2022 has been a year of twists and turns. Much of the year for me was spent as the Sociological Review Fellow - an incredible opportunity that afforded me time to get my book manuscript drafted (ongoing) and engage in other projects. This blog post will be a round up of what I have been up to. Thank you for continuing to follow my work and creative practice!
Lecturer in Childhood and Youth at Sussex University
In July I was offered a job at the wonderful school of Education and Social Work at Sussex University. I am not exaggerating when I say the most incredible academics work in the School. Settling in has been a breeze and the students are engaged and a pleasure to teach.
Off the back of the Art and Mobilities Exhibition I teamed up with a collective of 25 scholars and practitioners to make a provocation: to further position creative mobilities research as a fundamental contribution and component in this field.
This initiative spearheaded by Kaya Barry and Jen Southern explores how creative forms of research—whether in the form of artworks, exhibitions, performances, collaborations, and more—has been a foundational part of shaping the new mobilities paradigm, and continues to influence its methodological, epistemological, and ontological concerns. To find out more, download and read the open access paper!
I loved being in my home city to premiere this short film made with Pip Cree at Coventry's Rising Peace Forum.
Showing this film to family and friends who work outside academia underscored my commitment to Public Anthropology. Our research can and should have impact. Hearing how the audience felt informed about a subject they knew little if anything about (childhood statelessness), and how they felt moved to action was more than I could have asked for. I have submitted the film to the RAI film festival and the London independent film festival. Fingers crossed ill have some good news to share in the new year.
Drive to School is a short film that documents the motivations of young Christian missionaries Charles and Ai who are striving to bring education and hope to Cambodia’s stateless children. Moved by witnessing the vulnerability to prostitution these children face to make ends meet, they attempt to offer alternative routes to learning and employment. Not without challenges along the way.
Multimodal publications: graphic anthropology
Rumsby, C. and Thomas, B (2022): The Waters of Death and Life: Ethno-Graphic Collaborations. TRAJECTORIA. 3. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology. DOI: 10.51002/trajectoria_022_0000.2
Rumsby, C. (2022): Graphic Anthropology: tuning into melody. Cultural Anthropology.
“If you don’t have the data and you don’t have the story, you don’t have what it takes to move people” —Brené Brown
Writing on belonging and childhood statelessness
Rumsby, C. (2022): ‘Children’s Experience and Practice of Belonging: the realities of integration among de facto stateless Vietnamese children in Cambodia’. Positions: Asia Critique. 30: 2. DOI: 10.1215/10679847-9573370.
Thinking about academic judgment
Academic judgement is a major part of sociologists’ working lives. Whether it is through the peer review processes associated with journal articles, book proposals, chapters, grants, promotion and reward cases, on interview panels, or in exercises such as the UK’s Research Excellence Framework, as academics we very often find ourselves judging the ideas of others or having our own ideas judged.
Myself and Dr Paul Jones, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Liverpool, and General Editor and Digital Editor, The Sociological Review, got together to unpack academic judgement.
That's a wrap! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I am looking forward to what 2023 has in store :)
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