A workshop titled ‘Chaos and Crisis: Can Prison Be Better Than This?’ took place on Wednesday 17th of January 2018 at the University of Warwick. This event was co-organised by the Howard League for Penal Reform, Safe Ground, and the Department of Sociology and the Criminal Justice Centre at Warwick. It was supported by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account fund that seeks to raise public engagement on current issues inside English and Welsh prisons. The workshop was designed to be an interactive, day-long encounter that brought together a range of prison practitioners and employees, former prisoners, criminal justice charities and NGOs, media, researchers, campaigners and others interested in issues of criminal justice. An impressive range of panelists, all having substantial experience and knowledge of prisons attended.

• Find out more and watch videos from the event...
  

Dr Loretta Lou recently attended this event at the University of Bristol. Here's her account of the day:

On Friday I presented my recently published article ‘In the Absence of a Peasantry, What, Then, Is a Hong Kong Farmer?’ at the HKHP Workshop. I used this opportunity the publicize my new publication among a group of Hong Kong specialists. The talk was well received and I had fruitful exchanges with my fellow speakers about non-elites’ contributions to Hong Kong’s social and economic development; Hong Kong’s development during the post-war years; transnational Hong Kong; and the place of Hong Kong in British Empire. We’ve exchanged contacts for future collaborations. During the roundtable discussion, I also had a chance to learn from former BBC Hong Kong-based journalist Vaudine England about writing academic books for general audiences.

Image of Loretta presenting her paper

Hidden Histories is an alternative lecture series run by staff and students at Warwick. The series is hosted by the Students' Union, and is supported by Sociology, as well as English and Comparative Literary Studies, History, PAIS, and the School for Cross-Faculty studies.

The first lecture in the series will take place on 25 Jan at 19:00 in SO.21.

Over the past few months, Professor Akwugo Emejulu has worked on a range of events focused on Black Feminism, intersectionality, and higher education.

Conference: Black Feminism, Womanism and the Politics of Women of Colour - Amsterdam

On 7th October 2017 in Amsterdam, Prof. Emejulu co-organised the 2nd Annual Black Feminism, Womanism and the Politics of Women of Colour in Europe conference. This event attracted 159 women of colour artists, activists, practitioners and scholars from across Europe and North America.

• Check out the live tweets from the day here: https://storify.com/Akwugo/black-feminism-womanism-politics-of-women-of-colou 
• The conference programme here https://woceuropeconference.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/woceurope-programme-final-5oct17.pdf 
• and some critical reflections on the day from conference participants here https://woceuropeconference.wordpress.com/blog/ 

Keynote: Intersectionality: A Challenge to the Academy - Equality Challenge Unit

Prof. Emejulu was invited to give a keynote talk, 'Intersectionality: A Challenge to the Academy', to the Equality Challenge Unit's annual conference on 7th November 2017 in Birmingham. Watch her talk on YouTube.

Panel: Black Feminism and Post-Cyber Feminism - Institute of Contemporary Arts

On 18th November 2017 at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London, Prof. Emejulu co-organised and chaired the event, Black Feminism and Post-Cyber Feminism as part of the Post-Cyber Feminist International season at the ICA. Listen to the panel discussion on the ICA website.

Keynote lecture: Towards a Fugitive Feminism - Gender Research Centre Annual Lecture

Anthony King (Warwick)

 The Decision Point: command collectivism in the twenty-first century

 4^th December 5pm

 S0.20

All welcome!

Dr Ana Chamberlen has been awarded the article prize for the Women, Crime and Criminal Justice section of the British Society of Criminology. She will receive the award in person in Sheffield next week at the BSC Annual Conference www.bsc2017.org.uk/

The prize winning article is: Chamberlen, A. (2016) ‘Embodying Prison Pain: Women's' self-injury practices in prison and the emotions of punishment’, Theoretical Criminology 20(2), pp 205-219.

The SAGE Prize for Innovation and Excellence is awarded annually to one paper in each of the BSA’s four prestigious journals:  Cultural Sociology  Sociological Research Online  Sociology  Work, Employment and Society

Dr Lucy Mayblin's winning article

‘Other’ Posts in ‘Other’ Places: Poland through a Postcolonial Lens? (co-authored with Aneta Piekut and Gill Valentine) available http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038038514556796

was announced at the BSA conference in Manchester in April.

The SAGE award panel commented: While all of the shortlisted articles exhibited significant levels ...

Warwick Borders, Race, Ethnicity and Migration Network Public Lecture 2017

Lemn Sissay

Tuesday 16th May 6.30pm-7.30pm
Room M1, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

We are extremely pleased to announce that the 2017 BREM Annual Lecture will be given by poet, performer, thinker, campaigner and Chancellor of the University of Manchester, Lemn Sissay. Lemn’s writing engages with themes of borders, race, ethnicity and migration (among other things) and this will be a chance for researchers across all disciplines in the university to reflect on these themes in new ways, in the company of a public audience who are invited to this free event to enjoy Lemn’s talk and find out more about the research on these themes going on at the University of Warwick. Find out more about Lemn Sissay and book your place at the BREM Annual Lecture by going to http://brem2017.eventbrite.com More information about the Warwick Borders, Race, Ethnicity and Migration (BREM) Network can be found at www.warwick.ac.uk/brem

This is a public event and all are welcome. Please register to attend so we have an idea of numbers.

We are all proud that two of our academics have been nominated (out of 7) for the Sage Prize 2017 British Sociological Association:

Gurminder Bhambra, Postcolonial Reflections on Sociology

Lucy Mayblin, Aneta Piekut, and Gill Valentine, ‘Other’ Posts in ‘Other’ Places: Poland through a Postcolonial Lens?

https://www.britsoc.co.uk/opportunities/sage-prize-for-innovationexcellence/

We wish them good luck in the results announced later this year

Professor Gurminder Bhambra has received Public Engagement funding for the upcoming "Understanding Brexit" event to be held in Birmingham at the end of January. More details to follow