UNESCO Chair Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts (RILA)

Programme out now!

! Tickets for 20-23 May are sold out, but there are still tickets for the language taster sessions! You can book your place here.

Read the full programme here

WORD SPRINGS

What happens when words fail?
Where do new words lead us?
How do words give us a spring in our step?
What are the words for words and the words for spring in many languages?
How can words be a springboard?
How do words describe spring as now?
Where is the refuge in words?
Who makes refuge in words?
What do spaces and silences offer?
Where are the word springs, the sources of newness?
How can words spring us into action?
When do words well up?
How can words work miracles?

The UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts is working on five key ideas. One of those is “enhancing and replicating models for refugee integration by intentional multilingual learning with refugees and with new host communities, in order to foster creativity, diversity of cultural expressions and intercultural capabilities”.

This year, the UNESCO RILA Spring School links to that idea and focuses on words and languages, on communication and on discourse, on repertoires and on silence. We have curated sessions that explore, showcase, celebrate, experiment, teach and share integration practices and research that have language at their heart.

Together we will find out more about intercultural communication, about language hierarchies, about discourse and changing meanings of words. We will learn about new words and language learning, about language loss, about language revival and about multilingual integration processes. We will hear the word ‘welcome’ in many languages, but we will also explore what it means when words fail us. We will learn about the power of poetry, of words that comfort, of the solace of silence. We welcome the languages of music, of dance, of theatre.

At this year’s Spring School, we will examine our words and work with all of our languages and repertoires, or ways of finding meaning and making meaning together. We share with you sessions that bring in linguistic creativity and diversity to inform or learn from multilateral integration and intercultural initiatives.

SUB-TOPICS

• Intercultural capabilities, cultural expressions and linguistic diversity
• Language hierarchies, discourse, meaning making and meaning changing
• Language learning, language loss and language revival
• Silence, words of comfort and finding words
• Intercultural communication through the arts

PROGRAMME

14-17 May 2024 Language Taster Sessions:

• Ukrainian with Olga
• Arabic with Esa
• Romanian with Daniela
• Turkish with Erdem
• Tigrinya with Hyab
• Ndau with Tawona
• Tunisian Arabic with Bochra
• Azerbaijani with Samira
  and more to be confirmed!

Monday 20 May 2024

Keynotes

• Speakers: Prof Alison Phipps & the University of Glasgow Gardens
• Speakers: Dr Giovanna Fassetta & Dr Maria Grazia Imperiale
• Poet: Erdem Avşar

Presenters

• Daniel Calvert - “Use what you’ve got”: a participatory workshop on overcoming language hierarchies
• Yen-Ting Lin, Hsiao-Chang Wang, Cheng-Hui Liu & Tawona Ganyamatopé Dzapasi Sitholé - Fortune Spring and the Book of Hope for Travellers
• Tesfalem Yemane - ‘S/he was like my sister/brother’: Seeing asylum from below
• Leri Price - Ghosts in the home: how absence is felt in home-making practices
• Art slot with Migrant Voice - Exhibition of zine posters by Migrant Voice / Izaskun Elorza, Evelyn Arizpe & Tom Bartlett - The Landscapes of Home / Nic Dickson, Nughmana Mirza & Lisa Bradley - Public Information comics to diversify justice: South Asian women and domestic abuse / Rim Irscheid - Keep it in, Belong, Assimilate – Palestinian heritage and mixed identities in Germany
• Gillebrìde Mac 'IlleMhaoil / Gilbert MacMillan - Gaelic and the Refugee experience
• Tawona Ganyamatopé Dzapasi Sitholé - Mazwi
• Marzanna Antoniak - Reading and writing stories of Migration
• Deniz Ortaçtepe Hart & Kathryn DePietro - Culturally sustaining pedagogies through the use of migrant-themed children’s books
• Brice Catherin - It could have been worse
• Carolyn Kelly & Rachel Morley - Vigil for peace

Tuesday 21 May 2024

Keynotes

• Speakers: Prof Prue Holmes & Dalya Saleh
• Speakers: Dr Ala Sirriyeh
• Poet: Heidy M. Perez-Cordero

Presenters

• Bonnie Slade & Nic Dickson - Using Readers’ Theatre to examine professional language hierarchies and meaning making for immigrant professionals in Canada
• Rachel Salzano - The (he)Art of a Scribe
• Erdem Avşar, Delal Şeker, Eylem Ejder, Gian Maria Cervo, Miray Çakıroğlu, Nejdet Babat & Ümit Ünal - Here to Make a Mess: Writers Reading Their Own Works
• Erin Turner & Rachel Backshall - Prompt – What do Spaces and silences offer?
• Francisco Llinas Casas & Erick Moreno Superlano - Representation and silence
• Cheng-Hui Liu, Hsiao-Chang Wang & Han Wu - Experience the Spring of Words through Sensation Stimuli
• Kate Ferguson - Language brokering at home and abroad
• Giovanna Fassetta, Sahar Alshobaki & Maria Grazia Imperiale - Welcoming Languages. Including a language spoken by children and families from refugee backgrounds in Scottish education.

Wednesday 22 May 2024

Keynotes

• Speakers: Selina Hales & members of Refuweegee
• Speakers: Dr Lavinia Hirsu, Dr Dobrochna Futro, Karen Faulds & Fhiona Mackay
• Poet: Adrianne Kalfopoulou

Presenters:

• Nerea Bello Sagarzazu & Sarah Stewart - Crafting a circle of care through the gift of words
• Azadeh Fatehrad, Davide Natalini & Gianluca Palombo - Words of Integration: Exploring Language, Heritage, and Empowerment in Nature-Based Community Workshops
• Yutong (Paula) Bao - Bilingualism and identity of Korean ethnicity in Yanbian Prefecture, China: A linguistic landscape analysis
• Michael Quinn - “The land owns us”: Learning the global history of the natural world through Indigenous Creation Stories
• Vicky Inam Mohieddeen & members of the Kurdish Women Community Group: Gesya Salih, Shohila Razaei, Aween, Fahimeh, Ghamgin, Nihait, Kalthoom, Nareen & Falak - Eternal Connection - Translating the Unknown
• James Rann, Katherine Mackinnon, Olena Taukchi, Olga Lukianova & Vlada Rozenko - In Our Own Words: Fostering Creativity and Connection through Translation
• Frank O’Hagan - Exploring the concept of walls
• Margaret Elphinstone - Margaret Elphinstone/Lost People

Thursday 23 May 2024

Keynotes

• Speakers: Livia Vitalino
• Speakers: Prof Alison Phipps
• Poet: Herberth Cea

Presenters

• Joanne Tippett, Matt Rabagliati, Fraser How, Jamie Farrington & Tawona Ganyamatopé Dzapasi Sitholé - Playing the RoundView: translating sustainability learning into action
• Pinar Aksu - Language of the Law
• Yamam Salman - Multilingual Expressions: Bridging Cultures through Art
• Adrianne Kalfopoulou - THE FELT SPACES, Communicating with Refugee Communities Across Language Barriers
• Hyab Yohannes - From ‘open wound’ to ‘scar’
• Argyro Kanaki & Susana Carvajal - University Modern Foreign Language Teachers in Scotland: Exploring Living Experiences and Beliefs about Multilingualism, Integration Matters and Language Teaching and Learning
• Esa Aldegheri & Aila Spathopoulou - Across and against borders: shifting hierarchies of language, migration and travel
• Chrissie Gillies & Nadine Malcolm - Fàilte dhan chèilidh (Welcome to the Cèilidh)
• Jane Wilkinson, Yuliia Vasylieva & Christine Penman - ‘Talking culture(s)’: conversational reflections on hospitality, integration, and co-creating ‘cultural presentations’
• Marzanna Antoniak - Effective communication when there is a language barrier
• Anton Floyd - Depositions: Anton Floyd. A multi-disciplinary presentation of my poetry collection Depositions (Doire Press, 2022)
• Edugie Robertson & Tawona Ganyamatopé Dzapasi Sitholé - Articulating Potentiality and Dynamic Creativity – Dreaming our Life into Being
• Solo Way Choir - Songs of Ukraine

After the Spring School, you are all warmly invited to the Seeds of Thought open stage at the Centre of Contemporary Arts (CCA) in Glasgow, at 7:30pm. Entrance is free and unticketed. There will be space to share thoughts and creative outputs from the Spring School there. If you would like to share something, please contact Tawona Sitholé to reserve a spot: tawona.sithole@glasgow.ac.uk

Call for proposals out now!

WORD SPRINGS

What happens when words fail?
Where do new words lead us?
How do words give us a spring in our step?
What are the words for words and the words for spring in many languages?
How can words be a springboard?
How do words describe spring as now?
Where is the refuge in words?
Who makes refuge in words?
What do spaces and silences offer?
Where are the word springs, the sources of newness?
How can words spring us into action?
When do words well up?
How can words work miracles?

The UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts is working on five key ideas. One of those is “enhancing and replicating models for refugee integration by intentional multilingual learning with refugees and with new host communities, in order to foster creativity, diversity of cultural expressions and intercultural capabilities”.

This year, the UNESCO RILA Spring School will link to that idea and will focus on words and languages, on communication and on discourse, on repertoires and on silence. We invite proposals that explore, showcase, celebrate, experiment, teach and share integration practices and research that have language at their heart.

We want to find out more about intercultural communication, about language hierarchies, about discourse and changing meanings of words. We want to learn about new words and language learning, about language loss, about language revival and about multilingual integration processes. We want to hear the word ‘welcome’ in many languages, but we also want to explore what it means when words fail us. We want to learn about the power of poetry, of words that comfort, of the solace of silence. We welcome the languages of music, of dance, of theatre.

At this year’s Spring School, Word Springs, we want to examine our words and work with all of our languages and repertoires, or ways of finding meaning and making meaning together. We are interested in any contribution that brings in linguistic creativity and diversity to inform or learn from multilateral integration and intercultural initiatives.

Sub-topics

• Intercultural capabilities, cultural expressions and linguistic diversity
• Language hierarchies, discourse, meaning making and meaning changing
• Language learning, language loss and language revival
• Silence, words of comfort and finding words
• Intercultural communication through the arts 

Structure of the Spring School

This year’s Spring School will be split into two. We are aiming for a programme of language taster sessions the week commencing 13 May, followed by 3 days of in-person conference on 21-23 May at the University of Glasgow. We will structure the contributions in set blocks of 5/30/45/60/90 minutes, and proposals should bear this in mind. However, this is just a guide and proposals of a longer/shorter duration will be considered. We are open to most types of interaction at the Spring School!

Examples of ways to contribute

• Workshop – please indicate maximum workable group size, if applicable.
• Presentation – If your proposal has a more academic slant, this format might work better. You will be allotted 30 mins. We suggest 20/10 or 15/15 mins presentation and discussion.
• Language taster session – Must be for absolute beginners, you will be allotted 60 mins.
• Interview / panel discussion
• Pecha Kucha style presentation – 5 minutes each, these will be grouped into a longer session
• Performance – theatre, dance, song, music, poetry, spoken word, storytelling etc.
• Physical exhibit – Poster or installation for the communal areas – the exhibit can be accompanied by a short video/audio description through a QR code.
• Hackathon/problem solving session – you would get 5 minutes to present your problem, followed by 10 minutes of collective problem solving
• Other. You can take people on a walk, you can organise a flash mob, be creative!

Submission Process

Please submit a short proposal describing your contribution to unesco-rila@glasgow.ac.uk. If you like forms, you can download the Spring School 2024 proposal form here. If you don’t like forms, feel free to send us your proposal in one of the following formats:

• Written description of maximum two sides A4 (11pt Arial)
• Link to an Audio/video recording of maximum 4 minutes

Please include:

• Title of your contribution;
• Which topic(s) of the Spring School your contribution addresses, and how;
• Format and duration of contribution;
• A description of the contribution and its aims;
• Names and organisations of the people involved in your session;
• Any audio-visual, IT, space, access, language or other requirements you might have

Deadline for submission is midnight on Monday 5 February 2024.

Next steps

Proposals will be reviewed by members of the RILA team, and you will be notified of the outcome before 20 February 2024. An abstract, biography, and images for the programme will be requested upon acceptance and we will request this is returned by Monday 4 March 2023.

Fees & Expenses

The Spring School runs on a very tight budget – this is how we can ensure it remains FREE to all with no registration fees. We cannot pay presenter fees. We have a very, very small travel budget to support a very limited number of presenters. If your proposal is accepted, you will receive more information on how to apply for travel support, should you need that. Priority will be given to those without a steady means of income.

Childcare

Due to the location of the event, it will not be possible to provide on-site childcare. If you will require childcare, please get in touch with us as soon as possible, to see if we can assist or partially subsidise childcare as required. If your child is very small, you might be able to bring it along. Contact us if this is something you would like to do.

Venue

The event will take place in the Clarice Pears building of the University of Glasgow, part of the School of Health & Wellbeing. Address: 90 Byres Road, Glasgow, G12 8TB. This building is dog-friendly, so be prepared to come across dogs and bring your antihistamine if you are allergic. Dogs are not allowed in the workshop rooms. This building has a lot of nice features, such as adjustable lights (blue-yellow and dimmers) in all the rooms, which makes it particularly suitable for neurodiverse people and for those sensitive to light. All the rooms are on the ground floor and are fully wheelchair accessible. Contact us if you have access issues and need disabled parking close to the venue.

Questions/comments

For questions, comments or to discuss your ideas, please contact Bella Hoogeveen in the UNESCO Secretariat at unesco-rila@glasgow.ac.uk.

To get an idea of what our Spring Schools are like, please have a look at our previous iterations.

Download the SS24 Call for Contributions