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Creative Writing research projects funded by the British Council have created a transformative educational environment for African writers, developing life-changing training programmes. Designed and delivered by the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, and led by Dr (now Professor) Graham Mort, these projects pioneered eMentoring and new online teaching pedagogies, engaging directly with over 300 African writers across 9 African countries, whilst creating outreach activity through a literary festival that engaged writers from 18 African countries and the UK.
Three phases of cumulative practice-led research have helped to nurture a new generation of African writers with each project leading into the next:
This project has had significant reach beyond the academy, through two main avenues. Through sustained relationships with NGOs, faith-based organisations and other members of civil society involved in the management of death in South Africa, the project has aided in the professional development of African staff, and shaped training and facilitation on responses to death, grief and loss. And, through public engagement with its research on the funeral industry — including very broad dissemination of the documentary film `The Price of Death'— the project has engaged local South African audiences in debates around the cost of death and the commodification of funerals.
Research carried out by the University of Nottingham has significantly informed international policies designed to transform technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and its role in development. This has been achieved through direct contribution to policy making at global, regional and national levels, most notably for UNESCO, the Southern African Development Community and the South African government. This has led to the revision of global, regional and national policy guidelines and the development of new regional and national indicators. Conventional policy wisdoms have been questioned at global and national levels and new concepts introduced into the policy debate.
This case study describes the impact of Grobler's practice-as-research conducted through development of illustrations for a book targeted at an international children's readership of 5 to 11 year olds. Providing `an African retelling' of Aesop's fables and intended to stimulate children's playful engagement with African cultures, the book's and Grobler's illustrations' overt agenda was to promote and promulgate intercultural understanding and multiculturalism. Impact has been achieved through initial publication and international distribution of Aesop's Fables in English and subsequent republication in a further nine editions and six languages in the period. Additional impact was derived from Grobler's invited presentation and discussion of his approach to developing his illustrations in the context of international exhibitions and professional fora in Europe.
University of Reading research, in collaboration with a South African partner, has led to the development of materials on literacy learning in multilingual settings in Africa, transforming teaching practice across the continent.
A second, related project is helping to deepen understanding of the conditions necessary for African language publishing to thrive, attracting considerable interest from the South African book industry. The findings have also been used to justify the inclusion of African languages in a South African reading campaign; to help civil society organisations campaigning for improved basic education in South Africa; and to support the development of local language materials in seven African countries.
Heather Hughes' 2011 publication of the first full-length biography of John Dube, founding president of the ANC, has had a significant impact on local and national government, public history, national media and public debate in South Africa. This work has changed public attitudes towards Dube as a political leader, and towards the role of women in early twentieth-century African nationalism. This revision of ANC history has been built into permanent exhibitions at several sites within the country. The book's use in a government green paper on land reform also reveals the depth of her work's political impact.
Tamar Garb's curation of two thematically linked exhibition projects at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and a series of shows at the Walther Collection, along with related activities and publications, raised awareness of contemporary photography in southern Africa; brought African photographic history and related political/aesthetic issues to the attention of scholars and publics; impacted exhibition programming, acquisitions policies and educational activities of a museum and private collection; created new audiences for contemporary African and South African lens-based work; and offered cultural enrichment to a wide public audience.
The Africa in Motion Film Festival (AiM), based in Glasgow and Edinburgh, directly emerged from research led by David Murphy and a community of postgraduate students at the University of Stirling. The festival has attracted new audiences for African cinema (over 20,000 spectators since 2006) and contributed to wider debates about it amongst the general public, NGOs, as well as cinephiles in Scotland and more widely. In particular, two projects on the `lost classics' of African cinema allowed neglected films to be discovered both by a general audience and influential film critics/journalists.
This research has had a significant influence on: (1) cultural life, through a major exhibition at the National Library in Cape Town and promotion of forgotten French cultural heritage in the Cape; (2) civic life and public discourse, through a major series of talks, as keynote speaker at a public event organized by the National Library of South Africa (NLSA) focused on cultural memory, commemoration and reconciliation, press coverage and radio broadcasts in the UK and South Africa; (3) education, through visits to secondary schools; and (4) economic prosperity, through the promotion of tourism in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
Since 2006 ULIP has adopted the strategy of examining French and Spanish North Africa as an object of study. The rationale for this is to use ULIP's physical location in Paris as a bridgehead for researchers in North Africa and Europe. ULIP has recently recruited staff with the appropriate research profiles. These staff members have already been involved in public debates organized by ULIP in North Africa and the aim is to develop a generation of researchers who can move ULIP's strategy in this field forward.
Andrew Hussey's research has focused since 2002 on the relation between France, Spain and North Africa. As an essayist, broadcaster and public speaker, Hussey has communicated this research far beyond academic audiences to reach a general public in Europe and North Africa. His work has made a major contribution to debates about the cultural and political history of North Africa. A significant dimension to such impact has been its influence on the broadcast and print media in France, the UK and North Africa.