Places for all? A multi-media investigation of citizenship, work and belonging in a fast-changing provincial city

Lead Research Organisation: University of Sussex
Department Name: Sch of Global Studies

Abstract

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
 
Title Film: A place for all 
Description This five minute film records the final community event of the project on November 24th 2012 when over sixty research participants attended a tea party and photographic exhibition at Chauffeurs Cottage, Peterborough. Young actors from the play, oral history and photography participants speak about their experience. Catering was by Amaani productions; and event coordination by Jabeen Shafee. The film was made by Zain Awan. All are Peterborough residents. The film is available via the home and about pages on the project website http://www.placesforall.co.uk 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
 
Title Film: Fun Fear 
Description Raminder Kaur captures in film (10 mins) the fun of making the play Fair's (Not) Fair! The film moves between the workshops, rehearsals and performances at St Paul's Church, and a trip to the Cherry Fair. Its central characters are the young people who joined script development workshops and performed in the play as well as London-based actors Erene Kaptani and Rez Kabir and director Mukul Ahmed. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
 
Title Film: In Passing 
Description In 'In Passing' (9' 31") young people Dan, Charlie, Izak, and Kelly discuss the Foyer, their temporary home, and acknowledge a complex web of relations embedded in their understanding of place, at once known and familiar, but also imagined. Home is seen through the prism of a fractured and partial narrative. The sense of Self, evident in their stories, reflects and refracts the ruptures in the world of their immediate family and the wider social network, located both geographically and temporally. The film is available on-line at http://placesforall.co.uk/film-in-passing/ 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
 
Title Film: Some Kind of Life 
Description Some Kind of Life (37 mins) is available to view at http://placesforall.co.uk/film/. It was shown on TV on the Community Channel on 29th September 2012. The short films were uploaded 1286 times between 25 January and 2 March 2012. Some Kind of Life is the result of working with people in Peterborough (UK) who have been, or still are, homeless. The films explore,through personal narratives, a constellation of issues implicated in being 'on the street'. The shorter films act as individual portraits, while the longer film draws upon these to articulate a more complex narrative. The stories we are told offer brief glimpses, often nothing more. Sometimes there is only one opportunity to talk, maybe a second one, rarely more than that. Arrangements are made and changed and rearranged and then cancelled; people's lives are often chaotic. On occasion we are offered an invitation into a person's lifeworld. We listen to their stories, attempting to tease out the narrative threads of their lives. The stories tell of the spaces they inhabit and from which they draw their sense of self, and how they acknowledge a complex web of relations embedded in their notion of place, at once known and familiar, but also imagined and memorialised. Some Kind of Life challenges assumptions about what constitutes home and how people understand their own sense of belonging. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
 
Title Oral history transcripts (53) deposited at Peterborough Local Studies and Archives, Peterborough Central Library 
Description Oral history interviews were at the heart of the research project. The stories of eighty-three people were recorded through interviews and/or photographs. Sixty-seven of these were life history interviews. Of these, fifty-three have been edited and anonymised and received participants' permission to be deposited at Peterborough Local Studies and Archives through collaboration with Vivacity Archives Officer Richard Hunt. This deposit was made in March 2014. The project also had eighteen oral history interviews transcribed that were recorded with Peterborough residents as part of the Millennium Memory Bank project and are stored at the British Library in London. 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
 
Title Photographic exhibition: Places for All? 
Description Eighteen framed photographs by Liz Hingley along with quotes from oral history interviews by Ben Rogaly and Kaveri Qureshi were exhibited at the Peterborough United Football Club car boot sale on 29th April 2012. The exhibition then moved to accompany other research project events involving research participants and the wider Peterborough public, including at a Pop-Up Shop in the Peterborough Green Festival (June 2nd to 10th 2012); in the foyer at the four performances of the project play Fair's (Not) Fair! at St Paul's Church, the Green Backyard, Gladstone Park Community Centre, and Peterborough United Football Club (4th-7th July 2012); and in the final community tea party on November 24th 2012 at Chauffeur's Cottage. The exhibition can now be viewed on line at http://placesforall.co.uk/photos/ 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
 
Title Places for All? A Multimedia Investigation in An English City http://www.placesforall.co.uk 
Description This website has been designed to make publicly available many of the key project outputs including the combined photography and oral history work, films made with homeless people and with young people in supported housing, a film of the theatre project, and links to collaborators and to pdf copies of presentations made during the life of the Fellowship. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
URL http://www.placesforall.co.uk
 
Title Play: Fair's (Not) Fair! 
Description A play inspired by the stories of a hundred Peterborough residents, written by Raminder Kaur and directed by Mukul Ahmed. The cast of the play were Peterborough young people, supplemented by two London-based professional actors. Production management were by Peterborough residents Keely Mills and Jabeen Shafee. Many more Peterborough residents were involved in stage management, in publicity, in the community-based auditions, and as audiences in the four performances in a diverse range of community locations. For full details see http://placesforall.co.uk/theatre/ The workshops and auditions involved students from Ormiston Bushfield Academy, St John Fisher Catholic School, Peterborough Regional College and Thomas Deacon Academy. The play was covered in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph and in the Polish language regional newspaper Nasze Strony. See http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/local/latest-local-news/performances-tell-stories-of-peterborough-s-people-1-4021035 and http://naszestrony.co.uk/wschodnia-anglia/peterborough/2769-p-borough-fair-s-not-fair-foto.html Audiences: St Paul's Church (53); Peterborough United Football Club (40); Gladstone Park (68); Green Backyard (42). Research project advisor Rehana Ahmed on the Gladstone Park performance: 'I was really impressed by the audience you managed to attract, especially considering how hard this always is. I was especially struck by how successful you were in this respect. You also clearly managed to attract members of the Pakistani community who - I would imagine - are not regular theatre-goers. I'm sure this was in part because of your chosen venue (and think your choice of venues is inspired). The atmosphere afterwards was great, with audience and actors mingling - and in the context of the amazing photographs.' 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
 
Description Places for All? is a more-than-academic collaborative project with strong community engagement. It developed through the grounded presence of researchers, strong relations built with oral history participants, and the use of multiple media, including photography, film, theatre and writing.



The project was designed in a response to a call for proposals issued by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council - led Research Councils Connected Communities Programme - in collaboration with the Royal Society of Arts' Citizen Power Peterborough programme. The location of the research in the city of Peterborough, England, was thus determined by the call.



Critical of hegemonic discourses regarding immigration, citizenship and belonging that often construct international migrants and religious minorities as outsiders, the project raises questions about the appropriation of space in the name of the local and apparently 'indigenous'. Peterborough as a place is constantly in flux, and is made up of streets and neighbourhoods with their own shifting identities. The most major change in living memory was the arrival of Londoners and others from outside the city in the 1970s as the city's New Towns were constructed. They, like the many thousands of residents who were born abroad, maintain various kinds of connections with places elsewhere, some more intensely than others. It is the realisation that having trans-spatial connections is in itself something that both international migrants have in common both with internal migrants and people who have never lived away from the city that lies at the heart of the project's findings.



Furthermore, while home to significant engineering, publishing and financial services sectors Peterborough retains its rural connections, particularly to the agriculture and food production economy of the Fens region. It is not only a mainly working-class city, but also a rural one and a regional hub for food-sector workers. Cognizant of the historic importance of agency-working and the agrarian and food economies in the livelihoods of people in the city, the project thus links integration - including debates over housing and the use of public space - with capitalist employment relations that require workers who can be available at short notice and for undefined periods of work: often international migrants.



Places for All? is about transformation as well as investigation. Through working with grass roots community organisations such as the Peterborough Racial Equality Council, the Green Backyard, The Gladstone Park Recreation and Community Centre, Cromwell Road Mosque, St Paul's Church and Peterborough United Football Club, it brings into encounter the stories of people with a range of ethno-national backgrounds, including white English people. An important part of the project's story is the enabling of new relations, of mutual regard and respect. In collaboration with local worker-artists, it challenged the unspoken assumption of some regional and national stakeholders that art was something that needed to be 'done to' the city, instead drawing attention to creative contributions being made by Peterborough residents themselves, including working-class people of all backgrounds.
Exploitation Route The films, photographs, stories and research papers found on the Places for All? website are suggestive of the potential for shared authority and co-production in multi-media oral history research. For example, films made with people who are or have recently ceased being street homeless, and with young people in sheltered housing, suggest ways of understanding cities that value multiple perspectives, including from residents for whom home is the road, or a hostel. The examples of holding a photographic/ life story exhibition at a car boot sale, or of rehearsing a play (based on oral history testimony) in a mosque and then performing it at the local football ground, a community growing project, a church and a mainly south Asian heritage community centre, can be used to push back against received wisdom that working-class people do not engage with the arts or are inevitably divided along ethno-national lines. This in turn be a resource for building greater mutual respect alongside a critical awareness of the kinds of employment relations and housing market dynamics that exacerbate exclusion and inequality.
Sectors Agriculture, Food and Drink,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
URL http://www.placesforall.co.uk
 
Description The findings of this research are interpreted broadly here to include the process by which the research was carried out. This was co-produced research and was in various ways transformational for both participants and researchers. Evidence for this has been written up in the forthcoming Sociological Review paper 'Don't show the play at the football ground: the micro-sociality of co-produced research in an English provincial city' referenced in the publication portfolio, currently in press and due to be published in 2016. Additionally the research led to impacts on approaches to the arts in the English city of Peterborough, in particular on ways in which established arts organisations in the city engaged with people who had not previously tended to be part of (or engaged with by) such organisations. Further, the research process led to an increased awareness of potential commonalities around employment relations and working conditions in the city region across artificial divides along ethno-national lines, especially in the food production, processing and packing sector. Learning from the project has also fed into a number of further AHRC-led Research Councils Connected Communities grants, all under the call for proposals on Addressing the Challenges of Disconnection, Division and Exclusion (Creative Interruptions: grassroots culture, state structures and disconnection as a space for 'radical openness', large research grant led by Brunel University, funding approved subject to conditions; The Un-Sociable Bench, and other urban micro-territories of encounter and intimidation, research grant led by the University of Sheffield; and three project development grants). Finally the deposit of 54 life history transcripts in the Peterborough Local Archives service has begun to be drawn on as a way of learning about migration, work and belonging in the city and beyond.
First Year Of Impact 2012
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural,Societal
 
Description Addressing the challenges of disconnection, division and exclusion
Amount £1,214,120 (GBP)
Funding ID AH/N004094/1 
Organisation Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 10/2016 
End 09/2019
 
Description Audition of young people for parts in Fair's (Not) Fair! play 
Organisation Ormiston Bushfield Academy
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Audition of young people for parts in Fair's (Not) Fair! play. Three young people from Bushfield Academy acted in the play
Start Year 2012
 
Description Co-convened session at the Oral History Society Annual Conference 2013 
Organisation Eastern Angles Theatre Company
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Co-convened session at the Oral History Society Annual Conference 2013
Start Year 2013
 
Description Co-production of play Fair's (Not) Fair and final community event (tea party) for research participants. Led to impact of new arts funding for city 
Organisation Step Up Community Association
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Co-production of play Fair's (Not) Fair and final community event (tea party) for research participants. Led to impact of new arts funding for city. See http://www.vivacity-peterborough.com/news/peterborough-awarded-725-000-from-arts-council-eng/
Start Year 2012
 
Description Facilitated making of film In passing 
Organisation Axiom Housing Peterborough Foyer
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Facilitated making of film In passing
Start Year 2012
 
Description Performance of play Fair's (Not) Fair! and associated photography exhibition 
Organisation St Paul's Cathedral
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Performance of play Fair's (Not) Fair! and associated photography exhibition
Start Year 2012
 
Description Peterborough City Council 
Organisation Peterborough City Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Close collaboration on all aspects of grant. Presentation made to Task and Finish Group of Peterborough City Council on the Citizen Power Peterborough Programme
Collaborator Contribution Peterborough City Council's officer responsible for the project Citizen Power Peterborough met with the research team regularly (each month) and provided contacts across governmental and non-governmental organisations in the city, as well as reflections and feedback on the research.
Impact All the outcomes of the research were rooted in this and other collaborations
Start Year 2011
 
Description Peterborough Racial Equality Council 
Organisation Peterborough Racial Equality Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Ongoing collaboration throughout project including provision of rooms for oral history interviews, for young people's workshop to plan theatre production Fair's (Not) Fair!, and invitation for Ben Rogaly and Kaveri Qureshi as guest speakers at the 2012 AGM of the PREC.
Collaborator Contribution Regular meetings and discussions to help frame the research and reflect on findings; introductions to key actors across the city; use of PREC premises by the research team for meetings and workshops.
Impact Talk by Kaveri Qureshi and Ben Rogaly at 2012 AGM of the Peterborough Racial Equality Council
Start Year 2011
 
Description Peterborough Streets 
Organisation Peterborough Streets
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Made introductions and hosted making of film Some Kind of Life featuring street homeless people's life stories
Collaborator Contribution Introductions, facilitation, use of premises, helpful discussions, encouragement.
Impact Film Some Kind of Life
Start Year 2011
 
Description Production Manager for Fair's (Not) Fair! 
Organisation Platform Peterborough
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Keely Mills collaborated as Production Manager for Fair's (Not) Fair!
Start Year 2011
 
Description Rehearsals of play Fair's (Not) Fair! 
Organisation Cromwell Road Mosque
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Rehearsals of play Fair's (Not) Fair!
Start Year 2012
 
Description Research network on English New Towns 
Organisation Birkbeck, University of London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Collaboration with Dr Ruth Craggs (Kings College London), Dr Hannah Neate (University of Central Lancashire), Dr Becky Taylor (Birkbeck) and Prof David Feldman (Birkbeck)
Collaborator Contribution Meetings, grant bid-writing
Impact A research grant bid was submitted to ESRC.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Research network on English New Towns 
Organisation King's College London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Collaboration with Dr Ruth Craggs (Kings College London), Dr Hannah Neate (University of Central Lancashire), Dr Becky Taylor (Birkbeck) and Prof David Feldman (Birkbeck)
Collaborator Contribution Meetings, grant bid-writing
Impact A research grant bid was submitted to ESRC.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Research network on English New Towns 
Organisation University of Central Lancashire
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Collaboration with Dr Ruth Craggs (Kings College London), Dr Hannah Neate (University of Central Lancashire), Dr Becky Taylor (Birkbeck) and Prof David Feldman (Birkbeck)
Collaborator Contribution Meetings, grant bid-writing
Impact A research grant bid was submitted to ESRC.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Research network on English New Towns 
Organisation University of East Anglia
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Collaboration with Dr Ruth Craggs (Kings College London), Dr Hannah Neate (University of Central Lancashire), Dr Becky Taylor (Birkbeck) and Prof David Feldman (Birkbeck)
Collaborator Contribution Meetings, grant bid-writing
Impact A research grant bid was submitted to ESRC.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Writer-in-Residence 
Organisation Metal Culture
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Attendance at community and arts events in Peterborough. Talk in the Metal(Peterborough) Future Network series.
Collaborator Contribution Provision of hot-desking space during my research visits to Peterborough. Networking and contacts. Involvement in discussion over engagement events and grant bids of common interest
Impact Talk in Metal(Peterborough) Future Network Series. October 2016.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Future Network talk Metal (Peterborough) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Metal(Peterborough), a national arts organisation with a branch in the centre of Peterborough invited me to speak about the Places for all? research and the follow on Creative Interruptions research to the general public and local artists at its quarterly Future Network event in October 2016
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.metalculture.com/event/future-network-10/
 
Description Luxembourg public lecture 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact I was invited to discuss Brexit in a public lecture at the University of Luxembourg. I based my talk on findings from Places for All?
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.eventbrite.fr/e/billets-lets-talk-about-history-brexit-27525774332#