Case Study 1 presentation Presented by Ross White, Lyn Ma, Katja Frimberger 7 Dec 2015, University of Glasgow Languages, Refugees & Migration Event

1. Do our methods enable positions of 'plenty' or
'deficit' for young people with refugee background?
A discussion around the role of creative arts pedagogies in
teaching and research
Languages, Refugees and Migration: Research Roundtable Event
Monday, 7 December 2015
Wolfson Medical Building
University of Glasgow

2. Case Study 1 Team
• Katja Frimberger, Postdoctoral Research Associate,
University of Glasgow
• Lyn Ma, Senior Lecturer, ESOL, Glasgow Clyde College
• Gameli Tordzro, Pan-African Arts Scotland -
http://www.panafricanartsscotland.org.uk
• Tawona Sithole, Poet in Residence, GRAMnet
• Ross White, Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow

3. Emotional Distress Across Borders
Key Questions:
• What happens when emotional distress crosses
borders of geography, language, beliefs and
practices?
• How do these various borders impact on the
relevance and validity of psychosocial interventions
aimed at reducing distress?

4. Case Study 1 Research Sites
Glasgow
Students enrolled on the ESOL
16+ programme at Anniesland
campus of Glasgow Clyde
College
Uganda
Lango-speaking people living
in the Lira region of Northern
Uganda

5. Case Study 1 Research Sites
• Across the sites that we are involved with (Glasgow Clyde College,
Lira in Northern Uganda) there is a shared sense of people 'not
being in a place of their choosing'; geographically, emotionally,
and/or socially. The concept of 'moments of precarity' is important
here (see: Judith Butler).
• There is a potential benefit of facilitating opportunities of people to
think about 'having things of their choosing and their being' and
how this might help people to find meaning.
• 'This is who I am, this is what I brought with me, this is what I
would choose to take with me’.
• Exploring, honouring, and dignifying.

6. Positions of Deficit
• Research with refugee children and adolescents
(particularly those from places where there is
political oppression or conflict), parallels that of
other childhood trauma research with an emphasis
on identifying psychopathology (Kinzie and Sack
2002) e.g. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
• There is little published research on how young
people from war-torn countries adjust positively to
their new homelands (Barwick et al. 2002).

7. Positions of Hope
• There are some encouraging preliminary
findings that have not sought to pathologize
the reaction of the children and young people
(Yohani, 2008; 2010; Yohani & Larsen, 2012).
• Children’s ability to hope contributes strongly
to their ability to cope with serious life
challenges (Baumann; Hinds, 1988).

8. The Fragility of Evidence
• Reducing narratives into numbers
• Issues of translation and the power politics of
language
• Validity of using standardized measures in
multilingual contexts.
• Being ‘involved in research’ vs. ‘being
researched’.
• A lack of emphasis on process compared to
product

9. Working with Young Asylum
Seekers and refugees

10. Where do they come from?
• This is a constantly changing picture – 5 years ago it
was Afghanistan and Somalia and mostly young men
• Currently – high numbers of young Vietnamese ,
Chinese, Albanian & West African young men and
women who have been trafficked for domestic
servitude, forced labour & sexual exploitation

11. Who Are They?
• Young – typically 14 – 20 year old
• Without family – although some may be
“reunited” with family
• Living alone
• Have been trafficked and or victims of war or
civil unrest
• Claiming asylum in the UK

12. Challenges of Working With This
Group
• Disrupted or no formal education
• Living in a different culture with no informal or formal
support systems
• Age disputed
• Multiple levels of trauma & Grief & Loss
• Uncertainty about their future
• Uncertainty about those they have left behind

13. Our Approach
• Multi-agency working when possible – Glasgow
Social Work, British Red Cross, Scottish Guardianship,
Freedom from Torture & accommodation providers
• Young people are in classes with their peer-group
• Flexible & tailor-made curriculum and approaches to
learning – including arts & outdoor activities and a
residential experience
• Extensive guidance
• Expertise – of staff and students (the concept of
‘plenty’)
• Creating an environment of stability & security

15. Arts methods
• What role do (or should) creative arts
methods play in multilingual, intercultural
(and psychologically and politically complex)
educational environments like our ESOL
classroom?
‘Deficit positions’ of students in educational set-ups
Vs.
How do we enable (teaching/research) environments
where students’ can ‘flourish’?

16. Identity Boxes
• One example of creative arts methods (in
teaching & research)
• Four weeks of crafting during class time
• Exhibited ‘publicly’ (boxes and video)
• Aim: ‘What I want you to know about me’
• Boxes do not present students’ lives
‘authentically’ (invite fiction, projection of
hope, researcher positioning)

17. Themes
• Personal (and sometimes fictionalised) stories
and scenarios/ multiple identity positionings
• ‘Real’ references to life experiences and past
memories
• Fictional representations and projections of
futures and hope
• Example: Depiction of home place/’normality’
& link to conflict transformation literature
(Lederach & Lederach 2012)

18. A Challenge For Us
Students' acts of self-representation
challenge us educators and researchers
How do we position our pedagogical and
methodological orientations towards students'
complex narratives of hope, trauma, resilience
and longing for 'normality‘?

19. Slippery Data
• Our ethnographic data as ‘slippery data’ (Law
2004)
• We were no neutral observers
• Evokes meta-reflections: power-
dynamics/ethical questions underlying
student-researcher relationship
• ‘Data poems’ give a sense of complex
interplay of reflexive dimensions

21. Aesthetic Translation Practices in
Research
• Students’ self-representation defies easy
consumption and analysis
• Research can instead act as aesthetic
translation practices
• Mode of production over mode of collection
• Invites meta-reflection on the power-
dynamics of the teaching and research
process

22. Thank You