My work explores the intersection of theatre and other embodied/performance practices (dance, singing, movement) with visual and digital work in anthropology, as forms of social, cultural and political engagement.
Voci di Donne, ‘Voices of Women’ women’s choir, Milan fieldwork 2018
2018, August: 15th Biennial European Association of Social Anthropologists [EASA] conference, Stockholm University
Co-convening an experimental outdoors workshop on ‘Bodies in Motion‘, taking place in the woods surrounding Stockholm University. The aim of the workshop is to explore – and experience – matters of moving/stillness, presence, awareness, pace and flow, as a way of thinking (through the body) about the practice of ethnography, and the teaching of anthropology.
2017, October: Tallinn, Estonia – Independent playwriting group – workshop on photography, anthropology & storytelling
2017, June: Engaging Refugee Narratives, Department of Anthropology, UCL
Engaging Refugee Narratives: Perspectives from Academia and the Arts brings together academics, arts-based NGOs and artists working with refugees. The personal narratives of refugees, migrants and others in transition reveal problems faced as well as sources of resilience and strength. All people make sense of their lives through telling their own stories. Academics and other researchers and writers listen, record, analyse these. Such stories are also an essential part of the work of NGOs and artists as they collaborate with refugees and each other.
On June 16 and 17, 2017, our focus is on how dissemination of narratives by and about refugees and migrants travel, how ideas are shared and become meaningful to a larger group, how influence builds. Again, we explore arts-based practices and interventions employing personal narratives that are aimed at aiding the process of adjustment to trauma and new circumstances. This third event in the Engaging Refugee Narratives series will explore graphic memoir and cartooning, different forms of live performance of telling stories, digital forms of communication and online archiving.
Over two days at University College London, we will combine talks, demonstrations, interactive workshops, and roundtable discussions. Presenters will include artists, researchers, writers, activists and practitioners. The two days are open to the public.
This event, the third in our series, recognizes the need to signal the importance of engagement with the narratives not only of refugees but the many others whose lives are in transition. Ultimately we hope that such engagement and interventions pave the way towards social transformations.
Dr. Ruth Mandel (UCL, Anthropology) and Dr. Susan Pattie (UCL, Armenian Institute) organized Engaging Refugee Narratives, partnering with Dr. Shireen Walton (UCL, Anthropology) and Rob Pinney.
Funded by University College London Global Engagement Office
In partnership with UCL Institute of Human Rights, UCL Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences, UCL Grand Challenges, Knowledge Exchange (UCL), the Institute of Advanced Studies (UCL), Department of Anthropology (UCL), Graduate Institute Geneva, Refuge in a Moving World (UCL), Organization for Identity and Cultural Development, Armenian Institute, and ArtEZ Institute of the Arts (Netherlands).
DR SHIREEN WALTON 