Student Sex Workers, Disclosure and Stigma

Last Friday I attended an event to announce the results of the Student Sex Worker Project. The full details can be found on their web site but the headlines were interesting. Most surprisingly the number of men involved in all kind of sex work, and in each of the different categories, is higher than that of women. This challenges the assumption that sex work is essentially a 'women's issue'. We were also told that the range of sex work that students are involved in is extremely wide, with a majority involved in indirect sex work (naked butlers, stripping, dancing and web based work), but a sizeable minority involved in the direct form. Finally, while it was clear that many of those involved were motivated by financial concerns this was by no means the only motivation and many also said that they entered the profession for sexual pleasure. The real impact of the morning I attended, however, came not from the results in themselves but from a film that had been made based on the video diary of a female student sex worker. What came out of this film was the isolation that was generated by the work, the lack of support for the young woman involved, and the very strong sense of stigma that was felt, and imposed, on the woman because of the work she did.


The Student Sex Work Project is very keen not only to provide information, but also to provide support and counselling to those involved in the project and to engage Universities in exploring the kind of support that might be available. What comes through so strongly, however, is the way in which the stigma associated with sex work determines the response and so often defines the lives of those involved. From Universities who are reluctant to be seen to engaged in student support in this area because of potential reputational damage to individual sex workers who fail to seek the most basic social and health care support because they are ashamed to admit that they are involved in the profession. There is a very clear relationship throughout the whole of this debate between 'stigma', the way society constructs the stereotype of sex work, and their responses to it, and the level of disclosure among sex workers. The call was for more support, a challenging of the stigma, and to hope that more young people, who choose this work for many different reasons, would come forward and seek the support they need.


This question of stigma and disclosure has been one that has bedevilled the work we have been trying to do around equality and diversity. It has been particularly problematic in the areas of LGBT and disability, although for very different reasons.


I had a number of conversations last week about handing on the work that has been undertaken around LGBT issues within the University (work that by any standards can be considered extremely positive and valuable). With my new role, and the moving on of another senior manager, there is no longer a clear and obvious 'role model' for LGBT activity among the senior management team. The University can cope with this, I am sure, and the work here is strong enough to continue without our involvement. What I found interesting about the conversations around this issue, however, was that we realised just how few employees at the University (academics and professional services) feel the need to disclose their LGBT status. In the case of bisexuality and trans issues this does still relate to questions of stigma, I think that is clear, but in the case of lesbian and gay disclosure it is probably as much to do with 'normalisation' (the total lack of concern about a person's sexuality) as it is to continued stigma. Does the move towards normalisation mean that we no longer need LGBT role models among senior management? I doubt it some how. But as normalisation grows, then active disclosure declines and that is an interesting observation.


The other area where disclosure is a continued concern is around disability, and particularly mental health. Here the overlaps with the student sex workers are very clear. The stigma that is still felt, and imposed on, those with mental health problems, along with the expectation that this will be held against individual employees by managers, leads to a significant under-disclosure. At one level, in order to emphasise the level of the problem (and perhaps to increase normalisation) then we need more people to disclose, but that will not happen until people feel confident that they will not be in any way (formally or informally) discriminated against should they disclose. It is a difficult decision for anybody to make, but support cannot be forthcoming until at least some level of disclosure is made. The tragic consequences of this can probably be seen in the situation around the German Wings plane crash in Switzerland that so dominated the news last week.


There is much to do in order to 'normalise' so many factors that provide the potential for stigma in society and within Universities. Each issue has its own particularities, but I am also struck by the commonalities. As I am also changing jobs I know that, probably for the first time in many years, it is a live issue for me as I choose when, and whether, to disclose my sexuality or my dyslexia in a range of different conversations over the next few months. Interestingly it is the second of these that I feel more nervous about disclosing within the University management role that I am now moving in to, and that is perhaps more interesting in relation to this wider discussion of disclosure and stigma.

How Would I Exhibit African Art?

I am currently reading 'Exhibition-ism', the catalogue of an exhibition held in 1994 at the Museum of African Art in New York. This was one of a series of controversial and innovative exhibitions that were held at the Museum at that time, including ART/Artefact and Secrecy: Objects that Conceal and Reveal. Each of these exhibitions, and others at the same kind of time in other museums, focussed more on conceptual ideas and the repositioning of African art rather than on the objects themselves. This was also apparent in some of the academic literature of the time that was questioning the value and/or nature of African art more generally. The Exhibition-ism instillation looked specifically at the role of the Museum itself and aimed to question the visitors about the museum context, allowing them to see behind the scenes as well as at the objects being displayed. The catalogue suggests that the instillation came about because all those involved sat down and began to ask themselves how they would like to see African art displayed.


In some ways the presentation of African art has moved on since the early 1990s, although there have been a number of good exhibitions that I have seen in the last few years that are still engaging with controversial and provocative ideas (focussing mainly, if my memory serves me well, on questions of commercialism, forgery and the trade in art at different points in its life). There has, however, also been a reversion toward the presentation of objects in isolation, allowing them to 'speak for themselves' and, in a recent Swiss exhibition, a move back towards the idea of 'masterpieces' and the question of the artist in relation to African art. Perhaps none of these alternative modes of presentation ever really went away. The contemporary trend that I tend to find most exciting, however, is that of interspersing traditional African items with other objects, whether contemporary African art, or art from other traditions; allowing the objects to speak to each other across space and, perhaps, across time does something that I, personally, find stimulating.


The problem, of course, is that so much of what is appreciated, or not, comes down to personal taste (although I am very aware that there are specialists who can tell us what the majority of visitors might want for the majority of the time). For me it is the object that matters. I have no real interest in text, and very rarely read text when it is presented within a museum instillation. Using other objects or images to provide context, and occasionally a well chosen video, does work and does attract my attention, but if I think of which exhibitions (both in museums and in commercial galleries, at Parcours for example) really grab me, then it is those that consist of individual objects, well mounted, well lit and positioned within a space that allows them to talk to each other. The overall design of the gallery or other space is as important as the presentation of the specific objects themselves. That, however, is a personal preference.


If, on the other hand, I were to ask myself how I would display, for example, some of our own Dogon objects, then, interestingly, I would immediately tend towards context and perhaps even an excessive use of text. If I am showing my own pieces, or any other collection, then I would want to inform people, to help them understand. If I am visiting another exhibition then I simply want to be hit by the power of the objects themselves. I cannot square that circle, it is probably the basic dilemma of many museum curators the world over: information or power, context or isolation?


I have often reflected on the possibility of exhibiting our own pieces in relation to the work I am currently writing on the Dogon. I would want to take each piece and set it within a context (of other objects, of photos, perhaps with videos, but also text) that draws out a specific element of the complexity of the whole area. So one object would be displayed to highlight the question of authorship and the construction of the object. Another would emphasise movement, multiple uses, transfer to the West and so on. Another would highlight something of the history, the role of the caves, asking about the Tellem and perhaps the inferences of Carbon 14 dating. Each, within its own display would be designed to ask a different question, some more mundane, others perhaps more challenging (how did the objects reach the West, who should be owning them, how do we define authenticity?). At the core of the exhibition would be the black monkey mask (that is my personal photo-image for Facebook and Google) and perhaps a touchtable that allowed individuals to interrogate all the issues further should they so wish.


The problem, of course, is that such an exhibition would have to be really good, really well thought out, all the images carefully chosen and so on, if I, personally, would actually want to spend time searching through all the many different layers. It is possible... I am sure it is...

Is Pride in our University a Sin?

This might seem a rather strange question. The series of Lent talks at our local church this year has been on the seven deadly sins, and 'pride' was the latest in this list of talks. Also last Thursday we had the Annual General Meeting for the University of Birmingham. As ever, this was excellently done, a chance to showcase the very best of the University to the senior leadership and to about 150 ‘friends’ from across the city and beyond. The event was held in Elgar Concert Hall and was compared by our Chancellor, Lord Bilimoria, with an excellent mixture of formal speaking, informal anecdote and obvious pride in both the University and the city. The theme of the whole evening was built on the relationship between the University and the city and the very best that Birmingham (in both senses) has to offer was presented to the gathered audience. It was a truly uplifting evening.

 

So why should such pride be a ‘sin’? On Saturday I travelled down to Swansea to look at possible accommodation as I contemplate starting a new role at a new institution. Does Swansea do these public events with the same panache and style as Birmingham? I have yet to find out. As we drove down we noted that Wales were playing Scotland in the Six Nations at the Millennium Stadium and David, my partner, commented that changing Universities must be a bit like being a footballer suddenly changing teams. While you have been totally committed to Stoke City, for example, for twenty years, and have been telling everybody that this is the best team ever, now you are off to play for Swansea United and suddenly it is Swansea that has the ultimate in footballing prowess. And here is me, travelling from England to Wales, to play, if not for the opposition, or at least for a very different team.

 

One of my colleagues at Birmingham, who has more experience of switching Universities than me, described this situation as a kind of serial monogamy, a total commitment to each institution for the time that you are working for them. I have no particular problem or issue with that and will, obviously, commit myself one hundred percent to Swansea as of May 1^st (while still maintaining a real affection and pride in Birmingham where I have spent the last twenty two years.) That is not really the point that struck me particularly as I sat in the Elgar Concert Hall looking at an amazing 3D film of all the new building works that are being developed around the University of Birmingham campus. That is not why I might call pride in the University a ‘sin’.

 

It was not the knowledge that I was about to jump ship that gave me a feeling of hypocrisy last Thursday. It was more the memory of so many colleagues over the years at Birmingham who would have been sceptical, at the very least, by such a show, and probably down right cynical. It is alright telling us about all the things that are going well, they would have said, but what about all those areas that have suffered ‘restructuring’ when things have gone wrong? What, they would have asked, about the increased workload across the staff base that has made all these wonderful achievements possible? Are the people whose work has created this achievement really getting the credit they deserve? It is true that many of these people, the lecturers, support staff, administrators, cleaners and others, were not in the room that evening.

 

Having said this, I have always been somewhat surprised by those colleagues who do express pride in the University, along side, it must be said, a healthy dose of scepticism and mumbling about all the many problems. I was talking on Wednesday evening to a colleague from another local University and he was complaining about the building work at his institution, hoping that it would not have a negative on the student experience. Interestingly the general feedback from the Birmingham campus, where there is considerable disruption due to the new building work, is a real sense of pride among the students about the investment that the University is making for future generations. I was also surprised, looking at Facebook a couple of years ago, just who did post a comment expressing pride in Birmingham’s achievement of University of the Year. It was not always the people I was expecting.

 

The reference to awards takes me to my last point. On Tuesday I chaired the Athena SWAN working group and later I attended a session for the LGBT mentoring scheme (the only one of its kind in the country!). At both these events I commented on the string of Stonewall awards the University has won this year as a consequence of rising over 150 places in the Stonewall Employers index to establish a place in the top 100. Of course this does reflect some significantly positive work that Birmingham has done around LGBT support and action, both with students and with staff. I am also very conscious, however, that it also has to do with the fact that we decided this year to pull all this work together and to put considerable energy into making the best application that we could. The application was not all spin by any stretch of the imagination, but it did paint some rather mediocre activities in the best possible light, and it did achieve its purpose. The opportunity to say Birmingham University has entered the top 100, that the Rainbow Staff Network has been highly commended, and that we are officially the most improved institution in the Midlands is all very satisfying, and does actually go along way to making that positive spin on the application form a reality going forward.

 

So is pride in the University a sin? Of course not, so long as there is some real achievement underneath the words and so long as we continue to retain a healthy dose of scepticism among all the awards. I now look forward to having the same pride in Swansea over the next few years that I clearly have, and will always have, for Birmingham.

Gender Equality: Measuring Success

Yesterday I attended a summit on Delivering Equality: Women and Success at Murray Edwards College in Cambridge. It was designed for leaders in Higher Education and was very well organised with some important speakers and a number of interesting things to say. The emphasis was on 'honesty', recognising just where we are in terms of gender equality in higher education, on making pledges towards practical steps that would lead to change within the sector, and on learning from other sectors. An important event, even if it was somewhat Cambridge focussed.


One of the things that I cam away with was around the idea of 'success'. The subtitle of the summit had two kinds of focus within the discussions during the day. The first was to ask how we might measure success within the terms of the agenda itself. How, for example, we would be able to increase the number of women in senior management and professorial positions above the 17-20% that appears to be the current norm within the sector. There was considerable discussion of this and a range of ideas put forward, none of which were exactly new in themselves. The answer here really lies in a common commitment and a concerted effort, paying constant attention to the metrics, and doing everything that we can to push the agenda forward. Dogged determination and not taking our eyes of the ball are the essential features of achieving this kind of success.


The other referent to the idea of success was, however, much more interesting. This was to ask what success in higher education might look like, when considered from the perspective of the individual career. Part of the wider issue of gender equality is the persistence of a model of academic success that is built on individual research (or occasionally team leadership), grant capture, publications, conference invitations and global recognition. This is not a specifically male approach to success, many women do achieve this, but it is something that the system makes much easier for men than it does for women. The question, of course, is whether we should be changing the system in order to make it easier for women to achieve this kind of success, levelling the playing field as it were, or whether we should, in fact, be redefining, or at the very least widening, what it means to achieve academic success in a way that opens up other possibilities?


The general view is that 'ideally' we need to talk about academic success in wider terms, to include excellence in teaching for example, an element of good citizenship, a recognition of the nurturing roles of mentoring, student support and so on. In this way some of those elements that have been traditionally seen as 'women's' roles within the departments would be recognized and play a more significant role within decisions around promotions etc. As ever, I have no problems with this, the whole of an individual's contribution needs to be taken into account and different individuals have different strengths, each of which should be cultivated and rewarded. To see this as a way of balancing the position of women specifically, however, may not actually achieve the desired results. There will always be a sense of the star researcher as the 'real success' and teachers, managers, mentors and the others as 'very good' but still somewhat second class. I can see what such strategies are trying to achieve, and I do accept and want to endorse, a far wider range of potential measures of success within the academy, but not just to allow in those who are otherwise excluded from being the star researchers.


The other way of looking at this came from another thread in the summit, that I am increasingly hearing being stated as fact. This is the idea that diversity in itself is a positive good and has a beneficial impact on the institution, including on the bottom line. As one speaker says, it goes without saying that there is a significant business case for diversity. This is stressed particularly at the level of the boardroom in industry and commerce, where it is increasingly being recognised that a range of skills and personalities (genders, ethnicities and sexualities) brings a breadth of experience and approach that is much more creative than the old monochrome boards of old boys. The evidence is clearly there to support such a view, but I am not entirely convinced that the message has really got across and even at the seminar there was a sense that such a message needed to be asserted in the strongest possible terms to make it stick. However, I am convinced that a positive bias towards diversity at all levels, and a recognition of the value of diversity within research teams, within teaching groups, within departments and schools, in professional services, and on University executive boards, is absolutely necessary and the best way of ensuring that a full range of individuals are recognised and rewarded, whether financially or through preferment, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, sexuality or any other characteristic.

Third Time Lucky

It has now been some months since I made great promises to go off to Morocco and think about a Sacred Sociology. As it happens, I did that. On a number of bus and train journeys across Southern Spain and down through Morocco to the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, I thought about what a Sacred Sociology for the twenty first century might look like. At some point I may even come back to it and write out some of my thoughts.


The issue was not the holiday, it was coming back, hitting the new term and never quite getting around to putting something down on the blog again. Time passed and it was already Christmas, the New Year, the new term and my life just seemed to be getting ever more busy. Then, last week, it was announced that I am to begin a new job in two months time, on the 1st May, as Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Swansea. That will no doubt be even busier than the current role, but it has given me an excuse to get back to the blog and, at least mentally, to make a commitment to keep it going through the transition and hopefully on into the new role itself.


One of the things that this does mean is that I can in fact begin to refocus the blog much more clearly on the four distinct strands that I began with (over two years ago?) which now make even more sense within the new role. It is the relationship between the strands of my quartet, and my own ability to see links and juxtapositions between them, that is going to make the new role particularly intellectually exciting for me.


First: there will be a commentary on the Higher Education scene more generally (perhaps seen from a distinctively Welsh perspective in the new role) but always, from my own point of view, with an eye on the international context. Much of what I do will be reflecting on policy, strategy and practice and as that is the day job the chance to comment more speculatively within the blog will be helpful. This will not, however, be a blow by blow commentary on the role of the PVC.


Second: what I called the 'post-post-modernism'. My role at Swansea will cover a number of different areas but at its core is an oversight of the research agenda for Arts, Humanities and the Social Sciences. I have always been keen to develop a much more integrated, interdisciplinary approach within these fields and the role at Swansea, engaging with some really top quality researchers across these disciplines, will, in part, give me an opportunity to explore this further. Whether the focus will be on complexity, post-post-modernism, or even the Sacred Sociology, this will be where, intellectually and practically, much of my thought will focus.


Third: the new role is not intended to be a research post, but I will, of course, continue to research and at the core of that will be the continuing development of my general theory of religion. This term I am really enjoying myself giving a series of lectures to our first year here in Birmingham on Myth. A colleague described the study of myth to me as the history of ideas over the last hundred and fifty years. The next book I write, after the Dogon text, will be on myth (volume four of the general theory) and much of what I read will be in this area so no doubt I will have some very interesting comments to make on this in passing.


Fourth: meanwhile I still have the Dogon book to complete and I am on target to complete the main draft by the end of the summer. I am really enjoying doing the research on that, reading in so many different fields that I had not even known to exist, discovering patterns and connections and that often just leave me speechless, and even enjoying wading through great early twentieth century tomes in French. It has been great fun and a real eye opener. Even when the book is completed, however, I will not be able to leave the Dogon alone, they are one of my real passions. And so, they will be the fourth string to my bow (as it were).


My aim is once a week, so let's see how I get on this time...

Towards a New 'Sacred Sociology'

I am currently working on the chapter of my most recent book on the reception of the Dogon in the West that deals with the discourse within the anthropological tradition and provides a critique of the anthropology of the Dogon with reference to anthropological theory. As part of this I have been looking at the intellectual roots of Marcell Griaule and others involved in the research on the Dogon. This is focused on the intellectual scene in Paris in the late 1920s through to the end of 1930s. In exploring more about this period I came across Michele Richman’s work ‘Sacred Revolutions’. In this book Richman outlines the thinking that came together in the short lived College de Sociologie towards the end of the 1930s. The key players in the College were Georges Bataille, Roger Callois and Michel Leiris (who was part of the first Griaule Mission to the Dogon).

In talking about the College, Richman says: ‘Sociology thus became an essential resource for the College’s investigation of the interface between the social and the political as a key to understanding the nature of collective movements’ (2002, 113) and a little later: ‘With its claim that death is the underlying catalyst for movements of attraction as well as repulsion, and that the need to mediate encounters with it prompts the consecration of sacred places, persons or things, the College united under the banner of a sacred sociology’ (2002, 114, italics in original). There is, of course, much more to Richman’s complex and sophisticated analysis of this movement, but there are a number of things that really appeal to me even in those two passages and that makes me want to explore this whole movement further.

In the first passage the concern is with the ‘interface between the social and the political’. That is essential in today’s world and something that I personally find difficult to grasp. It is this interface, Richman suggests, that is ‘a key to understanding the nature of collective movements’. For those collective movements that really concern us today (radical Islam and the like) this is undoubtedly true and while considerable work has been done on collective movements, and the interface between the social and the political, since the 1930s much of this has veered away from any direct concern with religion. The second passage talks about death as the ‘underlying catalyst’ and the need to mediate encounters with it through a greater understanding of sacred places, persons and things. In the 1930s the College had difficulty in engaging with the rise of Nazism and their solution, in part, was to see this as a ‘sacred’ movement, or at least a movement that had elements of the sacred within it. The contemporary movements can be seen very clearly as ‘religious’, and we may or may not want to use the word ‘sacred’ to describe them. Far less has been said about the centrality of the encounter with death (in all its forms, not just suicide bombings) that sits at the heart of such movements and, I would suggest, must sit at the heart of any analysis of the movements or any attempts to counter them. It is this, Richman suggests, that led the members of the College to ‘unite under a banner of a sacred sociology’. Does this imply, therefore, that we might now need a new ‘sacred sociology’ to counter the contemporary collective movements? I think that it probably does.

I am just about to go off on another holiday, another tour with long hours of bus and train travel, this time in Southern Spain and Morocco. I want to use that time, in part, to reflect on what such a ‘sacred sociology’ might look at (not as a parody of the theory of religion as with ‘metaphorics’) but as a way of engaging with the real issues that we face as sociologists and theorists of religion in the contemporary world. I am clear that Richman, and the College, is not talking about a sociology of the sacred here, far less a sociology of religion. I am also clear that they are not talking about a religious sociology (as in Catholic or Islamic sociology) that is not in any sense what I am talking about, although there may be something to learn from these sources. The emphasis on the word ‘sacred’ with its roots in Durkheimian sociology and its connection with ‘death’, the ‘collective’ and, later in Richman’s analysis with the ‘erotic’ is where I think we need to begin. Obviously to really begin to construct (or is it to ‘reconstruct’) a new sacred sociology is going to demand much more reading, research, debate and discussion. It cannot be put together, like a spoof theory, on a bus travelling through the mountains of Morocco. I can, however, begin to think through the parameters, the limits and the possible shape of such a sacred sociology. That, I really believe, has to be my next task.

I will come back and report on how I have done (and also attempt to bring together the various posts from the last few weeks) on my return…

Being an Entrepreneurial Academic

In a newsfeed on Higher Education issues from the States there was a recent series of blogs on academic entrepreneurship. It offered advice over four weeks with suggested exercises in order to help readers get their own particular ‘business’ off the ground. The section that particularly struck me was on the differences between the academic and the entrepreneurial mindset. I am not sure there was anything new here, but it was the way in which it was laid out, so simply and so clearly, and the way the comparison was made with the ‘academic mindset’ that particularly struck me. The author identified five elements to the entrepreneurial mindset:

• Academics move slow. Entrepreneurs move fast.
• Academics study problems. Entrepreneurs solve problems.
• Academics function in constraint. Entrepreneurs create possibility.
• Academics focus on patterns. Entrepreneurs focus on the exceptions.
• Academics loathe promotion. Entrepreneurs live to sell.

There is probably some element of stereotyping going on here and the text does recognise a little more subtlety than is suggested by the titles, but the basic principles should be clear enough. It was the text under the first of these headings that really made me think:

‘As an academic my approach to change was to move slowly, deliberately and cautiously. I believed that the best way to minimize mistakes was through extensive conversation, committee meetings, producing volumes of written material, etc. In other words, the best way to make a decision was by slowly moving through a process that involved lots of talking, thinking and analyzing before doing anything. As an entrepreneur I act first and analyze later. Quick movement is essential because my goal is to get into action and fail as fast as possible. Every time I fail, I can evaluate what worked (and didn’t work), make quick adjustments, and get back into action. Failing gives me lots of data that I can use to adapt as I’m moving forward.’

That willingness to fail, and the learning from failure as part of the process of development, was something that others had also commented on in relation to entrepreneurship and something that I am more than aware that we discourage within the academic world.

 

As part of my role of Deputy Pro-vice Chancellor (Staffing) I have aimed to apply something of this logic to the process of culture change within the University. It is usually said that culture change takes time, and to fully embed any particular change that is undoubtedly true. With only three to four years to make any kind of impact, however, I have had to think in much shorter time scales. My line manager commented in the annual review earlier in the summer that I seemed to have a knack for start and finish projects. I would prefer to say that I am applying entrepreneurial methods: establishing agendas, making changes, achieving results and moving on.

There are three or four areas where this has been particularly successful (although the exact methods have changed in each case, and that goes back to the idea of learning on the go). With employability I was asked to chair a review. I identified the issues (the lack of embeddedness) constructed a strategy and, with colleagues in the Careers Network costed out what was possible. We took this to senior management, got the go ahead to make the changes (although on a lower budgets than originally requested) and created a model for employability that has by any standards been successful, lifting Birmingham close to the top of the league tables. What is more the model has been taken and applied in different ways in a number of different UK universities, becoming known as the ‘Birmingham Model’, a clear sign of recognition and success. I followed this up with the establishment of an in-house student employment agency (Worklink) despite being told that we could never deliver on this internally, given the University's track record on such projects, and would be better off buying an existing model off the shelf. I made the case for doing it ourselves and the result has been groundbreaking and succesful.

Switching areas slightly, I was asked to act as academic lead on a Higher Education Academy sponsored project on Valuing Teaching at Birmingham (VT@B). This aimed to identify how academic staff perceived teaching across the institution and to make recommendation to improve the outlook and value of teaching as a part of the wider academic process. The issue here was perhaps more of perception than reality but there were clear things that could be done and I made it my task to get these on the agenda of senior management and delivered. We now support the academic promotions process with workshops and training for Heads of School, placing teaching alongside research as well as addressing other equality and diversity issues. We have also established a Birmingham Teaching Academy and advertised for international Birmingham Teaching Fellows to encourage and promote excellence and innovation in teaching. The landscape has changed and teaching is now talked about alongside research as one of the strengths of the University. More importantly, however, the fact that the project existed, was very well publicised and that I spoke to the senior team about it constantly meant that the valuing of teaching became part of the conscious messaging of the institution even before the project reported and that, in itself, has made a significant difference to perceptions.

I could point to similar action around academic performance and on issues of equality and diversity, perhaps with less obvious or visible success at present, but in each case I set out with a clear objective, a sense of urgency in terms of implementation and what I would generally think of as an entrepreneurial mind set (as defined in the points set out above). I think I have surprised myself, at least looking back on the last three years, on how successful some of this has been. What I probably need to do now, however, is to see whether the same principles can be applied to research as well as to the management of the institution. Whether I can make the entrepreneurial mindset work for me individually as well as for the University as a whole.

Entering the Discworld Part II: Metaphorics and Macedonia

I wanted to pick up on what I was saying in the last posting and develop this a little further. I am thinking here particularly about the very narrow boundary between academic theory and fiction. I read a blog yesterday commenting on the plagiarism accusations levelled at Žižec. It was not the accusations that struck me (they appear to be becoming ever more frequent with reference to well-known academics and I may come back to that at a later date). The issue that resonated with me was the way in which the author reflecting on their own experience as a student held an undimmed admiration for those who were capable of producing theory, a sense of awe and wonder at the intellectual weight, and a feeling of utter inadequacy at never being able to achieve this level of academic mastery. I can sympathise with that, in spades, and I always tended to blame it on the dyslexia…

Things have moved on. I have read much more theory. I feel comfortable with Foucault, Derrida, Levi-Strauss, whoever it might be. More importantly I have learnt, for myself, how to engage with them; how, I might say, to ‘play the game’. But that is the nub of the issue, I cannot convince myself that this is not a game. To that end Terry Pratchett is as significant in terms of theory and religion as any of the major French authors that I have just mentioned. His insights are equally as profound and worth playing with. I just find the way he presents them, within the context of a comic novel, so much more conducive and convincing.

Last summer we decided to take our holidays touring round Macedonia and neighbouring countries (beginning and ending in Sofia and heading down to Greece for the last few days of the tour). We tend to take these guided tour holidays because you can see so many places that might otherwise be off the beaten track, but more importantly all the thinking and planning is done for you and so long as you are at the bus at a particular time it will take you where you need to go. This leaves many long hours of bus travel, between the various sights on the tour, to think and reflect on life, the universe and everything (to quote another inspirational theorist on religion and much else besides). During this last trip I found myself devising a whole new ‘theory’ of religion, entirely tongue in cheek, potentially believable, but entirely suited to the many different contexts that confronted us in Macedonia. I called this theory ‘metaphorics’ (only to find on my return that there is a sub-discipline with that name already established in literary theory, and I hasten to add there is no connection with my own ‘theory’).

Let me take you to Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. The current regime has decided to rip the centre out of the town and to rebuild it in a distinctly post-modern style. They also have something of an obsession with statues. They are everywhere, from the two enormous statues of Alexander and Phillip of Macedon at each end of the main thoroughfare to hundreds of smaller statues lining bridges, buildings and fountains and filling up any kind of public space. Surely there is a way of interpreting all this by looking at the interrelations between the statues, their subject matter, and the various meanings they hold. You can then look, perhaps using a quasi-structuralist methodology, at the patterns that are created and, behind that, at the power play that is implicit in the choices and placing of the different images. Such an analysis is at least plausible.

 

Now move to any one of the many Orthodox churches we visited, perhaps in Ohrid, or the Rila Monastery in Bulgaria. Each of these is also covered in images and there is a long history of the analysis and careful placing of these images within the liturgical space of the church.

In Ohrid there was one church, however, where the guide told us that the images were deliberately different, they tended to subvert, in interesting ways, the traditional structures and presented elements that we are much more used to seeing in renaissance painting (although some hundred years or so earlier). The same analysis could be undertaken in this context as with the statues of central Skopje, with the same attention to space, intertextuality and even to power, to read off the religious message of the building. Couldn’t we begin to develop a ‘theory’ of religion out of this kind of methodology, use a few long words, wrap the spatial and power related elements up in some kind of obscurantist jargon, add an element of time and then generalise outrageously to claim some ultimate (albeit essentially subjective) truth underpinning not just these examples, but any kind of example you care to choose, and finally to give it a grand name ‘metaphorics’ just so that people remember it. Isn’t this the way all theory works? And if it is, then what is it that such theory adds, apart from recognition in academic circles for the one who dreams it up?

  

 

 

 

On Entering the Discworld

Last weekend I drove up to Leeds to help transport some second hand books to be sold at the International Medieval Congress. While driving I listened, once again, to a couple of Tony Robinson’s reading of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. I bought these originally when I was travelling back and forth, from Kidderminster to Retford in North Nottinghamshire, during the final illnesses of my parents and, subsequent to their deaths (within three months of each other), while my sister and I were sorting out the house, the estate and related matters. On that occasion I simply listened to the next novel that I found within the local bookshop (since closed of course) and so followed the series in no particular order. On this occasion I have decided to listen in order and over the weekend got as far as ‘Sourcery’, number five in the series according to the CD.

It is not so much the specific content of the story that interests me at this point. It is first of all the effect of spending two and half hours at a time driving and listening to the reading of a novel. This is different from reading. Half my mind (or perhaps it should have been more than half my mind) is on the act of driving and the various diversions of motorway traffic. The text, however, is also mediated through a voice - with Tony Robinson a very persuasive voice - and this does, to my mind, change the experience. As I arrived, negotiated the traffic of inner-city Leeds to find the University, and then turned the engine, and the CD off, I left one world, the Discworld, and entered another world, that of second hand book selling and the Medieval Congress. It took some adjusting (well, perhaps not that much!). What is more, having been on the road a couple of days, fairly consistently, and having listened to five or six CDs worth of text, the adjustment back into the real world of my everyday life was somewhat more challenging than I had imagined. I was still living, at least in part, somewhere entirely different, not far from Ankh-Morpork.

The other factor that struck me was the way in which the texts of the Discworld spoke so significantly into the world I currently live in. I have always felt that Pratchett is one of the most insightful commentators on religion (far more so than the academics of this world, and actually more so than many senior religious figures). I use elements of his novels on a regular basis in my Introduction to the Study of Religion module, although it saddens me to note that the students rarely appreciate either the references or the insights. But it is Pratchett’s insight into human nature, and particularly into the nature of human institutions in the modern world that I find so uncanny and so real. There is something about the Unseen University that, despite its subject matter (magic) and its rather arcane structures, not to mention the architecture, is remarkably familiar and speaks directly into my own experience of trying to engage with colleagues, and especially the senior management, of an institution such as my own University. You can see just the same responses, the same disputes, the same fears, the same mistakes, the same triumphs, and, in so many ways, the same people. That, of course, is part of the genius of a writer such as Terry Pratchett.

There is another element, however, that links the world of the novels, the Discworld, and my own experiences of academia. This is perhaps more difficult to express, but in some way combines the previous two elements. I have always felt, in some odd way, that to enter into the academic life is to enter into a fictional world. I don’t really mean this in the sense of the University as an unreal space. The physicality of the institution, the students, my colleagues, the administrators, the managers etc. are all real enough, and while there is an element of all institutional life that has to do with the playing of games, the ‘micro-politics’ of everyday life, this is the ‘real’, in very much the same way that so many of Pratchett’s characters are ‘real’. This is one reason I tend to towards management and encouraging others to fulfil themselves. That engagement with colleagues, other human beings, is something I can relate to: it is my work; it is something concrete.

 

What I find ‘unreal’, and perhaps always have, is that which others seem to get so obsessed about, that is the research, the theory, the ‘ideas’ and the subject matter of what we teach. I write about ‘religion’, I engage in fieldwork, I read the theories of others, I think and I construct my own analysis, I then write and I teach this to others. Entering into that world, the world of research, of writing and even of teaching, is for me to enter the world of the fictional. I can never fully take it seriously. It will always have something of the air of unreality about it, a flimsy construction that I am actively willing to stay standing upright (perhaps by magic alone) and know could be brought crashing down at any time. I find that expressed so perfectly within the Discworld novels, the ever encroaching forces of the nether regions, the creatures of the dungeon dimensions, that need to be kept just beyond reality. That is what I feel about research, theory and the attempt to talk intelligently about religion, about society or perhaps about anything ‘real’ at all. And as with the end of the journey, the arrival, whether in Leeds or Kidderminster, or wherever it may be, there will have to come a time when I need to leave the car, leave the construction of theory, and adjust to the real world around me, and that is never entirely easy.

 

Religious Diversity, Encounter and Prejudice

I said that I would come back to the Superdiversity conference at the end of June and there is one issue in particular that I have been reflecting on and would want to explore further.

The first plenary was by Gill Valentine and outlined a project that she was involved in around questions of prejudice. At the risk of simplifying considerably, the gist of her argument was that a number of recent studies had shown that in areas of high diversity the day to day contact between people was both polite and tolerant, with little evidence of tension or underlying prejudice. She noted that the research on which this conclusion was based emphasised observation in public places and the analysis of what she referred to as ‘encounters’ (I got the impression that this was something of a technical term in a particular strand of recent geographical thinking and I will need to follow this up). Her work, and that of the team of which she is a part, has been investigating this further in the UK and Poland by seeking out individuals and engaging in detailed in depth interviews. This work shows that out of the public sphere, in the privacy of an individual’s own house, then there remains a considerable level of unspoken prejudice. The public politeness and tolerance is seen as a necessity imposed on the individual by the norms of society (‘political correctness gone mad’, or something equivalent). For Valentine the discourse that her team has identified in private, the one in which prejudice still predominates, was implicitly seen as the ‘truth’ and the one to be noted, while that of the public spaces was fragile and uncertain.

I find this interesting, not least because my recent book is based almost entirely on the public discourses that Valentine appears to dismiss. First, it is interesting to note that there is other work out there which reinforces this, and one possibility for exploring this further is a paper by Susanne Wessendorf on ‘common place diversity’ which appears to link very closely with my own ideas. Wessenfdorf is working within IRiS so I will be following this up and will see what can be learnt from it. Second, Valentine’s work appears to suggest that my own analysis is flawed. That may be the case, but I do want to try and explore this further.

At the root of this, I want to suggest, is a methodological question. In a previous paper I proposed the possibility of three different discourses on religion within society that can be identified with three different data collecting methods. There is the discourse that is based on what people will claim in public as their ‘religion’ that can be seen in the census data and the debates around that, particularly in Abby Day’s work. There is the discourse that an individual will use about their own faith, that is complex, contradictory, and that is uncovered through in-depth interviews, narrative methodologies or something similar. And finally there is a wider ‘public’ discourse about religion in society, what we all basically assent to, that is what I discovered through observation and listening to public conversations on religion. In the paper I began with the three discourses and looked at possible methods for ‘hearing’ them. We could, just as easily, begin with a series of methods and ask what kinds of discourses are ‘heard’ through those methods. So, with the encounter literature in geography, for example, we hear ‘public discourses’. With in-depth interviews we hear a very different ‘discourse’, whether that is one of faith in terms of the analysis above, or prejudice in terms of Valentine’s work. The real question, however, is how far we should give priority to one of these discourses over the others and what kinds of hierarchy (whether explicit or implicit) should be given to these discourse, and by implication the methodologies that uncover them.

I am currently in the process of writing a Leverhulme bid that aims to test some of the claims made through my book. This has been relatively straightforward and has the advantage of being very easy to express. Leverhulme, however, like methodological creativity and I was not finding anything that I could get my teeth into at this level. The above discussion, however, raises a very interesting possibility. Was the discourse on ‘diversity’ that I found in the superdiverse neighbourhood of Handsworth a product of the superdiversity, as I proposed (by contrast to a discourse on ‘difference’ in the less religiously diverse neighbourhood of Highgate), or was it, perhaps, a product of the observational, encounter based, methodology that I was using. The project, therefore, could perhaps test both the impact of superdiversity on one axis, and the impact of methodology on another and see what happens at the various points of intersection. That would probably make quite an interesting and suitably sophisticated and original proposal that I would hope Leverhulme might be interested in.

If at first you don't succeed

On 24th June I turned 52 and, having been in the academic world for just over 25 years, I am probably about half way through my academic career (which is clearly not the same as any career I may have in full time employment). I am also at something of a cross roads in terms of the direction of my current role within the University here in Birmingham. This is, perhaps a good time to come back to this blog and to try once again to see what I must do to make it work, both for myself but also, and equally importantly, to provide something that others might want to read and to follow.

I will continue to maintain the fourfold structure that I began the blog with, the 'Quartet' of the title. That is still relevant, but I may aim to be more flexible in the way I engage with the different strands. I need to allow more interweaving, but also more opportunity to talk about things that are happening around me that may not fit neatly into that particular categorisation. I may also, over time, add further strands, more strings to my bow if you like. I will, however, continue to make connections and try to construct the blog in a way that allows the reader to follow the different threads.

One of the things that I have done much more of since last posting  to this blog is to look at, and follow, a number of other newsfeeds and blogs. It strikes me that there are essentially two types of blog. In the first it is the topic that is of most importance. Either an individual is recognised as a leading expert in a particular field, or they are able to draw together material and links that provide an authoritative commentary on a particular topic (whether academic, political, cultural or whatever), or the individual has their own obsession (whether short or long term) that they wish to share with others. The other form is based much more around the individual, a particular personality, or somebody who has an interesting job or role that others wish to follow for whatever reason. The best blogs, of course, combine these, a clear focus on a topic and an interesting and well-informed personality providing the commentary. I know from the start, therefore, that this blog is never going to meet either of those criteria. My interests are far too varied to keep any single interest, and I am sure my style and personality is not going to set the world on fire. I will, however, aim to focus more on the second than the first. I want to provide an opportunity to chat, to explore, and to engage on a whole range of issues that will come up as I struggle with various intellectual and academic issues that engage me.

The other question I have considered is whether Twitter might be a more sensible approach. I am told that blogs are on their way out, declining in number, not being followed, and giving way to more immediate and interactive forms such as Twitter. That is all very well, I fully understand the reasons for this, both from the point of view of the authors and the readers. This does not, however, fit with my own needs, or really my own personality.

At the beginning of the week I attended the first half of a conference on Superdiversity run by the Institute for Research intoSuperdiversity (IRiS) here in Birmingham. This was a really great conference that brought together a truly interdisciplinary crowd to discuss a very wide range of issues around the theme of superdiversity. I will no doubt come back to some of the content from the papers over the next few weeks. The point I want to make here, however, is something about the way in which I tend to engage with conferences in general and how that relates to the question of Twitter or blog.

It may be a consequence of my dyslexia, but I find while I enjoy listening to the papers, I can never think of an appropriate question to ask immediately after any particular presentation. At one level I need to go back, in my own mind, over the argument, the illustrations, the issues raised etc. and to process the information much more slowly (which is also why I find conferences that are too crowded in terms of papers very difficult and why I also prefer to get out after a really interesting paper to be on my own rather than chatting inanely over coffee or lunch, but that is another matter). Secondly, I always find myself wanting to bring ideas from one paper into conversation with those of another, and both into dialogue with something that I have been reading recently, or something that I vaguely remember from last month, last year or whenever. My response to the issues would never by a single statement or a straight forward question. I need the time and the space to work through the ideas, to explain the connections, to try out possibilities and to see what happens when the theory from one paper is matched against the data or examples from another, and so on. I cannot say what I want to say in a limited number of characters, it just would not make sense. In those terms, a blog -a chance to work through in a reasonable length of text a series of related ideas - is probably the ideal medium. That then, is what I aim to do as I begin, once again, to get this blog up and running.

My aim, therefore, is to write something each week, drawing on issues, reading, conferences, thinking, etc. that have happened that week and to upload the blog first thing each Monday morning. Last time I managed to keep going for 10 posts. I am fully committed this time, to doing better than that and, hopefully, getting into a routine that will see me through the next 25 years of my academic career…

Discussing Religious Diversity

Late May, early June is not a good time within University life to find time for blogs. With examinations, in my case the proof reading and indexing of the new book, and preparing papers for a series of one day workshops and conferences. However, much of that is now past and I have something of a backlog of issues to write about. Here is the first, coming out of the CARD network workshop in Aarhus in mid May. This also forms the first blog in the series on 'Towards a General Theory of Religion', although probably in itself it does not address that directly. I was at a workshop in London on Tuesday on Religion and Census, and I am going to Turku next week to present a paper at a European Sociology of Religion conference on religion and superdiversity. All these will focus on the issue of diversity and so I will try and bring them together after getting back from Turku and at that point I will link them into the wider theme. Enjoy the comments below...

In late May I was invited to Aarhus in Denmark as a guest of the Critical Analysis of Religious Diversity programme, sponsored by the European Union. At this event eighteen  scholars from around the world gathered to share our understandings of religious diversity, to engage critically with the concept of religious diversity and to look at ways the study of religious diversity may develop in the future. The event consisted of a series of papers with plenty of time, between and following the presentations for conversation. The great thing about such workshops is, of course, the limited number of people and the ability to develop a conversation over an extended period of time. I would like to express my gratitude to the organisers at Aarhus, both for my own invitation and for the excellent organisation of the event.

It is not my intention here to give a summary of every paper or in any other way to speak on behalf of others at the event. I simply wish to draw out a number of themes that I felt to be important and to develop them as appropriate. In doing this I want to address, for a very personal perspective, the central theme of the workshop and of the wider CARD programme, that is the critical reflection on what is meant by religious diversity and what we, primarily as sociologists, can do to engage with that concept in our work.

The first theme was raised right from the start in the excellent opening address delivered by Peter Beyer. I will not summarise the full background analysis that led to this point, or suggest that this was Peter’s primary point, but it was the issue that struck me from his talk and one which came back time and again during the workshop. This was the question of what level of diversity we might be talking about in our studies. There is clearly diversity at international, national, regional and local levels, although much of that is still framed in terms of what became known in the workshop as the ‘big six’, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Such a list of major global religions does not, even in itself, offer any real recognition for more local religious traditions, religions that sit between and across the big six, indigenous religions, new religious movements, or the many different positions that Peter highlighted as versions of ‘non-religion’, including the obvious secularist traditions, but also areas where culture and religion become confused. Beyond this issue, however, which may well be a question of definition, it was also noted that there was considerable variety within all of the big six, and the many other religious traditions out there, that sometimes had profound effects. We had an excellent paper on the variety of Muslims (whether between Suni, Shia etc. or in terms of national origin) in Australia and the very different attitudes of those who have these sometimes very different identities. Finally there was the question of possible religious diversity within individuals, whether because of dual heritage, or more likely in the contemporary world, because individuals choose what elements of religious traditions they find most helpful/comfortable/challenging. Religious diversity, therefore, needs to be more closely defined and delimitated before it can be used as an analytic tool.

The second issue was the question of whether we should be talking about religious diversity or pluralism. The suggestion was that ‘pluralism’ implied some kind of ideological commitment to the idea of religious diversity, that it was not just a good think, but something that we should actively work to implement. It also implied that the relation between religions should go beyond mere diversity to active engagement and even possible unity as an ultimate goal. Sitting behind this distinction, and the way the discussion played out more commonly within the workshop, is the question of the religious commitment of the researcher. Some at the workshop were keen to uphold the traditional sociological position of methodological atheism, or perhaps agnosticism. Others were fully committed participants who were looking for more theological engagement with the issues. What was clear, however, is that practically all those present agreed that positive religious diversity was a good thing and should be encouraged in and of itself, that the religious bodies should engage with each other in a positive fashion and that this was ultimately good for the society, and perhaps even for the government (a number of those present worked on government sponsored projects and the question of the paymaster in these discussions was never far from the surface). One really interesting take on this issue came from a study of interreligious activity in Germany. This was one of the more neutral papers, so far as any commitment to religious diversity as a good things in itself went, but the analysis of the context and performance of interreligious engagement, drawing on a Goffmanesque analysis passed on performative elements in the dialogue, offer for me a fascinating way of engaging with the wider discussion.

What, therefore, did we learn? First that religious diversity is a fact of life in the current globalised world, and that it is going to grow, however we actually define that diversity. Second, that we need to look beyond the big six religions and look both at internal diversity within the religions, and the much more complex issues of individual diversities among both religious and non-religious people. Third, that this is an explicitly political, and I would argue ‘theological’, issue and that the question of where we stand, and as I said in one of the discussions, our motives and what we wish to get out of the studies, is of central importance. There is no simple theory of religious diversity in a globalised world. Economics, population movements, political positioning, local government policies, individual senses of identity and many other factors all come into play. It is even more essential, therefore, that out of this context networks like CARD who can engage in the wider theoretical and critical debates about diversity are essential, and it is good to be able to report that they are looking to gather again next year to take the discussions forward.

Care and Curation

In this post I want to go back to the conference on material religion in Durham. It always interests me how the programmes that are put together at such conferences always manage to juxtapose different and sometimes seemingly incompatible ideas, but still manage to spark new thoughts. It is the serendipity of the process that I find so fascinating, and which links through to some of my ideas around post-post modernism (see posting below).

One particular combination of papers at the conference triggered a particular line of thought for me. Both were very different in themselves. The first was by Amy Whitehead and drew on her fieldwork in southern Spain, where she is observing the way in which local people interact with specific shrines and statues of Our Lady. She was interested in the kind of issues related to subjectivity and relationships with non-human others that I looked at in the previous posting in this strand. The second was by Pamela Smart and focussed on the collecting practices of the De Menil family and in particular showed how their religious background and concerns led to a specific approach both to collecting in general and to that which was collected. The main purpose of Pamela's paper as I understood it was to show that Catholicism and modernism were not incompatible, especially when seen through the lens of the De Menil family's collecting. Both were excellent papers but it was one small element of each that particularly caught my attention and led me to reflect on our relationship with material objects in the light of my own interest in Dogon art.

From Amy's paper the element that struck me was the way in which the women associated with the shrine care for the statue. Traditionally these women would have been virgins, but that is no longer possible. What is interesting, however, is that these women are the only ones entitled to care for the statue in an intimate and very personal way when all the other people have been removed from the church. They change the clothes and even they have to hold up a sheet and look away while their leader changes the underwear. This is very intimate care representing very close contact with the statue that treats that statue as a real person, and a very special person, a person who is understood to be a Queen.

In Pamela's paper the point that she made, which particularly struck me, was that the private nature of the collection led to a particular emphasis on curatorial care of the objects within the collection. This involved restoration, stabilisation, and an attention to the needs of the object in terms of environment for storage and display. Pamela argued that such attention to care is not as clear in the case of public collections of different kinds, but was central to the whole ethos of the maintenance and display of the collection for these private collectors, even to the point of dictating the form of the building that holds the display. There is a personal element here, as with the statue from southern Spain, but this is the collector's personal attachment to the objects within the collection.

What I picked up from this particular juxtaposition was the different understandings of care and curation of objects in different settings and contexts. Linked to this is very clearly the idea of ownership. For the private collector it is the fact of personal ownership that leads to the emphasis on care for the object. In the case of the women at the shrine I might suggest that it is actually the ownership of the women by the statue that demands the level of intimate care that is seen in the ritual. But ownership is only one aspect. As with the wider themes of the conference and the questions of personhood and subjectivity, the issues around care and curatorship lead us right into the question of our relationships with the material, especially within the context of religion.

As I work through the material on the Dogon I can see both elements of this juxtaposition at work. For the people themselves there is a caring for the objects, within the shrines as part of the ritual, in their placing these objects within the cliffside caves to preserve them among the dead, and in their reuse of the objects at other times. The layers of sacrificial patina represent a kind of care, as do the addition of nails, jewellery and other additions. Finally there are also elements of repair that are seen on some of the objects that in itself is a sign of care. Repair can also be seen, depending on when it is undertaken, in relation to collectors (although it is often frowned upon as authenticity does not expect the collector to go quite this far in their care of the object). How the museums, galleries and private collectors also 'care' for the objects, and the different ways these different groups do 'care' for the objects is also a fascinating area of study. I am not sure I can offer any conclusions at this stage, but it has raised so many new questions for me about the relations between the human and the object in the case of Dogon art, and in many other contexts.

Teaching as a Protected Characteristic

Last week I went to Leeds to present some of the findings from the Valuing Teaching @ Birmingham (VT@B) Project to those who are taking part in this year's HEA Change initiative. VT@B was an Higher Education Academy supported project undertaken here at Birmingham University to look at the way in which the balance between teaching and research among academic staff was understood by the staff themselves. It consisted of a series of interviews with a wide cross section of staff, feedback from a web survey and a number of focus groups and discussions with senior managers within the University. The project led to a series of recommendations aimed at redressing the balance between the recognition of teaching and research in academic contracts within the University.

This is not really the place to go into the specific results in great detail. The overall conclusion, which will probably reflect many other research intensive universities (and others from the responses at the HEA event) is that as we approach the REF submission, many academics feel that teaching is being undervalued, at the day to day level within specific departments, when considering issues such as promotion, and in the wider messaging of the University, especially on the outward facing web site. With the emphasis on increase grants, however, an increasing discourse around student experience, and the importance of NSS and other elements of national league tables, then it was noted that this might be changing.

One interesting point struck me, however, as I was preparing the presentation for the HEA event, and that I raised in the final few minutes of the presentation. This was the similarities between much of the language and structures of discrimination that we had heard around teaching within the project and the debate that is happening more broadly around gender, race or sexuality within the whole field of equality and diversity. I am responsible, within the University, for our Equality Executive Group and like so many other Universities we have been struggling with things like the Athena Swan charters, questions of BME attainment gaps, recognition for our work on sexuality and even interfaith activities across the University. Within all these areas the question is not so much overt sexism or racism among staff or as an institution. Attitudes of that kind are very rare these days, although perhaps still too common for comfort. The issue in all these 'protected characteristics' is actually one of implicit prejudice.

I could perhaps take the example of religious faith as an example. Many colleagues, and even whole individuals, will claim quite legitimately that they have no faith position and that they do not take faith positions into account in relation to teaching, to promotion practices within the institution, in relation to research or in relation to expectations in terms of workload models or whatever it is. However, almost by saying that they are demonstrating an implicit prejudice and if they took the time to make themselves aware of the specific needs and experiences of people of different religious groups, then they would realise that whether it is in relation to prayer times, washing facilities, food provision, failure to recognise faith perspectives in learning and teaching, or whatever else it might be, by claiming to do nothing detrimental they are in fact limiting the chances of some of their students, or their colleagues who hold committed faith positions.

Another element of implicit prejudice comes through experiments which show that even those who have a good track record on, for example, race issues can still react differently (more quickly, less consciously) when confronted by pictures of individuals from different racial backgrounds holding guns. the prejudice is so ingrained that we do not always note that we display it. This has also been shown to be the case when names are added at the top of essays, or promotion documentation. Even if the individual is not known, our assumptions about gender, race, or perhaps even religion, will determine, perhaps only slightly, but still measurably, our response to the paper concerned.

In the case of teaching, therefore, what we see in our data is the idea of teaching as a 'protected characteristic' among academics. We say all the right things. We assert as institutions that individual academics have as much chance of promotion or reward on their teaching as they do on their research. We claim to recognise teaching excellence in colleagues and at times of promotion etc. If we stop to think about it, and are clearly challenged to do so, then this is what we do. However, when we are under pressure to deal with a pile of forms, to sort out next year's work load, to think on the spot of who to recommend for reward or recognition (however that is done) at any one time, then across most research focussed Universities, and perhaps we could say most universities, we revert to type, and our implicit prejudices come to the for. I am probably as guilty of this as any other manager. The solution, however, is one of raising awareness, noting and drawing to the attention of boards and managers, asking our colleagues to stop and think about the consequences of their actions, becoming self aware. These are exactly the same solutions that we are learning to take on board for all protected characteristics and perhaps, in the University context, we need to add 'teaching' to that list.

Dogon Sculpture and Material Religion

Following the theme of the conference that I attended at Durham, I have been thinking about how far the various ideas around material religion can be applied to the Dogon sculptures and masks. Dogon material has always been recognised as being religious, but the exact nature of the religious element and the relationship between the religious and the objects themselves has tended to change over time.

 

One of the things that I am doing in the development of the book on the Uses of the Dogon is trying to track the development of ideas about the Dogon, their life and culture, their art, and, yes, their religion. Of course to talk of ‘their religion’ raises many questions that I ought to be addressing in another one of the strands of this blog. That is not where I want to go in this posting. Suffice it to say, for now, that by ‘religion’ at this point I am meaning interactions with the non-empirical, the other.

Historically the interpretation of masks, and to some extent of statues as well, has been dominated by Marcel Griaule’s classic work on myth. From his earliest work on the masks, through his conversations with Ogotommêli, to the work that Griaule and Dieterlen put into Le Renard Pâle, the complex myths that form the pinnacle of knowledge among the Dogon were assumed to be the basis for understanding every other aspect of Dogon life. It is not my place in this posting to question the myths themselves, or Griaule’s construction of the myth, but it is simply to note that both he, and those who followed him, assumed that an understanding of the myth would make sense of all aspects of the Dogon culture and life, including their material culture. All masks, therefore, all symbols and drawings on the fronts of houses, all sculpture and granary doors, all aspects of Dogon art, was understood in terms of the myths. Everything was a Nomo, a twin figure, an ark, or whatever it might be.

Over time, however, it was recognised that the myths did not relate easily to the principle forms of the sculpture, especially, for example, the maternity figures, the equestrian figures, or figures holding various day to day objects. A new understanding began to see the sculptures more in relation to ancestor figures rather than related directly to the myths. This was reinforced by what was known about the use that was made of sculptures in various shrines (and actually very little was known about the use of the sculptures as Griaule and his colleagues focussed so heavily on the masks and the dances that they tended to overlook other aspects of ritual and material culture). The figures were seen as representations, or repositories of the ancestors, a means or mode of communication between the living and previous generations. They were a source of power, or perhaps more accurately a conduit for the power of the other.

The latest thinking around material religion, however, as expressed in a number of different papers at the conference, aims to break down the distinction between the material and the spiritual, to see the object not as a container for the other, or for power in whatever form, but to see the relationship with the other being a relationship between subjective persons, to see the object as having agency in its own right. Are the sculptures representations of the ancestors? Are they conduits for the power of the ancestors? No, in this view they cannot be that. They are players within the religious field, subjective others in their own right, part of a complex relationship between human persons and non-human persons. Much current thinking around animism is focussed on this kind of interaction and the subjectivity, or the agency, of the non-human other.

I am not sure that I actually have the ethnographic knowledge to be able to provide a real rethinking of the role of sculptures as non-human others within the Dogon religious world. I can speculate, of course, and what fascinates me more than anything else in this context is the way older statues can be used and re-used. The work on the biography of the object (a different kind of subjectivity and relationship with the material) plays out in wonderful ways among the Dogon where objects, made many centuries ago, can be used within shrines, taken to the cliffs and ‘buried’ with the dead, rediscovered, reignited with power, and reused in ritual, perhaps many times over, before finally being collected by travellers and dealers and bought to the West for sale, collection and display.

To simply treat these objects as illustrations of the myth, however wonderful and complex that myth is, or as bit parts in ancestor cults, conduits of power, or even as aesthetic masterpieces within the museum, is ultimately to undervalue them as non-human others, objects with life and with power, part of a long historic relationship with many different human others and part of a contemporary relationship with the collector and observer. It is this that, somehow, I think we ought to rediscover…

Dogon Art at the Liverpool World Museum

This is the first of three postings under the theme of Uses of the Dogon. As I have explained below (Post 1), that is the title I have given to the book I am currently writing on the way in which the Dogon people have been represented in different kinds of discourse (anthropological, art historical and tourist) in the West. What I want to use this strand of the blog for, therefore, is to comment on things that I am reading and visits that I am making that have a loss relationship to the book, but may not actually be included within the text itself.

The week before last I visited Liverpool World Museum with my partner to look at the Africa gallery and to see the Dogon items that are held by the Museum. Last week I attended a conference at Durham, organised by the Sociology of Religion section of the British Sociological Association, on the theme of Material Religion. These three postings, by way of catching up with myself, will pick up themes that come from these two experiences.

So, back to Liverpool, I must begin by offering my thanks to Zachary Kingdon, the curator of the Africa Collection at Liverpool for giving his time to show us around the gallery and taking us out to the store to see the other Dogon items. Liverpool has a small collection of Dogon pieces, all acquired during the 1960s when the then curator used money given to the museum to rebuild its collection after damage during the war, to buy a number of objects on the open market to, in many ways, ‘complete the collection’. The Dogon items, however, did not ‘complete the collection’ and, I assume the same was true of many of the other items bought at this time. This was because the ‘collection’ as it had developed in Liverpool really never should have contained Dogon items in the first place. It was a collection largely put together by a Liverpool merchant, Arnold Ridyard, who travelled the coast of West Africa from Sierra Leone to Angola accepting donations from, and making purchases from, local Africans in the different countries visited. It is only by some abstract notion of ‘African Art’ that Dogon pieces would have been seen to add to, or ‘complete’ such a collection. It is an understanding of what Zachary has called the ‘canon’ of African Art. That the Dogon are seen as an essential part of such a canon is, of course, interesting and relevant to the book, but of little direct relevance to Liverpool.

Zachary has done some very interesting work on the African donors to the original collection and the current gallery within the museum makes a significant point of placing the African individuals back into the story of the collection and its position within Liverpool. Even the Congo material, which was largely purchased by Ridyard, emphasises the role that local African research assistants played in going from village to village asking about the use and relevance of the Nkisi nail figures. This placing of the African individuals, both men and women, at the centre of the story, and recognising their links to Liverpool, where some came to study, or sent their children to study, provides a very different kind of narrative that gets beyond the ‘art/artefact’ debate. It gives a coherence to the gallery and an interest that is historical as well as cultural.

Unfortunately, however, in the middle of the gallery sits a display of items from Benin. These probably could not have been ignored, they are of excellent quality and very impressive items in themselves, a few bronzes and a series of ivory tusks. One of these, on the wall apart from the others, was collected before the British expeditionary force arrived and could well have been a gift to an earlier merchant. The majority, however, came from the violent activities of the British and represent plunder rather than gifts or the result of trade. I did not feel that this distinction was really brought out clearly enough in the display.

At the end of the gallery, on the other hand, some of the items bought in the 1960s are set aside, including a wonderful seated Dogon figure. These are set aside as evidence of a different kind of ‘collecting’ from the bulk of the exhibition and while this makes a useful point, and while most of the items are one-off, because of the way they were purchased, and so could not form part of a wider display of a particular people or region, I did feel the distinction was somewhat false. That, however, is a personal opinion and I still have to say that this was one of the most imaginative and informative exhibitions of African cultural artefacts that I have seen in recent years and would be highly recommended.