Welcome back to Recovering Community.

In a special bonus episode, Les Back meet world-renowned sociologist Professor Patricia Hill Collins, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in Sociology, University of Maryland College Park, and the Charles Phelps Taft Professor Emerita of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Collins visited Glasgow on 14 October, 2024, to give the University's inaugural Racial Justice Lecture.

This was the first event in a new series of public lectures which has been established through the University’s Understanding Racism, Transforming University Cultures programme. This initiative aims to address structural racial inequalities faced by our community and publicly states our commitment to being an anti-racist institution. It was an extraordinary occasion introduced by the Principal, Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, along with scholar activist, Professor Satnam Virdee.

Some of the titles of Professor Collins books include Black Feminist Thought; Fighting Words; Black Sexual Politics (2004); From Black Power to Hip Hop (2005); and most recently Lethal Intersections: Race, Gender, and Violence.

This interview was recorded before her lecture and Les and Prof Collins discuss her work and in particular her writings on what she calls the ‘new politics of community’ which is an issue very much at the heart of this podcast.

We're working on season 3 of Recovering Community, look out for more episodes soon.

Presented by Professor Les Back, produced by Freya Hellier with support from the staff of the School of Social and Political Sciences.

For this special bonus edition of Recovering Community, Les Back travels south of the border, to Sheffield to look at how rethinking the relationship between heritage and local communities can make them more inclusive, particularly for the most marginalised.

Here, the Roots and Futures project is listening to the perspectives of under-served communities, particularly Sheffield's Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities in seven locations across the city.

The project is informing city-level heritage strategies in partnership with Joined Up Heritage Sheffield, Sheffield City Council, University of Sheffield, and community partners including Zest, SOAR, Sheffield and District African Caribbean Community Association, Care for Young People’s Future, ChilyPep, Manor and Castle Development Trust, and Heeley City Farm. This all might seem like a long way from Glasgow but Roots and Futures is part of the AHRC’s Place-Based Research Programme which is based at the University of Glasgow.

People rooted in local communities are absolutely essential to this kind of co-production and Les spends time with just a few of the people involved in this ambitious project:

Aisha Jones has lived in Sheffield for over 20 years and is a dedicated community volunteer

Lizzy Craig-Atkins is Professor of Human Osteology at the University of Sheffield and the principal investigator of Roots and Futures.

Rhonda Allen, is a Research Associate in the Roots and Futures Project in the DSchool of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities, Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Izzy Carter is a historian and the co-investigator of Roots and Futures. Much of her work is connected to place and working with communities.

And Robin Hughes, who is a trustee of Joined Up Heritage Sheffield

Many thanks to them all for sharing their time and expertise. Find out more about Roots and Futures here

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/archaeology/roots-and-futures

We’re already working on plans for our next episodes, but your feedback, comments and questions are always so welcome. You can get in touch with Les via X https://x.com/AcademicDiary

If you’re interested in podcasting as part of your academic research, please do share your work or what you’re listening to, we are interested to hear what other people are working on.

Thanks to the staff in the School of Social and Political Sciences and the College of Social Sciences who helped with this project.

Recovering Community is produced by Freya Hellier.

Les Back meets with Dr Susan Batchelor, Dr Caitlin Gormley and Jim Thomson to learn more about a new piece of research exploring repeat violence in Scotland.

To be homeless is more than not having a roof over your head. It is also about a denial of being, a person out of place to look away from, to ignore and not make eye contact with them as you pass busily through Glasgow's Central Station.

The numbers of people living precariously in the city is increasing (a recent article in the Glasgow Herald says they have doubled recently). This is a story of a deep crisis not only in housing, but it also reveals the symbiotic relationship between social inequalities, homelessness, violence, and the drug economy

And it’s a story that many people and organisations are trying to rewrite. One of them is Glasgow City Council who has been putting up Rough Sleepers and Vulnerable People or RSVPs in a number of city centre hotels for a few years now. For an overstretched local authority struggling to meet demand, this has been a controversial and troubled solution to a very complicated issue.

Another organisation working in this field is Simon Community Scotland; a charity providing information, advice, care, support and accommodation to people experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness.

The Simon Community has a wealth of expertise and lived experience within its teams of staff and volunteers, one of them is Jim Thomson, who - at the time of our interview - was the coordinator of We See You, a project run from the Simon Community’s access hub in the city centre.

Jim and the Simon Community partnered with my colleagues Susan Batchelor and Caitlin Gormley as part of a major research project on Repeat Violence in Scotland.

It’s a piece of work that is urgently important so Les met up with Susan, a senior lecturer in sociology and Caitlin, a lecturer in criminology - who are both based in the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and Jim to learn more.

Thank you to Jim Thomson and The Simon Community Scotland for hosting this recording

You can read the report on repeat violence in Scotland here

https://www.gov.scot/publications/repeat-violence-scotland-qualitative-approach/

Recovering Community is presented by Les Back and produced by Freya Hellier