Dr Erika Kalocsányiová (Centre for Research & Enterprise in Language) with colleagues from the Institute for Lifecourse Development have recently published a paper examining the amount, content, and prominence of Covid-19 signage in Hackney, a London borough severely hit by the first wave of the pandemic.
Having analysed 1288 signs collected between May and July 2020, results showed significant differences in Covid-19 signage between deprived and less deprived areas. These differences (e.g., in messaging about staying at home) have created inequalities in access to Covid-19 related health information and guidance. The paper also explores the changes in Covid-19 signage over time and the tailoring of risk and health messages to minority communities.
As part of the University’s Scholars in the Spotlight event series, Alex Fanghanel, Emma Milne, Giulia Zampini, Stacy Banwell and Michael Fiddler hosted a book tour with a difference to launch the publication of their new textbook called Sex and Crime.
Taking the audience – which comprised people from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including some out of academia – on a tour of their 15-chapter oeuvre, the authors hosted an interactive session in which they presented a few of the main themes of their work.
The audience was asked to grapple with complicated issues to do with sexual consent, sexual propriety, romance fraud, abortion, police surveillance, and institutional sexual violence. By collaborating with the audience using mentimeter, the authors demonstrated the critical, radical pedagogy that has been embedded throughout the textbook, which is one of the reasons why it stands out so much from the crowd as a pivotal text for undergraduate study.
The event was hosted on 12th February as a tongue in cheek and subversive way to link the event with Valentine’s Day. Indeed, a highlight of the evening was when Emma Milne reminded everyone not to get married, because any form of state sanctioned sexual practice was inherently capitalistic and exploitative in nature. Who says romance is dead in criminology?
A video of the event can be viewed here, the book can be purchased here, and the discount code is available at the end of the video.
Feedback from the event:
‘It was a very interesting, extremely well-structured evening’ – Prof Josh Davies
‘A really thought provoking and first class session. Real impact potential’ Prof Steven Haines
‘it was just so exceptional. It had all the elements of an event that stays with you’ Kristian Humble
On 20 February 2019, a conference on the right to privacy was organised at the University of Greenwich, with the support of Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA). Subsequent to the conference, Dr Aysem Diker Vanberg and Dr Özgür Heval Çɪnar from School of Law and Criminology prepared a special issue on `The right to privacy in the digital age: different perspectives around the globe` which has now been published in the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol 25, Issue 1).
The right to privacy is one of the rights enshrined in international human rights law. However, with the increasing digitalisation of modern life, protecting one’s privacy has become more complicated, with both state and non-state organisations making frequent interventions in citizens’ private lives. In this special issue they focus on the right to privacy in the digital age with a view to see how it is implemented across the globe in different jurisdictions. This special issue is very unique as there have not been any publications with similar content covering the issue as extensively, which is a first in this regard. Links to each of the articles in the special issue are below, with contributions from the School of Law and Criminology’s Dr Kristian Humble, Dr Aysem Diker Vanberg, and Dr Özgür Heval Çɪnar:
October 22nd marked the launch of the Gender, Deviance and Society (GDS) research group at the University of Greenwich and we marked the event with an online webinar.
Drawing together the research expertise of its leaders – Dr Stacy Banwell, Dr Alexandra Fanghanel, Dr Camille Stengel and Dr Giulia Zampini – GDS aims to push forward research innovation in gender-related matters through interdisciplinary approaches, horizontal leadership, and mentoring. We want to create a platform for all members of the group at all stages of their scholarship and research to come together and learn from each other.
The Gender, Deviance and Society (GDS) online launch webinar
For this occasion, we were excited to be able to read one of our members’ work in full (academics struggle to find time to read these days, or at least to read slowly). We always support each other’s achievements, but we seldom have time to really dig deep into each other’s work and ideas, so reading Dr Banwell’s work was a privilege. And beyond that, witnessing her ideas come to life in the discussion and be delivered with enthusiasm and intellectual prowess was very exciting.
Venturing into the world of webinars for the first time posed some technical challenges, which we met with laughter and jokes (and some frantic emails and Team and WhatsApp messaging back and forth, which webinar chair Dr Stengel managed with an exemplary poker face).
Overall, we succeeded in keeping our audience during the 45 minutes question and answer-style webinar, where Dr Fanghanel and Dr Zampini “grilled” Dr Banwell with questions about her book. This was smoothly followed by some thought-provoking questions from the audience.
It was great to see a heterogeneous audience made up of students as well as scholars from other disciplines. This reflects the aims and objectives of the group to bring together scholars from different disciplines through affiliate membership and collaborations, as well as enabling research opportunities for young scholars.
GDS is planning an event in the spring of 2021 to discuss the soon-to-be published SAGE textbook Sex and Crime.
LETS Lab is a newly formed research group in Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences in School of Law and Criminology
Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Director’s note
To many October is the month of pumpkin-spiced lattes, cosy jumpers and warm autumn colours. To the few geeks among you (we salute you, friends!) October will always be the month that the first message was sent over -what later became known as – “the internet”.
To us though, this will be the month that we published our first Newsletter, and we are damn proud of this! AtLETS Lab, we are fascinated by the ways in which the advancements in technology and science intersect with the law and challenge conventional legal thinking. We would like to share this passion with you through this Newsletter.
This is a new adventure for us and no doubt the road will be bumpy! Our editor-in-chief, Isabelle de Oliveira has worked hard to make sure that this newsletter together with a cuppa and a biscuit will be something to look forward to on the third Monday of the month. Enjoy our first Newsletter – this first edition is packed with news, exciting readings and job opportunities.
The University of Greenwich’s own Fire Safety Engineering Group featured in The Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) magazine.
Interviewed by the EU magazine, the leader of the FSEG Team, Professor Ed Galea gave an overview of the project, which was finalised in April 2020, including the challenges faced. GEO-SAFE is part of the multidisciplinary international project consisting of 107 researchers and end-users from 20 partners in 6 European countries (Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom) and Australia in a wide range of disciplinary fields (mathematics, modelling, fire safety and behavioural psychology, etc). The researchers collaborated across areas of expertise and with end users to understand the planning, logistical and real-time needs for addressing wildfires
The aim of GEO-SAFE is to create a network enabling the two regions to exchange knowledge, ideas and experience, thus boosting the progress of wildfires knowledge and the related development of innovative methods for dealing efficiently with such fires.
Dr Justine Baillie, a member of the Literature and Language Research Group – under the auspices of CREL (Centre for Research and Enterprise in Language) – has edited, and contributed an essay to, Global Morrison, a special issue of Oxford University Press’s journal Contemporary Women’s Writing. The issue is dedicated to the global significance of the Nobel prize-winning African-American novelist, Toni Morrison. Having been commissioned by the general editors of Contemporary Women’s Writing to lead the Global Morrison research group, Justine organised a very successful two-day international conference at the University of Greenwich in June 2017 and has now edited the proceedings for the OUP publication. Contributors examine Morrison’s literary articulations with the works of writers such as Italian novelist Umberto Eco, British novelist Zadie Smith, French writer Gisèle Pineau, Afro-Brazilian author Conceição Evaristo, and American poet Robin Coste Lewis.
The publication is timely, as recent Black Lives Matters activism has focussed attention on global histories of colonialism, slavery and racism. In her Introduction to the issue Justine writes that Morrison’s 1987 neo-slave narrative Beloved ‘was the catalyst for new interrogations of race, slavery, trauma and of colonialism’s displacements, which connect the local, specific experience with world history’. Justine’s contribution to Global Morrison, ‘Morrison and the Transnation: Toni Morrison, God Help the Child and Zadie Smith, Swing Time‘, brings together contemporary debates about the postracial and the post-black with conceptualizations of the transnation that destabilize the alignment of race and gender with nationalism. Morrison’s considerations of globalization, nationhood, and race in her essay TheOrigin of Others (2017) are used to illuminate the central concerns of her last work of fiction, God Help the Child (2015) and British writer Zadie Smith’s novel Swing Time (2017).
Future projects, coordinated within CREL by Literature and Research Seminar Series leaders Justine Baillie, Emily Critchley and Katarina Stenke, include the organisation of a conference on neo-slave narratives that will continue the work initiated at the Global Morrison conference at Greenwich. Ade Solanke’s script in hand performance of Phillis in London, her play about the first female African-American poet Phillis Wheatley’s visit to London in the eighteenth century, was a highlight of the Global Morrison conference of 2017 and Ade’s continued research on the eighteenth-century black presence in London will feature in the proposed neo-slave narratives conference.
Congratulations to Justine Baillie and all contributing authors for the well deserved spotlight!
We may have been locked down for the Spring and Summer but that has not hindered the research activities of our resident lawyers and criminologists. There have been a number of exciting publications launched over recent months and here is a round-up of some of the highlights, with links to each publication included.
Prof Olga Martin-Ortega and the Business, Human Rights and the Environment research group continue their march towards revolutionising the electronics industry in collaboration with the GoodElectronics Network and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations. Their recently published report proposes a new approach to the urgent need for disclosure and transparency in the global electronics industry, and you can read more about it here.
Perhaps one of the most topical publications in our update comes from Dr Maria Kaspersson who has recently contributed a chapter called ‘‘You Always Hurt the One You Love’: Homicide in a Domestic Context‘ to the edited collection ‘Why We Kill: Understanding Violence Across Cultures and Disciplines’.
Finally, if audio content is what you’re here for then Dr Louise Hewitt has got you covered. Louise has recently launched her brand new Innocence Project London podcast where you can find an honest account of the organisation, how important their work is to a clinical legal education, and why it matters. You can find it here, and make sure you subscribe to catch every episode.
The Office of Undergraduate Research proudly presents its 2020 publication, in collaboration with Combined Sociology Students. The book, ‘When the Personal Gets Political: Linking Student’ Sociological Autobiographies to Broader Social and Political Contexts’ is the second edition of a series of collated Autobiographies written by students and is available on request. Dr Louise Owusu-Kwarteng led the project.
Second edition
Simply put, we are in tricky times. Socially, political and economically, it has been like this for a while, 2020 has, however taken us to a whole new level. We’ve had COVID-19, the world wide global pandemic, which has had some serious ramifications for everyone. This has led to collective worries about our health, and that of others who are close to us. The lockdown meant we have not been able to see our families, in some cases for months. It has had a knock on effect for our students’ education, due to the switch to online teaching, which meant losing face to face contact with their tutors and peers.
For those who graduate this year, for many the lockdown means no physical graduation. There are concerns about opportunities for graduate employability, due to the downturn of the economy – also a result of the pandemic. Mental health is also a growing concern, especially since particularly since COVID. As noted in a Lancet case study, the mental health of the nation has deteriorated since the pandemic, largely because of the impacts of lockdown, fears of contracting the disease and loss of loved ones (www.lancet.com July 2020). Racism, though always prevalent in society, has reared its head in a virulent and violent way with the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and many others due to police violence. Islamophobic hate crimes also continue, and like racism it operates at a micro and macro level, and on a day to day basis…
