Culture and strengthening communities

Kate Pahlwith Zanib Rasool, Zahir Rafiq and Mariam

Shah, advisorsUniversity of Sheffield

Imagining Better Communities

• This project was funded by the ESRC as part of the ARHC led Connected Communities programme.

• The project is called ‘The social, historical, cultural and democratic context of civic engagement: Imagining Different Communities and Making them Happen’ also known as ‘Imagine’.

• Focus in Rotherham on the cultural context of civic engagement and imagining better communities

Why the arts and humanities?

• History as a lens to understanding the present• Literary theory, together with post-colonial theory

makes sense of identities, cultures• Culture is ordinary – decentering elite cultures• Art practice as relational, situated, disruptive• Making emergent practice the focus of research.• Focus on the cultural context of civic engagement:

Imagining different communities and making them happen.

How to support communities and civic engagement:

• Culture matters – and tracing cultural identities across generations is important

• History matters – contribution of Pakistan to second world war, steel industry, textile industry, civic engagement

• Identities are fluid, not fixed but located across generations and cultural as well as spatial

Strengthening communities through culture

• ‘I am the definer not the defined’ (Toni Morrison)• Post colonial aesthetics as key lens for creating

new visions of identities• History as constructed through oral history, not

written, community owned and curated• Ways of knowing enshrined within the everyday• Creating groups that are within homes, and

communities, where people are, research that matters based on funds of knowledge

Culture and strengthening communities - projects

• Listening Voices, Telling Stories (Zanib Rasool, Shirin Teifouri)• Women’s herbal remedies(Zanib Rasool, Mariam Shah)• Silk and Steel (Khalida Luqman, Cassie Limb) • History of women’s activism (Zanib Rasool)• Girls poetry group (Zanib Rasool)• University girls – Roma heritage project (Deborah Bullivant)• Citizenship project with Roma heritage boys (Marcus

Hurcombe)• Art work by Zahir Rafiq – portraits of British Muslims• Art work by Shaheen Shah – histories and identities

Rotherham – the context for the project

• Post-industrial town, closure of steel works and mines

• Settled community of Pakistani heritage• New incoming communities from Eastern Europe• Town has recently experienced acute media

attention and distress• Women have been marginalised and their voices

not listened to within particular settings over many years. (see Jay report 2014)

Listening Voices Telling Stories

• Researching the female poets of South Asia and connecting communities through celebrating contribution of female poets

• Exploring key themes and hidden messages, gender inequality, discrimination, patriotism

• Read South Asian women poets and oral story tellers, resilience of these women and hidden talents

• Held in a community library in Rotherham over 18 months, diverse group of women

The Fabric of Our Lives

Herbal remedies project

• Community led project based at Thornhill School, central Rotherham.

• Focus on women’s funds of knowledge and community empowerment

• Bottom up not top down, led by women from diverse heritages

• Focus on hidden knowledge within the community• Published a book that celebrated this knowledge• Advisors: Zanib Rasool and Mariam Shah

Girls poetry group

• Small group of British Asian girls aged between 13 and 16

• Sharing poetry, stories and experiences• Ongoing, but responding to Jay report agenda

and issues of identity, racism and culture. • Co-ordinated by Zanib Rasool• Focus on imagining better communities

EDL don’t belong in Rotherham

Rotherham is my home and I like living here and every time the ‘Army of Hate’ visits us they leave our community feeling vulnerable, the police have enough to deal with, without this unnecessarily pressure added. The’ EDL’s motto is ‘Not racist, not violent, no longer silent.’ Does anybody else see the irony in this? ‘Not racist’ EDL is a fascist group who are clearly Islamophobic; they are not silent when they are hurling racial abuse. Most Muslims in Rotherham respect the law and want to live peacefully if EDL allow us. My message to EDL is don’t come back, enough is enough. Many of us are afraid to speak up to you but the brave ones all say what everyone else is thinking. You don’t belong here. ‘Peacefully protest’ somewhere else, or don’t bother at all. (AQ aged 16)

Reading poems

Exploring British Muslim Identities

After reading Jackie Kay’s poem ‘In my country’ I was very touched by it – identity is such a wide topic rarely discussed. We all want to feel a sense of belonging, but how far do we go to achieve it? I’m a British Pakistani; I was born in England after my grandparents’ settled in Britain. I value my Pakistani traditions but sometimes struggle to adapt to the British culture. I wear the salwar kameez at home when surrounded by family but wear English modest dresses whilst out. I am culturally divided but still manage to feel a sense of belonging because I was born here and see myself as no different to any other British young person of my age. (AQ aged 16)

Being a British MuslimI am a very strong minded person because of my beliefs. I am a follower of Islam. That is the religion I was born into. I do have a passion for my grandparent’s traditions from Pakistan. I also love following my ancestors heritage culture as it has made who I am now. However I was born in England so I have a right to also adapt to the British culture such as going to football matches and the seaside for fish and chips. I’m not saying I want to forget about my Pakistani culture because I do find it cool in a way, like I’m different to all my mates but I feel like I deserve a little freedom, like me going out to my mates house, or me and my 2 best friends go on little adventures on our own like going to Meadowhall as it will be handy for when I’m older so it gives me a little taste of what it’s like to be responsible and it will help me to not rely on my parents as much. (HQ aged 12)

Being special

I am 1 of a kindI cannot be put in a tick box and narrowed down in to a categoryMy identity is made up of my religion, my values and morals.My family background, my community.My experience of lifeI am a unique human beingI am me, I am special (S aged 16)

• Identity is fluid and often the merging and blending of the two cross cultural identities, and taking the best from each has given some individuals are much stronger identity and feelings of belonging. The individuals that find that happy balance can often contribute more to society and British life.

• Do young people from minority communities have to give up their culture, heritage, traditions that links them to their parents or grandparents homeland and completely submerge in the British culture to be accepted. (Zanib Rasool)

Histories, cultures, identities

Shaheen Shah – art work

• Young people from minority communities spend a lifetime on self-exploration, negotiating their hybrid identities when two cultural norms and values sometimes interlink and connect and other times clash and cause confusion and loss of place.

• Many communities that have strong traditions, heritage and culture, change and imagining beyond the present time and space can be a frightening experience as they feel they will lose what was once dear to them in order to integrate. (Zanib Rasool)

Implications for strengthening communities

• Diverse ways in which culture can be built• Arts not ‘instrumental’ but offering alternative

ways of knowing, co-constructed• Knowledge is contingent upon experience,

history, interactions• Community sense-making needs to feed into

academic practice in an equitable space• ‘Social capital’ is culturally contingent, shifting,

complex, messy

Community research is….Making sense together

• Each genre has its own musical language, In my tradition the concept of rhythm and melody is different than in the Chinese tradition, so if we are going to be working together, this whole new school that is about learning with other cultures, how you are going to be playing with them, this whole new feeling, the way you merge, you mix, this new world where you make something happen, (Kadialy Kouyate)

Transmitting Musical Heritage

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE1bW-8j844

Thinking about learning across different traditions, learning with each other• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v

=1DJ7ti2L3XM&feature=youtu.be

Community research is….emotional

What is community research?

• Community research is emotions and we have had a rollercoaster of a ride, emotions bring warmth and passion to academia. Research does not have to be cold, hard like steel and too far removed from human emotions. (Zanib Rasool)

• I feel that we need to approach such studies from a different angle when it comes to exploring British Muslim identity; a balanced approach, which not only deals with history and diversity, but also complements the data with common social subjects, such as exploring themes of the everyday British Muslims, not just those who have set themselves up as the faces of the community. The Muslims that people rarely hear about are the individuals who pursue their interest and their dreams.

• As a visual artist, I can think of no better way to give modern Islam in Britain a face than by committing to canvas. It is a simple and effective way to stimulate a more empathetic response, to paint people from all walks of life in the Muslim community: the traditional and the progressive, stripping away the tags and labels to reveal what truly lays at the heart of each British Muslim – human beings. (Zahir Rafiq)

With thanks to…

– Kadialy Kouyate– Zahir Rafiq– Zanib Rasool– Mariam Shah– Shaheen Shah