Students have been partnered with community researchers drawn from across the UK and together, are identifying issues of marginalisation or exclusion in a local area to tackle, deploying creative research approaches (e.g. digital diaries, visual arts, storytelling etc) to do so.
What’s involved?
Undisciplined Spaces is running from January to September 2021. The majority of the research and associated support will take place by June with students focusing on the local communities where they’ll be living for the bulk of the programme. Participants are volunteering 2 – 3 hours per week of their time during the course of the programme. There is a mix of facilitated and self-directed content across four project stages:
- Inducting & Reflecting: Students and community researchers are initiated to the project through supervisions and through support to start digital diaries where they reflect on their own identities and the local community in which they are to work. Samples of diaries shared through a virtual workshop
- Undisciplining & Matchmaking: Students and community researchers are paired to identify issues of marginalisation or exclusion to tackle. Students receive a total of 2.5 days specialist training in undertaking creative community research, and all involved continue their digital diaries
- Practising & Engaging: Teams undertake virtual or socially-distanced research in their identified communities, using creative approaches to gather data through interviews with people. Supervision meetings continue, and through digital diaries, all involved explore what they are learning about themselves and others through the process
- Analysing & Feeding Back: Teams receive a one-day analysis workshop to support them in analysing data they have gathered. They decide how best to share back their findings with communities. A celebration event in the College will provide a moment to share findings
To learn more about the benefits for students involved and see the participants, head to the Kings College London website here.
To find out more about the project or the other work we do with peer researchers, please drop Emily Morrison, Head of the ICS, a note on emily.morrison@youngfoundation.org.
Institute for Community Studies Posted on: 5 February 2021 Authors: Emily Morrison,