an example, state cut-backs echoing the Greek experiment were quick to follow in a number of EU countries, whether those suffering 'public debt contagion' (e.g. Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain) or those now suffering a fiscal uncertainty unimaginable even a few years ago (e.g. the UK and the USA).

For more information see The City at a Time of Crisis website.

Bionetworking in Asia – anthropology and transnational biomedical collaborations

Professor Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner

This international project, an ESRC-funded 3-year project worth over £1.1 million, includes researchers from China, India, Japan, Thailand, and Europe. The project is studying transnational collaboration in the life sciences.

Building on observations of scientists, managers and patients, the project is looking at bio-medical innovation and specifically at the way in which much contemporary research is increasingly reliant on clinical research conducted through international collaborations with Asian countries. It is considering in particular how such initiatives are challenged by uncertainties about research quality and therapeutic practices as well as the variation between different states in their healthcare provision and socio-political regimes.

For more details see The Centre for Bionetworking website.

Charity and Philanthropy in Development

An innovative study looking at the role of charity and philanthropy in economic, social and health development is being launched. The study is being conducted in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital city, and will investigate Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim and secular forms giving, and assess their contribution towards achieving development goals.

The study is being conducted by the University of Sussex, UK, and the Centre for Poverty Analysis, Sri Lanka. The team will use survey, interview and ethnographic research methods to map flows of charitable giving and receiving across the city. The results will be used to understand how patterns of charitable and philanthropic activity vary between social classes and along gender lines, and help to alleviate poverty and other social problems in Colombo and Sri lanka as a whole.

Principle Investigators, Professor R.L. Stirrat and Dr Filippo Osella, note that ‘global philanthropic institutions are seen as increasingly important players in the development process, but as yet the plethora of small scale, indigenous charities and philanthropic organisations found in all developing countries have largely been ignored. This project aims to address that imbalance.’ Fieldwork is being led by Professor Tudor Silva (University of Peradeniya/CEPA) and Dr Tom Widger (University of Sussex).

The study, launched in Colombo on 23^rd May, is funded by the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) and Department for International Development (DfID), UK. It will run for 24 months.

For more information visit: http://www.charityphilanthropydevelopment.org/index.html

New Economies of Development: Critical Engagements with the Bottom of the Pyramid

Overview of the project

In recent years “bottom-of-the pyramid” (BoP) schemes have attracted significant interest from international development institutions seeking to harness private sector resources for development purposes. Yet despite the growing number of BoP initiatives across the world, there has been comparatively little engagement from development studies with this new paradigm.This project seeks to address this gap by creating a space for new thinking, approaches, research methodologies, and evidence that critically engage with the development implications of the BoP model, and examine the distribution of gains and losses and risks and vulnerabilities in BoP markets. We seek to ask how such models work in practice, what processes of inclusion and exclusion they give rise to, and whether they can deliver development that is both ethical and sustainable.

The project is a collaborative venture between anthropologists at the Universities of Sussex, Edinburgh and Oxford and is funded by the Development Studies Association’s New Ideas Initiative.

For more information visit: http://www.responsiblebop.com/

Pathways of Women’s Empowerment

Pathways of Women’s Empowerment is an international  research and communications programme established in 2006 which links academics with activists and practitioners to find out what works to enhance women’s empowerment. We are identifying where women are achieving real gains and discovering the positive and negative factors which have influenced their journey. Pathways has been funded by UKAid from the Department for International Development and has received additional financing from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that enabled the programme to expand to include countries in conflict, post-conflict and crisis situations.

For more information visit: http://www.pathwaysofempowerment.org/

Places for All?

Places for All? A Multi-Media Investigation of Citizenship, Work and Belonging in a Fast-Changing Provincial City

This Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities Programme Fellowship runs from March 2011 to March 2013. The Fellowship is a collaboration between the AHRC and the Royal Society of Arts Citizen Power Peterborough Programme and between AHRC Fellow Ben Rogaly and colleagues Mukul Ahmed, Teresa Cairns, Denis Doran, Liz Hingley, Raminder Kaur and Kaveri Qureshi .
The central contention of this research is that a person’s attachment to the place where they live is shaped by their relations with other people in that place and by the ongoing and shifting connectionsthey and others have to people and places further away. The people of Peterborough, including the long-settled majority ethnic (‘white’) communities, have diverse geographical and national heritages.  Using a combination of film, photography, oral history and theatre, the research is examining how much it is possible to create a sense of the commonality of this experience itself, within the specific geography and history of Peterborough and its environs.

For further information and links to research outputs please visit the project website: http://www.placesforall.co.uk/

Engaged Students

Our students also conduct projects and fieldwork as part of their courses.

The following presentation was created by students for the First Year Ethnographic methods course:

Hare Krishna Brighton

Run and become

Run and Become is a Creative Campus Initiative project run from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sussex. As well as a cultural project, it is also a research project, aiming to improve our understanding of the human factors involved in training for and completing a marathon run. The two key themes are motivation and transformation. What motivates people to carry on training and carry on running, through the dark days of winter, and when the pain of ‘the wall’ hits them? How are people transformed through the act of training and running a marathon – bodily, emotionally, personally?