Report Issue 4 from PRAXIS & the UK National Commission for UNESCO on Reducing Inequalities & Decolonising Heritage Practices: the important of people-centred approaches. The report features key insights, recommendations, and case studies from Dr Carly Bagelman, Liverpool Hope University, and Tesfalem H. Yemane, PhD Researcher at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds.
Issue 3 report brief from the PRAXIS and UK National Commission for UNESCO conference 'Heritage and Our Sustainable Futures' session on Re-thinking Capacity Strengthening for Sustainable Development. The report reflects on harnessing the potential of heritage to rethink current approaches for local capacity strengthening for sustainable development, from formal and informal education, to training and other learning activities. The report features key insights, recommendations, and case studies from Eugene Jo, Dr Nelson Mlambo, Prof Loredana Polezzi, Alfonse M. D’Amato, Judith Hall, and Helen Jones.
This article by Henry Redwood, Tiffany Fairey, and Jasmin Hasić provides an analytical case study of a participatory youth-led filmmaking project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Using the conceptual framework of hybridity, it critically considers whether and to what extent youth centred, participatory arts projects can facilitate the emergence of a positive hybrid peace.
Longing for Lost Normalcy: Social Memory, Transitional Justice, and the ‘House Museum’ to Missing Persons in Kosovo by Schwandner-Sievers, S. and Klinkner, M. In spring 1999, amidst a wider ethnic cleansing campaign, Serb police forces abducted Ferdonije Qerkezi’s husband and four sons, who were never to be seen alive again. She subsequently transformed her private house into a memorial to the lost normalcy of her entire social world.
The authors trace this memorialization process; her struggle for recognition; her transformation into an iconic mother of the nation and her activism, both for missing persons and against the internationally-driven Serb-Albanian normalization process in Kosovo. From a multi-disciplinary perspective, the authors critically reflect on the theoretical concept of “normative divergence” in intervention studies.
Inside-out and outside-in on dealing with the past in Kosovo by Nita Luci and Linda Guisa is a chapter in the edited book Unravelling Liberal Interventionism Local Critiques of Statebuilding in Kosovo edited by Gëzim Visoka and Vjosa Musliu. This edited volume gives local scholars a platform from which they critically examine different aspects of liberal interventionism and statebuilding in Kosovo
Epistemic justice and everyday nationalism: An auto‐ethnography of transnational student encounters in a post‐war memory and reconciliation project in Kosovo is a journal article by Nita Luci and Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers. This contribution explores how everyday nationalism, in often unexpected and hidden ways, underpinned a cocreational, educational project involving several local (Albanian) and international (British based) university students and staff collaborating on the theme of post‐war memory and reconciliation in Kosovo.
The Creative Expression and Contemporary Arts Making Among Young Cambodians research project analysed the creative practices and concerns of young adult artists (18-35 years old) in contemporary Cambodia. The project examined the extent to which the arts are being used to open up new ways of enacting Cambodian identity that encompass, but also move beyond, a preoccupation with the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979).
Existing research has focused on how the recuperation and revival of traditional performance is linked to the post-genocidal reconstruction of the nation. In contrast, this research examines if, and how, young artists are moving beyond the revival process to create works that speak to a young Cambodian population. The research used NGO Cambodian Living Arts’ 2020 Cultural Season of performances, workshops, and talks as a case study through which to examine key concerns of young Cambodian artists, trace how these affected their creative process, and analyse how the resulting works were received among audiences. Find out more in the project report.
On March 3, 2021, Changing the Story and Oxfam welcomed practitioners, researchers, youth, and colleagues to an online discussion on how national and international NGOs can engage in creativity, connection and collective creation with young people. Dr Amanda Rogers (University of Swansea), Reaksmey Yean (Centre for Khmer Studies), and Sokhorn Yon (Cambodian Living Arts) of Changing the Story research project ‘Contemporary Arts Making and Creative Expression among Young Cambodians’, were invited to frame a discussion, drawing on their experience of arts-based research and knowledge of the arts and culture in the Cambodian context. In sharing this summary of the emerging ideas and questions, we aim to provoke further dialogue on how organisations can engage in collective creation with young people.
Read the latest publication from Nub Raj Bhandari, a Phase 2 Partner on Interpreting Civic National Values (Kenya), titled 'To what extent does religious orientation and educational attainment deform gendered attitudes between wives and husbands?'
Nub Raj Bhandari, from the Janaki Women Awareness Society and co-investigator of one of our Phase 2 projects, investigates the causality between school attendance and likelihood of child marriage in Nepal, in an article recently published in the Journal of International Women's Studies (2019).
Connective Memories is a participatory arts research project on the topic of Isangizanyankuru (meaning shared stories and memories in Kinyarwanda), codesigned, co-delivered and evaluated by 10 young people and 6 adult facilitators in Rwanda, in collaboration with the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace and Uyisenga Ni Imanzi.
In this February 2018 article in the Phnom Penh Post, our Cambodia Co-Investigator, Ly Sok-Kheang shares his reflections on Im Chaem’s recent conversion to Christianity and its role in Cambodia’s ongoing peace-making process. Ly Sok-Kheang is director of the Anlong Veng Peace Center, established by the Documentation Center of Cambodia in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism.
Journal article Read Alejandro Castillejo-Cuéllar (Phase 1 Colombia Project 'Tales of the Future) article titled 'Small Scale Peace: Fractures of Everyday Life and Transitional Policies in Colombia published in Revista de Estudios Colombianos, 2019.
Listen to the jungle, the rivers and the voices of young people from the Atrato River populations, one of the areas hardest hit in the country by the conflict. Alejandro Castillejo-Cuéllar (Phase 1 Colombia Project 'Tales of the Future) has been collecting the sounds of a region to understand, from the territories, concepts such as peace, justice and reconciliation.
ACT – Arts, critical thinking & active citizenship (Kosovo):
Watch the final cut of the animation created by the Boom Zine 'proof of concept' project which looks at the development of the rock and roll scene in Kosovo in the 1980s.
Opera Circus, a performing arts organisations in the UK worked with Changing the Story with a small project in Bosnia and Herzegovina called Izazov! (provocation/challenge). 4 films were made by 5 young people from BiH, UK and Italy which expressed their concerns about their lives, their families and their future.
None of them were trained in the making of documentary films. Robert Golden professional photographer and film maker mentored the process which was researched by 3 academics from Kings College London and Sarajevo School of Science and Technology. CtS was led by Leeds University UK.
ImaginingOtherwise young people explore Cape Town, introducing their understanding of space and the creative use of film-making to represent people, communities and lives from the perspective of creative makers. Supported by @Lodeffilms as part of @Changing_Story @AylwynWalsh