UNESCO Chair Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts (RILA)

Alison Phipps inaugural lecture 2017

On World Refugee Day, 20 June 2017, Professor Alison Phipps delivered her UNESCO Chair inaugural lecture.

Hospitality is integration - it is everybody's work

On World Refugee Day, The University of Glasgow played host to the Inaugural lecture of the UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts. The Ha Orchestra welcomed the audience to an unusual event, one that broke a little with the academic tradition, one that was full of song and dance, but also lament for those members of Ha Orchestra and Noyam Dance Institute who could not be with us due to refusal and delay with the arduous visa application process.

The event marked the start of Refugee Festival Scotland 2017, and opened with a welcome from Senior Vice-Principal, Neal Juster and an overview of activities of UNESCO in UK by the Chair of the UK National Committee for UNESCO, Dr Beth Taylor. Dr Taylor reflected that history has proven that international cooperation in science, culture and communication can promote lasting peace. Poignant words in our current time.  The UKNC for UNESCO featured the launch of the chair in their latest newsletter.

Prof Alison Phipps explored the role language and arts play in societal integration and the creative processes at work in intercultural encounters. She offered a critique and development of existing understanding of integration. She proposes a move away from functional, countable deficit models of integration to a multilateral process that involves all of us. Integration is the art of making culture, rather than remaining unchanged, absorbing newcomers into it.

Decolonisation in action – the lecture was interrupted by Tawona Sitholé, Artist in Residence with the UNESCO Chair, performing his work “Border Crossing in Togo”. The lecture was punctuated by song by Naa Densua Tordzro, with music and dance from the Ha Orchestra (Artistic Director Gameli Tordzro is also Artist in Residence with the UNESCO Chair) and Noyam African Dance Institute.

Professor Alison Phipps repeated her lecture during The Solas Festival (23-25 June 2017, The Bield, Perthshire) where she curated a strand of talks and performance events.

Background:

The University of Glasgow has been invited by UNESCO’s Director General to join its prestigious universities network (the UNESCO Chairs) and establish the first UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts. The Chair will be held by Professor Alison Phipps OBE, PhD, BA (hons), FRSE, FRSA, FAcSS, and is the first UNESCO Chair to investigate Refugee Integration.

If you missed the event, you can watch the recording on Independence Live's website. Independence Live is a collective of citizen livestreamers who produce live video at events. For more information please visit: http://independencelive.net/about

Tawona Sitholé performing Border Crossing in Togo.

Noyam African Dance Institute performing part of their show Broken World Broken Word.

Alison Phipps annual lecture 2018

On World Refugee Day, 20 June 2018, Professor Alison Phipps delivered the UNESCO Chair annual lecture.

This lecture was part of Refugee Festival 2018 and also marked a year of UNESCO RILA activities. Title and abstract below.

Do you get my drift?: ‘Sankofa’ and the Arts of Integrating the old with the new

With Gameli Tordzro, Tawona Sithole, Naa Densua Tordzro

This lecture mines the contested concept of Integration for its history, variation and substance. It considers the important work of law and social policy in developing frameworks and duties for integration, especially with regard to the work of New Scots Integration Strategy, Scotland. It then moves to examine the place of concepts of integration in conflict transformation, international relations and trauma healing. Finally it develops understandings of integration from indigenous sources of knowledge, looking at the concept of sankofa, indigenous practices of integration, and the decolonial thought.

With the new focus on languages and arts in the processes in individual and intercultural integration the lecture will work multilingually and artistically, as well as through more traditional forms of research presentation.