Migration Programme, Alison Phipps, “The Arts of Integrating”

Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair: Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts

With Gameli Tordzro, Naa Densua Tordzro and Tawona Sitholé

Refugee integration is a concern across the western world. How to ensure cohesive societies, how to develop policies, which will allay fears, how to set limits or erase limits around who or who may not ‘integrate’. As a result the concept of integration has become highly contested and cannot be spoken of in academic or policy contexts with equivocation or caveat. Integration, for all the ink spilled on its definitions, remains a key word for society today, one which repels and galvanised in equal measure.

In this lecture the team from the UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts will present, represent and demonstrate some of the contexts and forms of integrating which make up their approach. In particular they will outline the differences between the policy approaches to refugee Integration in England and Wales, and in Scotland, drawing in particular on the work of New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy, for which Alison Phipps is the Convener.

Using a practice-led and devised approach to integration, influenced by Brecht, Weil, Carson, Agamben, and NGugi Wa Thiong’o this lecture will consider the ways in which integrating societies are simultaneously ones of creation and decreation.

Expect drama, poetry and song, as well as conceptual explorations.

Co-sponsored with St. Mary’s University and The Catholic Centre for Thought and Practice

For more information contact Las Casas Institute: lascasas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk

Tickets: Free
Venue: Blackfriars Hall - St Giles Oxford, OX1 3LY United Kingdom Array ( [lat] => 51.756248 [lng] => -1.259881 )

Contact:
Las Casas Institute
lascasas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk