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BRICOLAGENEWS FROM THE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE | ISSUE 9 SEPT 2015

Student SocietiesCatching up with SPS society presidentsSummer Schools 2015Q-Step, Political Violence, SwahiliSPS ResearchFocussing on young voters and Europe

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www.sps.ed.ac.uk NEWS FROM THE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE | ISSUE 9

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Head of School’s Message

Professor Fiona MackayDean and Head of School

In this Issue

ISSUE 9 | NEWS FROM THE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE www.sps.ed.ac.uk

10 Consider the Vote Rocked

Research by SPS academics has discovered that the legacy of #indyref is likely to be an engaged generation. Should the voting age be lowered permanently to give politics a place in the classroom?

3 Head of School’s Message

Welcome from Professor Fiona Mackay

4 News

Reporting on interesting stories involving students and staff from the School of Social and Political Science.

17 Me and my mwalimu

Having begun learning Swahili under the tutelage of SPS’s Stephen Kaye, International Development PhD student, Declan Murray, heads to Kenya to continue his language studies and gives us an insight into life in Mombasa.

18 SKAPE Turns One

Professor Christina Boswell gives us a run down of the achievements of our Centre for Science, Knowledge and Policy one year on.

20 People+ and Athena Swan

Professor Andrew Thompson speaks about People+; a new School initiative launched in 2015 which offers ways forward in tackling the challenge of achieving equality, diversity, well-being and a healthy work-life balance.

22 School Officers

An update on recent School Officer role changes as well as news of our new School appointments.

23 Journals

Catch up on the latest journal articles

from SPS staff.

24 The Bookshelf

Taking a look at the latest books written

or edited by SPS staff.

12 Summer Graduation

Taking a quick look back at this year’s summer graduation which was held in the Usher Hall and followed by a reception in the Sheraton Grand Hotel, celebrating SPS student achievements.

14 Summer Schools

We review a selection of summer schools hosted by SPS during summer 2015 including Q-Step, Swahili, Political Violence and Document Analysis.

6 SPS Student Societies

We caught up with some of our SPS student society presidents to find out why they got involved, what they do within their society roles and what they hope to achieve in the coming academic year.

9 Awards Season 2015

SPS students and staff picked up two prizes at this year’s Sustainability Awards. Edinburgh University Sustainable Development Association (EUSDA) also scooped the award for Best New Society at this year’s EUSA Society Awards.

CONTRIBUTIONSIf you would like to contribute to the next issue of Bricolage or subscribe to our mailing list for future editions, please send details to:

Paula FlemingWeb & Communications AssistantSchool of Social and Political ScienceChrystal Macmillan Buildinge: [email protected]

Professor Fiona Mackay, Chris Berry, Dr Sotiria Grek, Juliana Fentress, Catherine Au, Hannah Evans, EUSDA, Sarah Beamish, Will O’Sullivan, Dr Alison Koslowski, Dr Mathias Thaler, Stephen Kaye, Dr Thomas Molony, Lisa Kalayji, Dr Miguel Garcia-Sancho, Dr Jamie Cross, Nick Bibby, Professor Andrew Thompson, Dr Eugénia Rodrigues, Dr Alice Street, Professor Christina Boswell,

Dr Richard Baxstrom, Professor Viviene Cree, Dr Gary Clapton, Professor David McCrone, Dr Michael Rosie, Dr Eve Hepburn, Dr Morag Treanor, Dr Graham Spinardi, Dr Sam Spiegel, Professor Liz Stanley, Professor Nicola McEwen, Dr Bettina Petersohn, Dr Claire Duncanson, Professor Emeritus Frank Bechhofer, Declan Murray, Liliana Riga, Alexander L. Janus.

As the new academic session 2015-16 begins, we extend a warm welcome to all of our new and returning students and hope that you will quickly feel at home in SPS.

Our School brings together the subject areas of Politics and International Relations; Science, Technology and Innovation Studies; Social Anthropology; Social Policy; Social Work; and Sociology as well as numerous centres and units including African Studies; Canadian Studies; South Asian Studies and Global Public Health. We also host the Academy of Government, the Global Development Academy and work closely with the Global Health Academy and Global Justice Academy. There are always opportunities for learning beyond the classroom and sparking connections across disciplinary boundaries.

We know that the first few weeks of the academic year can be both exhilarating and overwhelming, especially for those who are finding their feet in a new city or even a new country. With so much to take in, it is easy to experience information overload!

We are holding a range of induction and welcome events for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as postgraduate researchers. You will be provided with key information required to navigate your first few days, including everything from activating University email, to registering for courses, to opening a bank account. Please remember that there is also continuous support on offer throughout your academic studies; never be afraid to ask for advice.

Your key contacts at undergraduate level are Personal Tutors and Student Support Officers; Masters students have the

support of their Programme Directors and Programme Secretaries; and PhD researchers are supported by their Supervisors, Postgraduate Advisors, and Postgraduate Research Administrative Secretary.

SPS is a global community with students and staff from Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Our different interests, skills, life histories and experiences come together in one community, which makes for a rich and rewarding experience. During your time with us – whether it be a year-long Masters programme, a four-year undergraduate degree or a three-year doctoral programme - we will challenge you with new ideas, approaches and knowledge; equip you with new intellectual and personal skills; and support you to make new connections and friendships.

Turning now to some of the other highlights from this issue, we focus on the success of our summer schools as well as the achievements of our staff and students at this year’s award ceremonies. We also celebrate the accomplishments of our outgoing students at summer graduation and speak to our new student society and EUSA committee members who welcome this year’s incoming students.

We have been working hard over the Summer months to give the ground floor of the Chrystal Macmillan Building a major face lift. Our new space, ground@cmb, opens in time for Welcome Week. It provides a café area, social and working space, as well as facilities for group work and exhibitions. We welcome your feedback and hope that it quickly becomes the heart of our community in the School of Social and Political Science.

Welcome to the Autumn edition of Bricolage, with news from the School of Social and Political Science.

EUSA Representation

Meet our newly elected EUSA reps for the 2015/2016 academic year. We speak to our SPS School Convenor and SPS Vice Convenor (UG) to find out what they hope to achieve in their new roles representing the School of Social and Political Science.

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11 From #indyref to #Brexit

As we gear up for another referendum, this time on the UK’s membership of the EU, Nick Bibby takes a look at some of the ways in which our researchers are planning to engage with the debate.

19 New Teaching in SPS

We take a look at new and innovative teaching within SPS as well as our recent successes at the 2015 EUSA Teaching Awards.

21 Research Staff Reps

An introduction to our current research staff representatives, Alice Street and Eugénia Rodrigues, and their roles within the School.

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SPS Student Wins First Prize For Best Article

AIMday Comes to Edinburgh

Charlie Jeffery: ESRC Impact Champion 2015

Fourth year Social Anthropology student, Joseph Anderson, has been awarded first prize for his article entitled “An Anthropology of American Gun Culture: the Productive Tension between Ideology and Embodiment” in a recent competition for submissions to the journal Groundings Ancients.

The competition attracted over eighty entries, with twelve being awarded a place in the journal. Of those twelve, only three were prize winners, with Joseph’s article taking first place.

Groundings Ancients is an undergraduate journal in the arts, humanities and social sciences which is published annually. Its volumes feature articles from the four Ancient Universities of Scotland - Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews.

It provides a rare opportunity for students to be peer-reviewed and published at undergraduate level, as well as the chance to participate in the process of editing, managing, and producing an academic journal.

Having spent his third year abroad in San Diego studying gun violence, Joseph was able to take the opportunity to write an article based on his research, which also forms the basis of his undergraduate dissertation supervised by Dr Casey High. He hopes to pursue a PhD on the same topic, focusing on mass shootings in North America.

Joseph’s article can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/1TsGxks

Does your academic research involve the consideration of aspects of risk and/or resilience? Might the outcomes of your risk/resilience-related research be beneficial to knowledge users beyond academia? If you answered “yes” to either of the above questions you may wish to participate in the forthcoming, risk/resilience-orientated AIMday.

AIMday is a unique opportunity for academics and knowledge user organisations to make contacts and exchange knowledge. It is centred on small group discussions where a specific question raised by an organisation is highlighted and deliberated in detail during the course of an hour by researchers and experts from across different disciplines.

Researchers will be able to register to take part in the Edinburgh AIMday from 21 September until 6 November, and will be able to sign up to respond to any questions that are of interest to them once they have completed their registration.

For further information on the forthcoming University of Edinburgh AIMday on risk and resilience, which will take place in January 2016, and guidance on how to become involved, please visit:http://aimday.se/risk-resilience-edinburgh-2015

Professor Charlie Jeffery, Senior Vice-Principal and Professor of Politics at the University of Edinburgh, has received a major award recognising his contribution to public engagement with research. The award focuses on his work using research to transform the public and political understanding of social issues - known as ‘impact’.

The Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Impact Champion Award is an acknowledgement of Charlie’s contribution to innovative and enduring methods of working with both policymakers and the wider public. The award recognises his contribution throughout his career but the judges particularly highlighted his contribution to the debates surrounding devolution within the UK over the last decade.

As Director of the Devolution and Constitutional Change (DCC) and the Future of the UK and Scotland (FUS) programmes, Charlie placed informing public debate at the heart of

the research agenda. In addition, he advised the Commission on Scottish Devolution (2008-9), the Scotland Bill Committee of the Scottish Parliament (2011- 12) and served as a member of the McKay Commission on the West Lothian Question (2012-14).

On receiving his award, Professor Jeffery said, “The ESRC has been a constant feature in my life as an academic and receiving an accolade like this about the impact of both my work and that of my colleagues is just tremendous.”

The panel gave particular praise to his support for other academics, encouraging researchers at all stages of their careers in reaching out to the wider world. One frequent collaborator, Prof Richard Wyn-Jones of the University of Cardiff, explained, “It is no exaggeration to say that Charlie Jeffery has played an utterly transformative role – transforming both opportunities and attitudes towards impact – among a whole cadre of academics across the UK, myself among their number.”

Sotiria Grek’s article “OECD as a site of coproduction: European education governance and the new politics of policy mobilization” is the winner of the Herbert Gottweis Prize for articles published in Critical Policy Studies Volume 8 (2014).

Each year the Critical Policy Studies journal awards the Herbert Gottweis

Prize to the author of the best overall article published in the journal during the previous year. Winning articles are chosen by a panel of CPS Editorial Board members.

In reporting their verdict, the judges made the following comment: ‘Sotiria Grek’s paper offers an intriguing account of how a boundary-spanning knowledge broker transformed into a powerful policy-making institution. Grek’s study of the OECD’s involvement in European education governance is a good example of how a sociological approach contributes to our understanding of global policy making. Grek combines rich empirical detail with analytical rigor and innovation. The paper invites students of critical policy studies to pay careful attention to the political and cultural effects of standardization, ranking and testing’.

The full article is available here: http://bit.ly/1UClGxt

Sotiria Grek Awarded Herbert Gottweis Prize

SPS at Festival of PoliticsOn 14 August, Professor Nicola McEwen and Dr Jan Eichhorn served as panellists on The Democratic Challenge; an event held as part of this year’s Festival of Politics. They discussed the importance of voting and the possibilities of a younger generation driving the democratic process.

Dr Jan Eichhorn said of the event: “Being able to speak at events such as the Festival of Politics allows us to engage in conversations about our research with more people and learn ourselves from the experiences of different people and practitioners. In particular our cooperation with teachers and school students has been instructive in our work and something that enriches our ability to produce useful outputs.”

To mark Professor Alan Barnard’s retirement after more than 35 years of service at the University of Edinburgh, the Social Anthropology Department held a symposium in his honour. Invited speakers, including Toby Kelly, Robin Dunbar, Adam Kuper, Thomas Widlok, Jonathan Spencer, Anthony Good, Kenneth King and Morna Finnegan discussed the significance of Alan’s work throughout his career.

Alan Barnard Retirement


2015

Student Societies

SOCIOLOGY SOCIETYe: [email protected] www.facebook.com/EdUniSocSoc

Hi, my name is Hannah and I’m the president of the Sociology Society. I started off at Edinburgh studying Psychology, with Sociology being one of my outside courses. However, my love for Sociology took over and I decided to make the switch from Psychology to Sociology.

Currently we have a very small committee with only two other members, our secretary Emma and our treasurer Steph. We are all in third year and love Sociology. We would like to expand our committee in order to have stronger connections with students in other years. We are a new team in ‘socsoc’ and hope to create a welcoming community that will act as a fun and supportive group for anyone who wants to be involved. We are interested in expanding the social side of our society; we have a very strong academic base that we plan to continue, however, we hope to get more people involved within the society on a social level. Steph, Emma and I are all very friendly people who want to be able to have fun while learning more about the subject we love. This is my first time being involved with ‘socsoc’ but I am determined to make the society the best I possibly can, along with the help of my brilliant team.

EDINBURGH POLITICAL UNIONe: [email protected] | www.facebook.com/edinburghpolitics

My name is Juliana Fentress and I’m the President of the Edinburgh Political Union, formerly known as the Politics & International Relations Society. I’m a joint honours student of Politics and Economic and Social History, but you certainly do not have to be a Politics or IR student to join us.

EPU is made stronger and more interesting by the range of experiences and perspectives introduced by students of all backgrounds. This diversity is something that is extremely important to me as we seek to create an atmosphere where all feel welcome to participate and engage in the political issues that interest and affect them, regardless of degree programme or expertise.

Edinburgh Political Union is an extremely active society with many different opportunities for our members. Perhaps our most well known feature is that we are a speaker’s bureau that has proudly hosted guests from Prime Ministers to prominent academics. We also produce the Leviathan Journal, which allows students to have a chance to hone their skills in academic writing, editing, and publishing. Last year, two intrepid members began a weekly radio show called The Back Bench, where they promoted political debate on both local and international issues. Lastly, we are an academic community of like-minded individuals who facilitate informal socials, academic mentoring, internship and careers help, and alumni connections. EPU is a great resource for students, I hope you’ll join us and give it a try.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATIONe: [email protected] | www.facebook.com/EdUniSDA

Founded last year, EUSDA aims to unite and represent Sustainable Development students and those interested in the subject. EUSDA offers the opportunity for UGs, PGs, staff & others to engage with their passion for Sustainable Development. It represents the aims and aspirations of the Sustainable Development degree as well as educating anyone with an interest in this important topic.

By being linked to the Sustainable Development staff on campus, we offer networking opportunities and a chance

to bring people of all levels within the University together to collaborate and learn from one another. Throughout the past academic year we have held fun socials, organised a trip to Whitelee Wind Farm, collaborated with the Careers Service to develop a careers event specifically suited for people interested in a career within Sustainable Development, and organised a weekend of workshops in an attempt to rethink our relationship to sustainability. EUSDA value a fair, equal and inclusive environment where all members are respected. This coming year is going to be a busy yet exciting one, full of new ideas and opportunities - we want anyone interested in Sustainable Development to be part of it.

SOCIAL POLICY SOCIETYe: [email protected]/groups/249240285249101

My name is Catherine Au and I am the President and one of the founding members of the Social Policy Society. My degree programme is Social Policy with Social and Political Studies.

The Social Policy Society is a new society for 2015-16. I got involved in setting it up because I felt the need for a stronger Social Policy community. In April 2015, we organised our first event - Undergraduate Dissertation Conference - especially for third and fourth year students, which was very successful. We aim to be an inclusive and friendly society and we welcome all Edinburgh University students and staff regardless of your educational background, age, ethnicity or gender. If you are doing a Social Policy joint-honours degree, we strongly encourage you to join our society. If you are keen to become part of the committee and help run the society, just come along to our weekly meetings and let us know. We also look out for opportunities to organise joint events with other societies so please get in touch if you have any suggestions. We hope to see you soon in our meetings!

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY SOCIETYe: [email protected]/soc.anth.soc

We believe that SocAnth can be anything you want it to be. It acts as a group which values members’ participation. We want to provide a platform to help students achieve their goals.

In the past, our events have ranged from film screenings and club nights, to more academic events such as guest speakers and special lectures. We have collaborated with other societies to put on larger events, such as with the Archaeology Society where we hosted a seminar on materiality that brought speakers from Oxford and Canada. Our favourite people to collaborate with are those in the Social Anthropology department. We have organised large anthropological events such as the Social Sounds Project. Having the society as a place to discuss the theory that we are taught really helps with essays and exams. You can also gain a great group of friends who are supportive and like-minded. You really get what you put in, be that friendships or study partners, or just having a closer connection to the Social Anthropology department and other professors around the University.

Joining a student society can be a great way to meet like-minded people at university. We caught up with some of our SPS student society presidents to find out why they got involved, what they do within their society roles and what they hope to achieve in the coming academic year.

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2015

EUSA RepresentationMeet our newly elected EUSA reps for the 2015/2016 academic year. We speak to our SPS School Convenor and SPS Vice Convenor (UG) to find out what they hope to achieve in their new roles representing the School of Social and Political Science.

I’m Will O’Sullivan and I am the School’s new Undergraduate Vice-Convenor. This coming September will see me enter my third year of a degree in Social Anthropology and Politics.

The role of an undergraduate vice-convenor can be described broadly as one of representation and communication. It is into these broad categories that activities like facilitating the School Council and Student-Staff Liaison Committees fit, as well as communicating with class reps.

I hope to develop a plan this year for ways that the School of Social and Political Science can engage more with the city of Edinburgh at large.

I also hope to be approachable and well-known in my role next year, as this is definitely the first step to becoming someone with whom students feel comfortable and confident raising criticism.

UNDERGRADUATE VICE-CONVENOR

Will O’SullivanSPS Vice-Convenor (UG)

3rd Year Social Anthropology & Politics

My name is Sarah Beamish and I’m the EUSA elected School Convenor for the School of Social and Political Science. I will be starting my fourth year studying International Relations in September.

We co-facilitate the School Council, which we hope will meet twice a semester, and work together with staff and students to tackle issues which are important to our student community. This involves attending meetings with SPS staff, keeping in touch with our student societies, reaching out and engaging with class and tutorial reps and attending the EUSA-run Student Council and Academic Standing Committee.

Over the next year I hope to make effective changes within SPS including working towards a system of communication between tutorial reps, class reps and the members of the School Convenor team in the hope to increase the flow of student-led feedback to both myself and members of staff.

SCHOOL CONVENOR

Sarah BeamishSPS School Convenor

4th Year International Relations

EUSA exists to represent students’ views, making sure that your experience as a student is the best it can be. The main way they are able to achieve this is through elected Student Representatives who gather your views about various aspects of life at University. EUSA reps are able to communicate this feedback to staff members, suggest solutions and work with staff to bring about change.

It is vital that all students have a say about which aspects of University life work well for them and what can be improved. You will be able to work with

your Class Rep, School Rep, Sabbatical Officers, and other elected Reps to put forward your ideas and opinions throughout your time at University.

Our SPS School reps work together in a team consisting of the School Convenor, the Undergraduate Vice-Convenor and the Postgraduate Vice-Convenor to ensure that the views of all students within our School are effectively and equally represented to both the University and to EUSA.

Visit www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/representation

2015

Awards Season

EUSA Society Awards

Staff SuccessCaroline Foord succeeded in leading CMB to win a Silver Award for Offices based on a project called Green Spaces.

This year, 31 teams entered the Office category. All Office winners implemented a range of practices across six themes including energy, waste and wellbeing within their departments, while Gold and Silver winners went further to complete tougher criteria and deliver special projects.

The Green Spaces project tackled the restoration and redevelopment of outdoor spaces across the University, with Caroline’s team focussing on the unloved garden to the north of CMB behind the Undergraduate Teaching Office. The project also featured in a film produced by the Sustainable Development team which highlights the work of the landscape department.

Student SuccessStudent societies were also recognised at the ceremony, receiving awards for planning, developing and delivering a sustainability project over the course of an academic year.

Fresh from their recent success at the EUSA Society Awards 2015, The Edinburgh University Sustainable Development Association (EUSDA) picked up an award for organising a weekend of workshops to embed sustainability in the core of student societies.

EUSDA offers the opportunity for undergraduates, postgraduates, staff and others to share their passion for sustainable development. The association represents the aims and aspirations of the Sustainable Development degree taught within SPS.

Being linked to Sustainable Development staff within SPS provides excellent networking opportunities for our students. It also allows people of all levels, within the University, to come together in order to collaborate as well as to share their passion for sustainable development. EUSDA offer a wide range of events, both academic and social, and are always seeking new skills, ideas and faces! Why not join in.

More information can be found on the EUSDA website: www.eusda.org.uk

SPS students and staff picked up two prizes at this year’s Sustainability Awards.

Edinburgh University Sustainable Development Association (EUSDA) scooped the award for Best New Society at this year’s EUSA Society Awards.

Sustainability Awards

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Is Europe in general, and the EU in particular, ‘other’ or ‘us’, is it bureaucracy or culture, a refreshing breeze of political sanity or a chilling blast of undemocratic intrusion?

Our relationship with the continent to which we’re attached, however unwillingly in some cases, looks set to come under unparalleled scrutiny over the next couple of years as the proposed referendum on Britain’s EU membership lumbers onto the political scene. What role then for academia? More particularly, what role for that part of academia that calls 15a George Square and its associated annexes and outposts home?

Referendums seem to be becoming something of a stock in trade for SPS. Having analysed, explained and engaged their way through last year’s Scottish referendum, they are again entering the fray as honest brokers in an apparently partisan world for the EU referendum. As Laura Cram, Professor of European Politics and a recently-appointed ESRC Senior Europe Fellow, explains, there’s an important role for academia in framing the debate in the public mind: “One of the really important things we can do is fi nd out what people want to know.”

Finding out what the public actually understands about the EU – and their place in it – is a key aspect of her own project, the EU in the Public Imagination. Thus far much of the running has been made by parties who will, she explains, “eat themselves alive over this in their internal politics”.

She suggests that academic engagement with the public debate over Europe can be considered in two stages; fi nding out what voters currently care about or want to know and then providing information about what the EU does – for better and worse – as opposed to what political belligerents would like us to think it does.

Towards both of these ends, scholars in the School will augment existing tools with new platforms and programmes such as the europeanfutures.ed.ac.uk site established by the Europa Institute and others. The blog will focus on European policy in the broadest sense of the term and welcomes submissions from academic colleagues as well as practitioners.

The site’s managing editor, PhD student Anthony Salamone, explains that “The site is a platform for informed debate, drawing on specialists from across the University and around the world.

“The aim is to imagine Europe and its potential futures – to think about what Europe can and should look like in the years ahead.”

The Centre on Constitutional Change (CCC) is also gearing up for the referendum. CCC Director, Prof Michael Keating has also been appointed as an ESRC Senior Europe Fellow and he and other members of the team will be focussing on the trilateral relationship between sub-state, state and supra-state decision making.

Professor Keating said, “The changing nature of the relationship between the nation and the state, whether that relationship is between the UK and the EU or between and within the component nations of the UK, has been the focus of my research for over forty years. This fellowship is another opportunity to develop that expertise and make it available to practitioners, policymakers and the public. The level of interest in constitutional change has never been higher and research projects such as this are a valuable part of developing a wider public understanding of the issues at stake.”

Consider the VOTE ROCKED

From #indyref to #Brexit As academics and others gear up for another referendum, this time on the UK’s membership of the EU, Nick Bibby takes a look at some of the ways in which our researchers are planning to engage with the debate.

There has been much talk of the transformative effect of last year’s independence referendum on the political engagement of young people in Scotland. Until June 2015, however, that’s pretty much all it was - talk. A study by a team of Edinburgh researchers changed all of that and demonstrated not only the enduring impact of reducing the voting age but also what could be achieved when such a change was accompanied by increased political discussion in schools.

The fi ndings of the study led to wide-ranging media coverage during the summer and motions welcoming the research in both the Scottish and UK parliaments. Subsequent ministerial interest was accompanied by ringing endorsements from young people themselves through institutions such as the Scottish Youth Parliament and the National Union of Students.

One of the researchers, Dr Jan Eichhorn, from the School of Social and Political Science, claimed that Scotland is currently the most interesting place in the world to be researching young people’s involvement in politics. He explains that it’s not just the opportunity presented by two referendums in rapid succession, one Scottish and one European, but that governments and others are genuinely interested in the results of the research, ‘That’s not always the case, it’s a real privilege’, he says.

‘I was really glad that the policy issues were picked up on as well, rather than just the numbers showing that levels of young people’s political engagement were better in Scotland than in England.’

The policy issues in question relate to both lowering the voting age and addressing an anomaly whereby the likelihood of having political discussions in classrooms in Scotland, beyond Modern Studies classes, depends on which local authority sets a school’s guidelines. There seems to be good reason to believe that change may be

in the air as the minister responsible for local government, Marco Biagi MSP, has taken an interest in the fi ndings.

The team’s research was also widely cited in a report by the Scottish Parliament’s Devolution (Further Powers) Committee (DFPC) into the effect of reducing the voting age. Its recommendations have gained the support of all parties at Holyrood. At Westminster the recommendations have the support of politicians from all opposition parties except UKIP although, so far, only one Conservative backbencher has endorsed them.

Bruce Crawford MSP, Convenor of the DFPC, said “All parties represented on the Committee and the Parliament agree that 16 and 17 year olds should be able to vote in future elections. The experience of last year’s referendum – and the enthusiasm and engagement it generated – demonstrated that young people not only want a voice, they want a vote.”

The research team, which also includes Prof Lindsay Paterson, Dr Daniel Kenealy, Richard Parry and PhD student Alexandra Remond, structured their work to focus specifi cally on the 2015 general election in an effort to see if September’s poll had left a lasting legacy. The team asked respondents about their interest in - and actions during - the general election campaign and found that those who had had access to the polls and opportunities to discuss politics at school were markedly more engaged.

However, for that experience to be shared by those who come after them requires both of those policies to be made permanent. Asked about ministerial enthusiasm for the changes, marked by a recent fl urry of consultations, Dr Eichhorn is initially uncertain, “It needs to be genuine. If politicians fail to deliver, it could be really dangerous.” However, on balance, he believes that change is possible, “I’m really quite optimistic. But I’m optimistic only if the changes to the school curriculum materialise.”

Research by SPS academics has discovered that the legacy of #indyref is likely to be an engaged generation. However, for that change to be enduring, the voting age needs to be lowered permanently and politics needs a place in the classroom.

Nick Bibby - Communications Offi cer, Centre on Constitutional Change

The experience of last year’s referendum – and the enthusiasm and engagement it generated –

demonstrated that young people not only want a voice, they want a vote.

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PRIZE WINNERS

Summer Graduation

Politics & International RelationsRussell Keat Prize for Best DissertationWinner: Constantin Reinprecht

DP Heatley Prize for Excellence in PIRWinners:: Karin Vajta Engstrom and Ben Warrington

Social AnthropologyJames Littlejohn Prize for Best UG DissertationWinner: Jennifer Renold

Sustainable DevelopmentPrize for Best Dissertation

Winner: Rebecca Bamlett

Prize for Outstanding PerformanceWinner: Rebecca Bamlett

Social WorkMarjorie Brown Prize for Most Outstanding Student Winner: Helen Rollo

SociologyColin Bell Prize for Best Honours Project

Winner: Peter Scott Reid

Tom Burns Prize for Best Performance in Sociology Single Honours

Winner: Marie Larsson

Violet Laidlaw Prize for Best Performance in Sociology Joint Honours

Winners: Ilinca Barsan & Eilidh Currie

Social PolicyJames Carruthers Memorial Prize

Winner: Sharon Turner

Prize for Best Dissertation

Winner: Sharon Turner

This year’s summer graduation ceremony was held in the Usher Hall on 1st July. A reception, hosted by SPS, followed in The Sheraton Grand Hotel to celebrate student achievements where Professor Fiona MacKay and Professor Jonathan Spencer presented certificates to prize-winning graduates from the School of Social and Political Science.

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2015

Summer Schools

Q-Step Summer School

Document Analysis in the Humanities, Arts and SciencesOn the 8th June, the School of Social and Political Science, in cooperation with the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science, hosted the second annual advanced interdisciplinary workshop in documentary analysis at Edinburgh, following on from a very successful fi rst edition in 2014.

This event built upon last year’s workshop, emphasising the analysis process and bringing together a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. Postgraduates presented posters on their work in progress, and we heard excellent talks about historical archival research in the Vatican Secret Archive, neuroscientifi c imaging as documentary research, the experimental cinema of Andy Warhol as a document, social network analysis of respondent-generated documents, the use of Twitter as data for emotions-focused research, and innovative software solutions to common documentary research challenges.

The interdisciplinary workshop produced some rich dialogue on foundational questions about the nature of documents as well as where documents end and readers begin. The day’s presentations also raised some fascinating and amusing questions: Is it ethical to analyse the tweets of emotionally vulnerable people? What is it like to go through security at the Vatican Secret Archive? Do you really have to watch the entirety of an eight-hour fi lm in which nothing happens in order to write about it?

We concluded the session with a practical exercise in multimodal documentary analysis, exploring questions of context and meaning-making processes.

Audio recordings of the day’s presentations will be available on the Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies YouTube channel soon, and we look forward to hosting future editions of the workshop.

Youtube: http://bit.ly/1TUUCaD

The University of Edinburgh Q-Step Centre team recently hosted a week long residential summer school for fi fty teenagers interested in fi nding out more about the application of maths and statistics in the social sciences. This was held in collaboration with the charity Headstart, which aims to increase the number of school students who continue to study maths in one form or another at University.

Under the direction of Dr. Alison Koslowski in Social Policy, the Q-Step Centre is Edinburgh University’s part of a UK-wide, £19m programme to strengthen undergraduate quantitative methods training within social science.

The whole Q-Step community was involved in the delivery of the summer school - from our fi rst cohort of undergraduate students through to our Professors. Current undergraduates acted as student ambassadors, increasing their own tutoring and statistical programming skills as they worked with the visiting school students. PhD students as well as both new and established members of staff engaged in team teaching, allowing everyone to pick up some new skills; a great opportunity for peer learning!

The course was designed to give students an introduction to using the free statistical software “R” to analyse open access European Social Survey data to investigate social questions of their choice. Feedback was very positive, praising the supportiveness of all staff and tutors, who came from several different subject areas including Sociology, Politics and Social Policy.

We hope that those who participated in the course will now choose to come and study social science with us at the University of Edinburgh, perhaps on one of our new ‘with Quantitative Methods” Undergraduate degree options.

Edinburgh Q-Step also recently ran its second successful two week summer conversion course to enable eleven current fi rst year students to transfer onto new “with QM” degrees in the next 2015/2016 academic year.

The new Q-Step funded degrees are: International Relations with Quantitative Methods, Politics with Quantitative Methods, Social Policy with Quantitative Methods, and Sociology with Quantitative Methods.

SPS recently organised a Summer School on political violence, in collaboration with the Global Justice Academy and HCA. Dr Mathias Thaler (SPS) and Dr Niall Whelehan (HCA) planned and convened the event held in June. Their preparatory research was funded through two different Marie Curie grants.

The Summer School was attended by 18 doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. The students came from more than ten different countries and were chosen via a competitive selection process, with fi ve of the students receiving scholarships and fee waivers to ensure attendance.

The three days were dedicated to a multi-disciplinary and comparative debate about political violence, bringing voices from law, history and political theory into the conversation. Each day consisted of morning sessions with staff from Edinburgh (Prof Christine Bell, Prof Donald Bloxham) and abroad (Prof Kimberly Hutchings, London; Prof Elizabeth Frazer, Oxford; Prof Manfred Nowak, Vienna; and Prof John Horne, Dublin), as well as afternoon sessions of research-based presentations from the participants.

On the fi rst day, legal perspectives on political violence were examined. Both Prof Nowak and Prof Bell connected theoretical explorations of international law to their professional and personal experiences in post-confl ict societies. The second day focused on historical perspectives and brought together refl ections on the emergence of

paramilitaries in the aftermath of WWI (Prof Horne) with a detailed analysis of escalating mass atrocities, from the Armenian genocide to the Holocaust (Prof Bloxham). Finally, the last day dealt with perspectives from political theory. Prof Hutchings and Prof Frazer made use of innovative methods in participatory teaching to probe ideas on what constitutes political violence and how, if at all, we may draw a line between politics and violence.

The participants’ presentations revealed the manifold and interesting ways in which political violence can be approached in today’s scholarly landscape. From the recruitment strategies of Kenyan terrorist organisations to a critical reading of left-wing endorsements of non-violence in the US to the practical diffi culties of contemporary resistance, a broad range of topics were covered. Faculty members offered generous and constructive feedback on the presentations and helped facilitate wider discussions which were both interesting and enlightening.

The social programme for the Summer School included an evening event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, a guided historic tour of Edinburgh and a closing dinner. The feedback from participants indicated that the Summer School initiative was very well received and could be extended in future years, perhaps again with a multi-disciplinary and comparative orientation. We look forward to planning future events.

Political Violence Summer School

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In a bid to break the occasional monotony of preparing for our fi nal exams at undergraduate level, a friend and I decided to tour the libraries of our university. College libraries, department libraries, council libraries, personal libraries, we sat in them all. My favourites though, were always the forgotten libraries. What joy then, when I arrived at the Research Institute for Swahili Studies in Eastern Africa (RISSEA) to fi nd a similarly deserted, similarly charming library: itself as much a historical record as the books it housed.

Since arriving in Mombasa in late July I have installed myself in said library every afternoon to silently recite vocabulary and write some hopefully comprehensible sentences. I am typically alone, although was once joined by a wee lizard.

My day starts however with lessons from my mwalimu (teacher) AbdulMajid. I had anticipated doing some two hours of group learning and then one hour one-on-one each day. However, when I arrived there was only one other student enrolled - it appeared the library was not the only resource being underutilised. Similarly unutilised on my arrival was my existing knowledge of the language. Don’t tell Steve, or my supervisors, but I hadn’t looked at my notes for a good six weeks. My fi rst day consisted of desperately trying to remember the words and grammar I had learned back in Edinburgh.

I began lessons the day after arriving in Mombasa. Following a scenic eight hour bus ride from the capital, Nairobi, I folded myself into a tuk-tuk, one of many Indian imports to the city, and on to a hotel. I say I began lessons the next day but an evening walk through the Old Town brought its own share of listening and speaking practice, with a dollop of deep-fried culture too*. A similarly interactive walk to the Swahili Centre in the morning confi rmed to me that my lessons would be

taking place as much on the street as in the classroom. Talking, eating, and playing on the streets is central to the way of life here, something that my parents tell me has long been lost in Scotland.

Another integral part of Swahili culture is their sayings or methali. I particularly like this one which typifi es the culture here in Mombasa: ‘let the guest come so that the host may benefi t; mgeni njoo mwenyeji apone.’

Language learning might appear an extractive activity but several people I have met here who have lost jobs, homes and livelihoods because of the (recently-lifted) travel bans to the region assure me that they are benefi ting from feeding me their culture and driving me through their history.

Declan is grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Scottish Graduate School for supporting his language training in Kenya.

Swahili Summer SchoolIn July and August this year, ten students from a variety of backgrounds, accompanied by staff members Thomas Molony (Lecturer in African Studies) and Stephen Kaye (Swahili Teaching Fellow), were involved in the University of Edinburgh’s fi rst ever Swahili Summer School.

The course provided an intensive and interactive introduction to Swahili language and Tanzanian culture and took place in Butiama, a picturesque and peaceful village situated just a short drive from Lake Victoria in northwestern Tanzania.

Butiama was chosen not just for its beauty and tranquillity, but also due to its historical signifi cance as the home village of the fi rst President of independent Tanzania, the late Mwalimu (Teacher) Julius Nyerere - an alumnus of the University of Edinburgh. Students had the opportunity to live and take classes in his family home.

Outside of the classroom, students also had the chance to take part in a number of cultural activities, such as drumming and dancing lessons, cookery classes, hikes through local villages and language exchanges in surrounding primary and secondary

schools. In addition, weekends involved excursions further afi eld, most spectacularly to the Serengeti National Park.

Josie, a second-year biology student at the University who was able to apply to take part in the course through the Widening Horizons programme, talks about her expectations of the trip: “I had never left Europe and, apart from half-hatched hopes of travelling the world one day, had never really expected to visit Africa. A month in Tanzania - learning Swahili, learning about local culture and people, history, how to prepare local dishes, visiting the famous Serengeti National Park and Lake Victoria, even just travelling in itself was a new experience for me.

It felt a bit surreal - fl ying into an airport named after a man whose family would be our hosts and whose legacy was everywhere. I didn’t know what to expect but I felt unbelievably privileged and grateful that I was able to see a part of the world that would have otherwise passed me by. I have gained new skills, experiences and confi dence that will hopefully lead to even more opportunities like this one.”

Having begun learning Swahili under the tutelage of SPS’s own Stephen Kaye, International Development PhD student, Declan Murray, heads to Kenya to continue his language studies.

Declan Murray - PhD student, International Development

REMEMBERING FORGOTTEN LIBRARIES, LANGUAGE AND A WAY OF LIFE

Me and my mwalimu

* Cassava crisps and potato bhajias are popular street foods in coastal Kenya.

Me and my mwalimu

Talking, eating, and playing on the streets is central to the way of life in Mombasa, something that my parents tell me has long been lost in Scotland.

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SKAPE TURNS ONEProfessor Christina Boswell - Co-Director of SKAPE

SKAPE has now celebrated its first anniversary. We launched the Centre in June 2014 with a symposium on ‘Open Science, Open Society’, with guests Jill Rutter and Albert Weale. Other highlights of the year have included keynote lectures from Sheila Jasanoff, Jenny Ozga and Brian Wynne.

Last June we launched our new Palgrave Macmillan book series on Knowledge and Governance (edited by Richard Freeman and Kat Smith), using the occasion to organise a workshop bringing together some of the best new scholarships in this field. Thanks to a grant from Edinburgh University’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), we have hosted three further workshops: one mapping the emerging field of knowledge and policy studies; a second on science and democratization; and a third, co-hosted with the Graduate Institute Geneva, on the production of strategic ignorance in global governance.

We’ve also been building international networks. October saw the launch of SKAPE-Net (also IASH financed); a consortium of leading scholars working at the interface of policy and science and technology studies. The network includes colleagues from Harvard, Cornell, Technical University of Berlin, ARENA Oslo, Graduate Institute and Nijmegen University. In April we launched a new Research Network within the European Consortium of Political Research, and we are convening a section at this year’s annual conference in Montreal.

SKAPE members have continued to be successful in securing grants, including from the ESRC, the Belmont Forum/NERC, the Leverhulme Trust, the Wellcome Trust, and the Swedish Research Council. Two of our members were awarded prestigious prizes: Katherine Smith was awarded a Philip Leverhulme prize, and Martyn Pickersgill the Henry Duncan Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

We then ended the year with a SKAPE retreat, ‘e-SKAPE’, where we examined the role and effects of quantification in public life.

So what’s on the programme for the coming year? We’re going to continue our research focus on two key themes:

Knowledge Democratisation We will be developing our research on citizen science, through Eugénia Rodrigues’s new Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing network. And we will be producing a special issue on ‘Science and Democracy in Practice’, which will explore the logic of attempts to democratise science and expertise.

Monitoring We’ll be publishing more of the findings from our ESRC project on the Politics of Monitoring, and organising a series of dissemination events with the Institute for Public Policy Research in London. We also plan to publish a special issue on strategic ignorance in global governance.

We will be developing collaborative research on quantification and public life, and on ignorance and political rationality.We also plan to expand our engagement in knowledge exchange. Finally, we will be reflecting on the impact of the ‘impact’ agenda, through a series of events at the University of Edinburgh.

To keep up with all events and to receive our twice-yearly newsletter, please contact [email protected]

Democracy Lab: An Exercise in Democratic Pedagogy

EUSA Teaching Awards

Empires: New Course Launches

Dr Mathias Thaler, convenor of our honours course on democratic theory, recently proposed the creation of a ‘Democracy Lab’ – an experimental forum where participants were invited to design a new course on democratic theory. The idea behind the Democracy Lab was to enable students to reflect critically on course design and delivery processes in order to kick-start a comprehensive discussion about our shared pedagogical practices in the social sciences. The Democracy Lab itself had no assessment component.

In setting up the experiment, only one rule was stipulated: all choices about the proposed course content and style needed to be made democratically. Students had complete freedom to structure the course as they wished, subject only to the specifications that the topics must be related to democratic theory and that they must maintain rigorous academic standards. The Democracy Lab sessions ran every two weeks and were accompanied by an academic rapporteur, Alex Latham, who also served as an informal consultant in case the participants required any guidance.

Having joined the project on a voluntary basis, all students were very motivated, took the project seriously and quickly developed a sharp sense of what was asked of them. They also paid assiduous attention to the fairness of decision-making processes. Students showed great judgment in terms of the content of the course and its means of delivery, although time restrictions were a challenge.

Towards the end of the semester, students also organised a panel with academics from Edinburgh (Prof Ailsa Henderson, Dr Jan Eichhorn) and (Prof David Held, Durham) to showcase and debate their findings. More than fifty colleagues and students from SPS, as well as from outwith the University, attended the event. Many participants noted that they had learnt a lot and had enjoyed the exercise in democratic pedagogy. The Democracy Lab was deemed successful and, with a few tweaks in scheduling, it has been recommended that the project be continued in future semesters.

SPS were particularly well represented at this year’s EUSA Teaching Awards, with three members of our staff reaching the 2015 shortlist; more than any other School.

Congratulations must go to Dr Alison Koslowski who won the award for Best Personal Tutor. Dr Jamie Cross was runner up in his category for Best Research Dissertation Supervisor and Dr Claire Haggett narrowly missed out on the Supporting Students’ Learning Award.

EUSA’s Teaching Awards are designed to recognise the teachers, support staff, and peer support leaders who have made an enormous positive impact on students’ learning experiences at The University of Edinburgh.

The awards are voted for and judged by students themselves. The winners of each category are then chosen by a student panel based on the number of nominations received alongside supporting statements.

The event provides a great opportunity to showcase the strength of teaching within the University and within our School.

Our contemporary world continues to be shaped by many kinds of empire: from the nation states that assert political and military control over mineral resources in foreign lands to the global corporations that control public access to medicines, food, and telecommunications; from attempts to unify new territories and populations by force to attempts to expand global markets under the banner of freedom and liberation.

This course asks, how are we to understand Empires today? How might we approach Empires as cultural projects of power and control? How might we approach Empires from the perspective of those without them? What does it mean to consider contemporary Empires in the light of colonialism? And how might the study of past Empires help us to reflect on the limits to globalizing ambition?

Rooted in the contribution of social anthropology to an understanding of world history and global social transformations from below, this course approaches the study of Empires through the study of social, cultural and political change in Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the Pacific. The course will be of particular interest to students taking courses in social anthropology, politics and international relations, and geography as well as African, South Asian, or Middle Eastern Studies, philosophy, economics and law.

The course will introduce students to classic themes and concepts in colonial studies, post-colonial studies, cultural studies & political economy, through accounts of cultural, political & economic change in the social anthropology of Africa, Latin America, South Asia & the Pacific. Key themes include: colonialism and post colonialism, capitalism, sovereignty, globalization, political violence, science and technology, consumption & religion.

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Research staff is a broad category that comprises all academic staff employed on a research-based contract, including research fellows, postdoctoral fellows, and chancellors fellows; a growing group within SPS.

Our School prides itself on providing a flourishing research environment and excellent support for the career development of its research staff. Nonetheless, the transitory nature of many research positions means that they are often under-represented at management level. To address this, the School established positions for two research staff representatives on the School Research Committee in 2013.

We are your current representatives: Alice Street, Chancellor’s Fellow in Social Anthropology and Eugénia Rodrigues, Research Fellow in STIS. Our role is to provide input into Research Committee matters which relate to the experience of research staff in the school and to work closely with the Deputy Director of Research, currently Sotiria Grek, to implement improvements.

Developments so far have included inputs into the ‘REF 2020 Road Map’ that raise awareness of the vital contributions which were made by research staff to REF 2014; a review of the School’s current progress in meeting the objectives of the European Concordat to Support the Career Development of Research Staff; working with the Research Office to provide information sessions on

research grants that are tailored for research staff; and an on-going review of the School’s mentoring provision to ensure that it meets the specific career development needs of our research staff.

A School level policy on the provision of support for the career development of research staff was passed by Management Committee in autumn 2014, and can be accessed on the Research Office website.

More recently, we have initiated a series of meetings with research staff by subject area. The first of these took place in STIS on June 11 and the response was very positive and encouraging. It was an excellent opportunity to see which areas may be overlooked by us, as staff representatives, and by the School more generally.

Further meetings will take place after the summer and we hope to see as many of our colleagues there as possible. The aim is to have a more focused discussion and to offer another opportunity to participate for those who may not be available to take part in the School-wide research staff meetings.

As the research staff representatives on the Research Committee we are more than happy to raise any issues that affect your experience of the School’s research environment, and are open to any ideas you may have for improvements that can be made. Please send any comments, ideas, or suggestions to us by email.

Research Staff RepresentativesResearch staff are central to academic life within the School of Social and Political Science. In addition to producing much of our cutting edge research, our staff contribute to the intellectual life of the School through the organisation of some of our most innovative workshops, conferences and events, and through their research-led teaching.

Our School prides itself on providing a flourishing research environment and excellent support for the career development of its research staff.

Dr Alice Street

Chancellor’s Fellow in Social Anthropology e: [email protected]

We are beginning the process by seeking to achieve a Bronze Award for the Athena Swan Charter. Originally set up by the Equality Challenge Unit to advance women’s career prospects in the STEMM subjects (science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine) within higher education, it now includes all subject areas, professional and support staff, and all gender identifications.

A broad perspective has been adopted by including a wide range of staff from across the School including academic staff, professional and support staff, as well as research postgraduates, tutors and postdoctoral fellows. We have a tight deadline of November 2015, by which point we must submit a detailed report on our progress over the last three years on a range of indicators, with clear plans for how we intend to improve over the next few years.

We have set up a team of colleagues who have willingly given their commitment to putting a document together for the award, including people from a variety of groups, grades, subject areas and genders. They include Mhairi Bingham (Sec), Ann Bruce, Sarah Jane Cooper Knock, Eve Hepburn, Mary Holmes, Sumeet Jain, Daniel Kenealy, Peter Kingsley, Gillian MacDonald, Fiona Mackay, Alison Macpherson, Maya Mayblin, Andrew Thompson (Chair), Gil Viry, Neil Willett, Chris Berry and Chihwei Yeh. We are also being supported in this initiative by Rhona Feist from the college HR team.

One of the first actions we have carried out is to survey academic staff, professional and support staff, and research postgraduates about their perceptions of gender equality within the School. We received responses from 70 academics, 48 professional and support staff, and 51 research postgraduates, which has provided us with a baseline understanding of what we do well and what needs to be improved. The results will feed into the Athena Swan application, coupled with specific action plans.

While we are starting with a focus on gender equality, the intention is to gradually widen the work to include all protected characteristics. We would like to be seen as conduits between all School colleagues and the group’s work, so feel free to send us comments or ideas as we progress. We aim to keep you informed of what we are doing and the outcome of our efforts.

Professor Andrew Thompson

Chair of Public Policy & Citizenship Politics and International Relations

e: [email protected]

Dr Eugénia Rodrigues

Research Fellow in Science, Technology & Innovation Studiese: [email protected]

People+ is a new School initiative, launched in 2015, which aims to create a strategic vision for staff development across the working life course. We hope to offer ways forward in tackling the challenge of achieving equality, diversity, well-being and a healthy work-life balance.

People+ and Athena Swan

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Journals

Claire LlewelynResearch Fellow (UK in a Changing Europe), PIR

Dmitriy MyelnikovPostdoctoral Research Fellow (Historicising Dolly), STIS

Clay YoungPractice Learning Secretary (Social Work), UG School

Sujin HongResearch Fellow (Neuropolitics), Politics IR

Lizzie Robertson, Team Leader, UTO

John Riddell, Team Leader, UTO

Claire Moggie, Administrative Secretary (Policy and Procedure), UTO

Elizabeth Goodwin-Andersson,Administrative Officer (PG), GSO

Rachel Howell, Lecturer in Sociology/Sustainable Development

Neil Tarrant, Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Fellow, STIS

Charles Raab, Professorial Fellow, Politics IR

Lorraine Stevens, Finance and Resources Assistant, School Office

Andrew Easton, Finance and Resources Assistant, School Office

Shazia Hussain, Senior Secretary (UTO), UG School

Robin Hill, Research (UK in a Changing Europe), Politics IR

Meryl Kenny, Lecturer in Social and Political Science (Gender), Politics IR

Dominic Berry, Research Fellow (ENLIFE), STIS

Jamie Allinson, Lecturer in International Relations, (PIR)

Lisa McCormick, Lecturer in Sociology, Sociology

Hazel Gray, Lecturer in African Development, CAS

Deborah Scott, Research Fellow (ENLIFE), STIS

Mihaela Mihai, Senior Research Fellow (Political Theory), Politics IR

NEW SCHOOLAPPOINTMENTS

Scottish Affairs

The Essence of the Union” …’: Unionism, Nationalism and Identity On These Disconnected Islands

Michael Rosie, Eve Hepburn

http://bit.ly/1IVUMLP

This article explores how ‘unionism’ and a collective sense of ‘Britishness’ have become increasingly disconnected in different parts of the United Kingdom. In particular, it examines the extent to which white and Protestant citizens remain more likely to identify with political Unionism and Britishness as compared to other ethnic and religious groups. The discussion also includes an analysis of the degree to which ‘feeling British’ and ‘valuing the Union’ overlap.

Families, Relationships and Societies

Social assets, low income and child social, emotional and behavioural wellbeing

Morag Treanor

http://bit.ly/1gPBWfB

This article examines the association between mothers’ social assets and child social, emotional and behavioural (SEB) wellbeing for children living in a family with a persistently low income. The results show that low income is associated with lower social assets and lower SEB wellbeing in children; however, mothers living with a persistently low income but who have high social assets are significantly associated with higher levels of SEB wellbeing in their children, an interaction that is not significant for any other income quintile.

Science & Technology Studies

Greener Aviation Take-off (Delayed): Analysing Environmental Transitions with the Multi-Level Perspective

Graham Spinardi and Rebecca Slayton

http://bit.ly/1IXECiL

In the past fifty years, long-range commercial airliners have changed

only incrementally from the paradigmatic design. Reducing the environmental impact of airliners may require radical innovations and a new paradigm, but the transition to a new paradigm is fraught with risks. This paper analyses how key risks have shaped and limited efforts to transition toward three types of radical innovations that would significantly improve airliner fuel efficiency. Society & Natural Resources

Shifting Formalisation Policies and Re-Centralising Power: The Case of Zimbabwe’s Artisanal Gold Mining Sector

Sam Spiegel

http://bit.ly/1MtkoCa

In the 1990s, government authorities in Zimbabwe introduced internationally praised policies to formalise the artisanal and small-scale mining sector. This article examines the recentralisation of power in this growing informal sector, exploring how heavy-handed implementation of national reforms contributed to livelihood insecurity. The study emphasises how national officials invoked “formalisation” rationales for mining policy shifts that obscured their underlying political and economic drivers, disempowering local district authorities and deepening the marginalisation of informal livelihoods. Cultural Sociology

The Death of the Letter? Epistolary Intent, Letterness and the Many Ends of Letter-Writing

Liz Stanley

http://bit.ly/1JcEfV4

Is the letter now ‘dead’, in terminal decline because of the impact of new digital technologies? Such arguments raise interesting and important points. However, they fail to distinguish between prevailing conventions about letter-writing, in particular time-periods, and the underpinning fundamentals of ‘epistolary intent’ and ‘letterness’, and so they overstate the newness of the features discussed.

Examples of departures from the letter but which display clear epistolary intent and inventive ‘letterness’ are discussed in support, including the letters of Olive Schreiner, St Paul’s letters, Roman legionary letters, World War 2 love letters, letters between mathematicians, and student emails. Political Quarterly

Between Autonomy and Interdependence: The Challenges of Shared Rule after the Scottish Referendum

Nicola McEwen, Bettina Petersohn

http://bit.ly/1MtkLwH

Drawing on the distinction between self-rule and shared rule in multilevel states, this article argues that shared rule has been the neglected element of the UK devolution settlement. The ability of the devolved administrations to participate in, and influence, national decision making through shared rule mechanisms is very limited. The article argues that the lack of shared rule is especially problematic in light of the increasing complexity of the Scottish devolution settlement in the wake of the Scotland Act 2012 and the Smith commission report. Men and Masculinities

Hegemonic Masculinity and the Possibility of Change in Gender Relations

Claire Duncanson

http://bit.ly/1Jbtyh8

In this article, I challenge the pessimism of some accounts of military masculinity. My particular contribution is to build on an emergent and underdeveloped strand of Connell’s work on hegemonic masculinity: how change might be theorized. I argue that hegemonic masculinity remains a useful concept, but that the process through which “hegemony may fail” requires rethinking. I make this argument by exploring and working through empirical material on military masculinities, drawing on both my own research and critical analysis of the literature.

Thesis Eleven

Ernest Gellner and the land

of the Soviets

Liliana Riga

http://bit.ly/1MwTlY8

Gellner’s analyses of the socialist bloc included attention to Soviet Marxism as a developmental ideology, as a secular religion that sacralized the everyday; and he offered the outlines of an account of its failure – from its revolutionary heroism through the cynicism of its stagnation to the possibilities and constraints of so-called post-socialist space. Along the way, his insistent critiques of Soviet Marxism – of both its theoretical and actually-existing varieties – were powerful, sometimes polemical, and latterly self-critical. So what can we now make of Gellner’s rich analyses of the utopia that failed? This paper offers relative departures from pieces of Gellner’s intellectual trail, in the hope that at least part of the significance of the 20th century lies within the lessons that we draw from the utopia that failed. BMC Health Services Research

Who pays for home care? A study of nationally representative data on disabled older Americans

Alexander L. Janus

http://bit.ly/1Ex9pBg

We examine who pays for services that support disabled older Americans at home. We consider both personal sources and publicly funded programs, such as Medicaid, as sources of payment for services. We examine how the funding mix for home care services is related to older people’s economic resources, needs for care, and other socio-demographic characteristics. Our sample consists of 11,725 person-years from the 1989, 1994, 1999, and 2004 waves of the National Long-Term Care Survey. We attempt to outline the implications that heavy reliance on personally financed services and economic disparities in overall services use has for disabled older Americans and their families.

Journals hosted by or edited within the School of Social and Political Science.

Social Policy, Head of Subject Area

Professor Lindsay Paterson takes over from Professor Jeff Collin as Head of Social Policy in August 2015.

STIS, Head of Subject Area

Professor Catherine Lyall takes over from Professor Steve Sturdy as Head of Science, Technology and Innovation Studies in August 2015.

Director of Research

Professor Christina Boswell takes over from Professor Vernon Gayle as Director of Research from August 2015.

Director of UG Studies

Professor Elizabeth Bomberg replaces Dr Paul Norris as Interim Director of UG Studies from August 2015 until January 2016.

Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research

Dr James Mittra becomes Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research from August 2015.

Deputy Director of Postgraduate Teaching

Dr Gerhard Anders becomes Deputy Director of Postgraduate Teaching from August 2015.

Director of the Graduate School

Dr Luke March takes on the role of Interim Director of the Graduate School from August 2015 to January 2016.

Deputy Director of Research

Dr Laura Jeffery replaces Dr Sotiria Grek as Deputy Director of Research from August 2015 until January 2016.

Co-Director of Centre for South Asian Studies

Dr Wilfried Swenden joins Dr Kanchana Ruwanpura as Co-Director of CSAS from August 2015.

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NEWLY APPOINTED School Officers

The Bookshelf

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

NEW BOOKS FROM SPS STAFF

TITLE Realizing the Witch. Science, Cinema, and the Mastery of the Invisible

AUTHORS Richard Baxstrom, and Todd Meyers

PUBLISHER Fordham University Press

ISBN: 9780823268252

Benjamin Christensen’s Haxan (The Witch, 1922) stands as a singular film within the history of cinema. Deftly weaving contemporary scientific analysis and powerfully staged historical scenes of satanic initiation, confession under torture, possession, and persecution, Haxan creatively blends spectacle and argument to provoke a humanist re-evaluation of witchcraft in European history as well as the contemporary treatment of female “hysterics” and the mentally ill. In Realizing the Witch, Baxstrom and Meyers show how Haxan opens a window onto wider debates in the 1920s regarding the relationship of film to scientific evidence, the evolving study of religion from historical and anthropological perspectives, and the complex relations between popular culture, artistic expression, and concepts in medicine and psychology. They lay bare the relation of the invisible to that which we cannot prove but nevertheless “know” to be there.”

TITLE Understanding National Identity

AUTHORS David McCrone and Frank Bechhofer

PUBLISHER Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 9781107496194

We live in a world in which being a ‘citizen’ of a state and being a ‘national’ are by no means the same. This book focuses on national identity in England and Scotland. Using data collected over twenty years it asks: does national identity really matter to people? How does ‘national identity’ differ from ‘nationality’ and having a passport? Are there particular people and places which have ambiguous or contested national identities? What happens if someone makes a claim to a national identity? On what basis do others accept or reject the claim? Does national identity have much internal substance, or is it simply about defending group boundaries? How does national identity relate to politics and constitutional change?

The book is the first major empirical study of how ‘ordinary people’ in England and Scotland ‘do’ national identity in different contexts, and as the United Kingdom’s constitutional structure comes to be questioned.

TITLE Revisiting Moral Panics

EDITORS Viviene E. Cree, Gary Clapton, Mark Smith

PUBLISHER Policy Press

ISBN: 9781447321859

Our world today is increasingly characterised as full of risk, danger and threat. Every day a new social issue emerges to assail our sensibilities and consciences. Drawing on the popular Economic Social and Research Council (ESRC) seminar series, this book examines these social issues and anxieties, and the solutions to them, through the concept of moral panic. With a commentary by Charles Critcher and contributions from both well-known and up-and-coming researchers and practitioners, this is a stimulating and innovative overview of moral panic ideas, which will be an essential resource.

A launch event for Revisiting Moral Panics will be held at Looking Glass Books on Wed 23rd September, 6.30pm - 7.30pm. The event will be entitled ‘Viv Cree, Gary Clapton and Mark Smith, in conversation with Richard Holloway’.

BRICOLAGE - University of Edinburgh · issue of Bricolage or subscribe to our mailing list for...

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