Earlier this year a social documentary workshop was held in Ougadougou, Burkina Faso by Cinema, Human Rights and Advocacy and the films made at the workshop – looking at sexual abuse, prostitution and health – have just been put on up on the internet.
In an intense ten day period the workshop supported young film-makers having ‘something to say in an innovative form’. Participants undertook a series of sound and image exercises and experiments leading to the production of 2 – 4 minute micro stories posted on the internet; they worked to develop new ways of putting together image and sounds using new digital media for production and dissemination. The pieces were poetic, unexpected, sensitive, efficient, powerful, inspired – exploring new uses of cinematic language. Part of the purpose of the event was to develop models of sustainable film-making for a new generation of African film-makers.
Tess Woodcraft writes: All over the world women and men are taking part in events to mark the UN’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. I went to a windswept pavement outside Southall Town Hall in West London to see the play Unspoken – a collaboration between women activists, Southall Black Sisters, and Giants Theatre Company. Police sirens, buses, fire engines were all racing past – but this was something we all listened to, engrossed, hanging on every word.
Unspoken is a remarkable piece of street theatre – based on Scheherazade’s 1001 Nights, using the words of survivors of violent relationships, and performed in Punjabi and English. These are not Scheherazade’s stories, rather they are stories of forced marriage, dowry violence and brutality experienced by women living here in the UK- and the women sang and spoke from the heart, about their fight for survival.
Unspoken is theatre that seeks to break the culture of silence and denial that prevents women from speaking out – the women in Southall were adding their voices to the voices of millions of others around the world in these 16 Days of Activism.
The stage was set by an artwork – a tall figure of a woman made from flotsam and jetsam – by Lucy Edkins.
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Notes
Pod Academy has carried several podcasts about gender based violence including:
What would it mean to develop medical treatment for the core features of autism?
Recent research has enriched our understanding of the biology of autism, as well as the social experiences of being autistic, but the core biological features of autism are still not well understood.
Any medication for the core symptoms of autism is thus still some way off in the future. Nonetheless, much research is now looking for biological markers for which treatments might be developed.
‘EU-AIMS’ is a collaboration seeking new methods for the development of biological markers and drug treatments for autism. There is considerable support for such an endeavour, including from groups representing autistic people, and their families and allies. However, other autistic people, some autism self-advocacy groups, and some ethical and legal scholars, are concerned about autism coming to be defined only as a biological disorder in need of treatment – and have called for wide debate on the relationships between biology, treatment, and difference in autism.
This public dialogue, organised by the Ethics Advisory Board of EU-AIMS, brings together autism advocates and self-advocates, psychiatrists, and ethicists, to discuss these issues.
Treating Autism: full recording of EU AIMS dialogue October 2014
Welcoming international students used to be one of the key ways that Britain developed long-term, soft power relationships to aid trade and wield political influence. One in ten current global leaders were educated in the UK. But according to independent research commissioned in 2013 by Regent’s University London, only 68% of students believe that the UK is a good place to do business and only 51% feel that they have developed contacts to help them do business with the UK in future. Our educational impact is bleeding away.
This post by Aldwyn Cooper, Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive at Regent’s University London was first published by The Conversation on 31 October 2014
A 2011 report by the Home Affairs Select Committee was highly critical of the government’s approach to welcoming international students and expressed concerns that more regulation of visas could have serious unintended consequences. In 2013, for the number of international students enrolling at UK universities declined for the first time.
In the wake of this clear warning signal to government, on October 23, the select committee ran a joint conference with Regent’s University to consider how the land currently lies on student visas. Of particular concern was the continuing inclusion of students within the government’s net migration target.
Not very welcoming
While everybody recognised the sensitive nature of the immigration topic, with the exception of a lone and isolated representative of Migration Watch UK the speakers and participants all spoke up about the many benefits to be gained from international students and the contribution they can go onto make to the UK economy.
Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors and Fiona Tait from Deloitte made the point that first-class international students and graduates are a valuable resource for the UK who should be welcomed.
All the speakers at the event believed the UK must maintain regulations to ensure that only the brightest and best students receive visas to study in Britain and that “phoney colleges” be closed down and penalised.
Research commissioned by Regent’s from Youthsight, of students at 105 universities showed that 94% of international students recognised the outstanding quality of a British degree. More than 80% were satisfied with their programmes and the quality of learning experience. But around 40% felt they were not welcomed by their universities for anything other than the revenue that they contributed. As many as 50%, particularly at Russell Group institutions, felt that they were not integrated with other students.
Visa woes
But the current visa system is not fit for purpose. What’s needed are consistent and clear processes for visa applications that remain stable over time. There needs to be a rapid response to applications and requests for assistance, that could be helped by the development of a courteous, customer care service to manage visa applications and to welcome students to Britain to start their studies.
John Vine, chief inspector of borders and immigration, said that he felt progress on customer service had been made in the last two years but that there was still a long way to go. The management of applications at different application centres around the world can vary greatly. Vine said he still finds “tremendous inconsistency in quality”.
The privatisation of visa services in some countries and the transformation of many visa offices into post offices rather processing points is not helping maintain consistency across the world.
‘No cap’ insists minister
In his keynote speech, James Brokenshire, the minster for immigration and security, repeated the standard government line that there is no cap on genuine international students studying in Britain. But in my opinion, the problem is that the UK makes it such a difficult and lengthy process to gain a visa that increasingly, students from traditional provider countries such as India, Pakistan or Nigeria decide to not to come to the UK.
Earlier this year, when a senior figure from the Australian higher education system visited the UK, he thanked the UK universities minister for the UK’s tough visa policy for international students. “It was”, he is reported to have said, “making it much easier for Australia to succeed in an increasingly competitive market for such students.”
For short-term political reasons, despite the fact that Universities UK has lobbied for change on the net migration question and been backed by six parliamentary select committees, students are still included in the net migration figures.
In a glimpse of what the alternative could be, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, prime minister of Spain until 2011, told the conference that Spain’s welcoming policy for international students – which has been constant for 15 years – means the country is now the most popular destination for Erasmus students in Europe.
The UK is at a tipping point. Unless we improve our processes and reputation among international students soon, we will pass the point of no return and never be able to recover our position.
“People and their talents are two of the core drivers of sustainable, long-term economic growth. If half of these talents are underdeveloped or underutilized, the economy will never grow as it should “
So says the World Economic Forum this week in its preface to The Global Gender Gap Report 2014. Arguing that there is both an economic case and a moral case for gender equality, it explores the huge discrepancies in opportunity and attainment between men and women and between different countries.
The Global Gender Gap Index was first introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006 as a framework for capturing the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress. This year is the 9th edition of the Index, allowing for time-series analysis on the changing patterns of gender equality around the world and comparisons between and within countries.The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education and health criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups. The rankings are designed to create greater awareness among a global audience of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them. The WEF, drawing on academic contributors from around the globe, says the methodology and quantitative analysis behind the rankings are intended to serve as a basis for designing effective measures for reducing gender gaps. The index measures the gap between men and women within countries, rather than overall levels of wealth or poverty.
The Nordic countries come out top as usual (Iceland has held the top spot for the past few years). Cuba (15th) and Lesotho (16th) are ranked above Canada (20th) and the UK (18th). Israel (53rd) is behind Uganda (46th), Malawi (39th) and Bolivia (27th). But prorgess is patchy even in the countries with good overall gender equality – Norway comes top in Economic participation and Educational Attaiment for women, but a dismal 93rd in health. The full chart – from Albania to Zambia – is set out below.
Rife Magazine, the new online youth magazine, is now alive & kicking!
Covering lots of different issues – What it means to be Black, 10 meals for a fiver, book and film reviews, a great upskilling section – it is sure to become a favourite for people way beyond Bristol!
Rife came out of a project called the Bristol Talent Lab run by Latimer Creative Media, one of Pod Academy’s partners, and involving a bunch of amazing young people in Bristol,
Colour trends are watched carefully in all sorts of industries – fashion,, paint manufacturer and web design to name just three. But how do you identify a trend? What data sources can give you a good idea of the popularity of colours?
One company that has been mining its data is Shutterstock, the online picture agency. They have picked up some clear trends when analysing the dominant colours in pictures chosen by graphic designers around the world. North America likes greens and blues, for example, and African designers favour orange and red. Pink is popular in China, Russia and Argentina. Beige is declining in popularity as grey rises.
Here is their infographic, designed by the aptly named Jordan Black.
We have not been paid by Shutterstock for this post – we just thought it was interesting to see one of the many sources of data that can be mined in this digital age!
In October 2013, the British government gave a green light to the UK’s first nuclear power station in a generation. It will be built at Hinckley Point in Somerset by a consortium which is led by France’s EDF Energy and includes Chinese investors.
The government is backing nuclear energy and is guaranteeing to pay £92.50 per megawatt hour for the electricity generated, twice the current wholesale price.
Professor Keith Barnham of Imperial College, author of The Burning Answer, says there are many reasons to think this is far from a sound proposition – not only do we not know the carbon footprint of nuclear power, but the price guarantee for the consortium may end up being way above the costs of energy in 10 years time, with the taxpayer having to foot the extra bill.
This short podcast is an extended extract from Prof Barnham’s interview with Dr Radu Sporea of the Surrey University Advanced Technology Institute, in which they discuss the potential for renewables to meet all our energy needs.
You can find the full interview between Keith Barnham and Radu Sporea, Solar power, the burning answer? It looks at the potential of renewables, in particular solar power.
Photo: Reactor by Paul Stevens . Photo taken at the decommissioned nuclear reactor in Dounraey, Scotland
Three weeks ago, well-known feminist gaming critic Anita Sarkeesian was forced to leave her San Francisco home due to an ongoing tirade of abuse and threats. Members of a vocal minority of online trolls had threatened to kill her parents, drink her blood, and rape her – all while publishing her personal details online.
Why is Sarkeesian a target for so much online hatred and vitriol – most of it misogynistic in nature? In short, because she actively critiques sections of the gaming community, and the sexist content of some games. The cyber mob attacks feminist gamers.
This post, by Jessamy Gleeson,PhD student and sessional teacher at Swinburn University of Technology, in Australiafirst appeared on The Conversation website on 22 September 2014.
Sarkeesian has been the focus for much online hatred and vitriol ever since she started her website, Feminist Frequency, in 2009. But the animosity directed towards her exploded in 2012, after she launched a Kickstarter fund-raising drive for her Tropes vs Women In Video Games web series.
Banner from Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs Women in Video Games Kickstarter campaign.Anita Sarkeesian
Click to enlarge
As she documents on her site, she was targeted by a vicious “cyber-mob” of people determined to silence her.
Sarkeesian was the victim of image-based harassment (Photoshopped pornographic-style images of her were passed around various internet forums, and personally emailed to her), and attempts were made to hack her email and social media accounts.
Most disturbingly, an interactive game was created in her likeness, in which players were encouraged to “beat up Anita Sarkeesian” by virtually punching an image of her face until it was black and blue.
When Sarkeesian was besieged again recently, it was due to both her involvement in #gamergate (a wider, somewhat messier debate currently underway revolving around the long-standing issues of sexism and misogyny in the gamer community), and her posting of the latest video in the Tropes vs Women In Video Games series which explores women as background decoration in video games.
The posting of this latest video resulted in Sarkeesian being driven from her home by the “very scary threats” that were made against her through social media platforms such as Twitter.
A persistent hate campaign
So why is there such a persistent hate campaign against Sarkeesian – one that has stretched across two years, multiple websites, and a wide range of gaming communities? Partially, the answer is because sections of the internet allow it to continue.
More specifically, websites such as Twitter, 4Chan and Reddit have not been adept at countering the attacks made on women such as Sarkeesian. These websites do not actively moderate or shut down users that threaten her. Instead, it is left to Sarkeesian to report each and every one of those people to both the social media sites and the relevant authorities.
none of the social media services I use have adequate structures built in to effectively deal with cyber-mob style harassment … these issues need to be taken seriously by the institutions that make up our online social media.
Is it all a game?
But the tightening of methods to report abuse on social media services isn’t the only way to counter-attack the online abuse of women in the gaming community.
Disturbingly, some of the people who attack women like Sarkeesian see their abuse as a form of “game”. Sarkeesian identified as much in her 2012 TEDxWomen talk when she said that she had “accidentally become the villain of a massive online game in real life”.
The logic of her detractors seems to lie in their attacks being a part of this “game” – one in which if they bombard her credibility, her personality, her appearance, and her sexuality, they will eventually silence her.
Except it’s not working. As noted across a variety of blogs, articles, and websites, the face of gaming is changing. Women now make up almost half of all gamers.
People of colour, people of various genders and sexualities, people of various abilities, and a host of representatives from other communities are now pouring through the front door of the gaming palace. Straight, white, male gamers are increasingly outnumbered.
Anita’s Law
Sarkeesian’s abuse at the hands of select members of the gaming community has now become so well-known that an online law know as “Anita’s Law” has been coined.
Anita’s Law states that whenever an online discussion about sexism or misogyny takes places, disproportionate displays of sexism and misogyny will quickly emerge within the same discussion.
The disturbing responses to Sarkeesian’s critiques of the misogynistic, sexist content of various video games demonstrates the gaming community truly needs voices such as hers to continue to speak up and speak out.
Let’s just hope Sarkeesian can continue to devote her time to an industry and community that seems to so desperately need it.
One of the big issues in the Scottish referendum debates has been the ££££ – will the Scots be able to keep the pound if they vote Yes to independence this week?
This post is a shortened version of the post that first appeared 15 Sept 2014 on The Conversation website – in it, Keith Cuthbertson, Professor of Finance at City University, London and who has worked at HM Treasury and the Bank of England, suggests that although it is sterling that has grabbed the headlines, the real issue is that of debt levels. As long as debt (personal debt, government debt, bank debt) is kept at manageable levels, he says, Scotland can prosper as an independent state., and since sterling is an international currency, there will be no problem about the Scots using it.
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Professor Cuthbertson writes: In 1707 it took bribes (mainly paid to the Scottish nobility) to get Scotland into the Union with England and Wales. Now hard currency is the centrepiece of divorce proceedings, or as Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish Nationalists would have it, a separation where we continue as “just good friends”. The real issue, however, has been obscured in the pow wow over the pound.
Divorce can be either amicable or expensive, to both parties. But the main thing the Scots have to fear is excessive debt; household, bank and government debt. Keep these at manageable levels and Scotland can prosper as an independent state.
There is no problem in the Scots using sterling. It’s a world currency, created mainly by private sector banks [see Chris Daley’s podcast here at Pod Academy on how this works].
All Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, can do is alter interest rates and I can’t see that an interest rate which is appropriate for rUK (the rest of the UK economy) will be any worse for Scotland than it will be for Cornwall say. In any case, Scotland under the current system has to accept interest rates set by the Bank of England.
Under such “sterlingisation”, the Scottish government could run a budget deficit and finance it by issuing sterling denominated debt – in the same way that different countries in the Eurozone do. Initially, it may have to pay higher interest rates than say, the UK government – but if it is fiscally prudent and can demonstrate it can pay interest from future tax receipts, this is not a problem. So, it’s the debt stupid, not the currency, that’s the key to the economic argument.
The nationalists’ preferred option is a sterling currency union. This involves less sovereignty in return for an insurance policy issued by rUK. It would mean that Scottish banks could use the Bank of England as a lender of last resort. If a Scottish bank is short of cash but it can show that it is solvent, then the Bank of England would provide short-term liquidity – thus helping to prevent a run on the bank.
The lender of last resort facility is only available to solvent banks. If the bank is insolvent, (its assets do not cover its deposits) there will be no lender of last resort facility. The decision is then whether to allow the bank to go into liquidation or to rescue it using taxpayers money. But in a currency union, Scottish taxpayers would be liable for a proportion of any liabilities of a bank which is rescued by the Bank of England – just as it is now.
Credit where credit’s due
Without a formal currency union, Scotland would require a line of credit from other financial institutions to cover any short-term potential cash outflows from a legally domiciled Scottish bank facing liquidity problems. This issue needs to be dealt with. But it should not be too difficult. If a Scottish government wishes to discourage banks being legally domiciled in Scotland it could set high capital requirements. That would mean “Scottish banks” holding less in the way of deposits and raising more funds from shareholders – thus making their deposits safer because the shareholders would take “the first hit” should the bank get into difficulties.
Alternatively, banks could freely operate in Scotland but be legally domiciled in London (say) – which is likely to happen in the short-term. The “company nameplate” is changed but most of the economic activity stays in the same place. Such banks will be regulated by the Bank of England.
In a currency union with a bail-out commitment by the UK government on Scottish government debt, the Scots would have to accept some restrictions on deficits and debt levels. This they already have conceded. A currency union restricts their sovereignty but they may feel it is a price worth paying for the additional insurance provided by the rUK government.
What Scotland gets in return for these undoubted short-term complications is control over all of its tax revenues. Its success then depends on how wisely these are spent on health, education, infrastructure etc and how this affects productivity and innovation.
Whatever the outcome of the vote on September 18 the Scots, one way or another will end up in a new civil partnership with the rest of the UK – hopefully with the emphasis on “civil”. The Scots want a new deal and in voting Yes “the only thing which they have to fear is fear itself”, to paraphrase Franklin D Roosevelt. Personally, I hope it’s a “Yes we can” – partly because it might act as a catalyst for a major decentralisation of power from Westminster.
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