Home »
Archives
Technology: one step forward and two steps back
I read my colleague @paulaabowles’s blog last week with amusement. Whilst the blog focussed on AI and notions of human efficiency, it resonated with me on so many different levels. Nightmarish memories of the three E’s (economy, effectiveness and efficiency) under the banner of New Public Management (NPM) from the latter end of the last century came flooding back, juxtaposed with the introduction of so-called time saving technology from around the same time. It seems we are destined to relive the same problems and issues time and time again both in our private and personal lives, although the two seem to increasingly morph into one, as technology companies come up with new ways of integration and seamless working and organisations continuously strive to become more efficient with little regard to the human cost.
Paula’s point though was about being human and what that means in a learning environment and elsewhere when technology encroaches on how we do things and more importantly why we do them. I, like a number of like-minded people are frustrated by the need to rush into using the new shiny technology with little consideration of the consequences. Let me share a few examples, drawn from observation and experience, to illustrate what I mean.
I went into a well-known coffee shop the other day; in fact, I go into the coffee shop quite often. I ordered my usual coffee and my wife’s coffee, a black Americano, three quarters full. Perhaps a little pedantic or odd but the three quarters full makes the Americano a little stronger and has the added advantage of avoiding spillage (usually by me as I carry the tray). Served by one of the staff, I listened in bemusement as she had a conversation with a colleague and spoke to a customer in the drive through on her headset, all whilst taking my order. Three conversations at once. One full, not three quarters full, black Americano later coupled with ‘a what else was it you ordered’, tended to suggest that my order was not given the full concentration it deserved. So, whilst speaking to three people at once might seem efficient, it turns out not to be. It might save on staff, and it might save money, but it makes for poor service. I’m not blaming the young lady that served me, after all, she has no choice in how technology is used. I do feel sorry for her as she must have a very jumbled head at the end of the day.
On the same day, I got on a bus and attempted to pay the fare with my phone. It is supposed to be easy, but no, I held up the queue for some minutes getting increasingly frustrated with a phone that kept freezing. The bus driver said lots of people were having trouble, something to do with the heat. But to be honest, my experience of tap and go, is tap and tap and tap again as various bits of technology fail to work. The phone won’t open, it won’t recognise my fingerprint, it won’t talk to the reader, the reader won’t talk to it. The only talking is me cursing the damn thing. The return journey was a lot easier, the bus driver let everyone on without payment because his machine had stopped working. Wasn’t cash so much easier?
I remember the introduction of computers (PCs) into the office environment. It was supposed to make everything easier, make everyone more efficient. All it seemed to do was tie everyone to the desk and result in redundancies as the professionals, took over the administrative tasks. After all, why have a typing pool when everyone can type their own reports and letters (letters were replaced by endless, meaningless far from efficient, emails). Efficient, well not really when you consider how much money a professional person is being paid to spend a significant part of their time doing administrative tasks. Effective, no, I’m not spending the time I should be on the role I was employed to do. Economic, well on paper, fewer wages and a balance sheet provided by external consultants that show savings. New technology, different era, different organisations but the same experiences are repeated everywhere. In my old job, they set up a bureaucracy task force to solve the problem of too much time spent on administrative tasks, but rather than look at technology, the task force suggested more technology. Technology to solve a technologically induced problem, bonkers.
But most concerning is not how technology fails us quite often, nor how it is less efficient than it was promised to be, but how it is shaping our ability to recall things, to do the mundane but important things and how it stunts our ability to learn, how it impacts on us being human. We should be concerned that technology provides the answers to many questions, not always the right answers mind you, but in doing so it takes away our ability to enquire, critique and reason as we simply take the easy route to a ready-made solution. I can ask AI to provide me with a story, and it will make one up for me, but where is the human element? Where is my imagination, where do I draw on my experiences and my emotions? In fact, why do I exist? I wonder whether in human endeavour, as we allow technology to encroach into our lives more and more, we are not actually progressing at all as humans, but rather going backwards both emotionally and intellectually. Won’t be long now before some android somewhere asks the question, why do humans exist?
Share this:
How to make a more efficient academic
Against a backdrop of successive governments’ ideology of austerity, the increasing availability of generative Artificial Intelligence [AI] has made ‘efficiency’ the top of institutional to-do-lists’. But what does efficiency and its synonym, inefficiency look like? Who decides what is efficient and inefficient? As always a dictionary is a good place to start, and google promptly advises me on the definition, along with some examples of usage.
The definition is relatively straightforward, but note it states ‘minimum wasted effort of expense’, not no waste at all. Nonetheless the dictionary does not tell us how efficiency should be measured or who should do that measuring. Neither does it tell us what full efficiency might look like, given the dictionary’s acknowledgement that there will still be time or resources wasted. Let’s explore further….
When I was a child, feeling bored, my lovely nan used to remind me of the story of James Watt and the boiling kettle and that of Robert the Bruce and the spider. The first to remind me that being bored is just a state of mind, use the time to look around and pay attention. I wouldn’t be able to design the steam engine (that invention predated me by some centuries!) but who knows what I might learn or think about. After all many millions of kettles had boiled and he was the only one (supposedly) to use that knowledge to improve the Newcomen engine. The second apocryphal tale retold by my nan, was to stress the importance of perseverance as essential for achievement. This, accompanied by the well-worn proverb, that like Bruce’s spider, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. But what does this nostalgic detour have to do with efficiency? I will argue, plenty!
Whilst it may be possible to make many tasks more efficient, just imagine what life would be like without the washing machine, the car, the aeroplane, these things are dependent on many factors. For instance, without the ready availability of washing powder, petrol/electricity, airports etc, none of these inventions would survive. And don’t forget the role of people who manufacture, service and maintain these machines which have made our lives much more efficient. Nevertheless, humans have a great capacity for forgetting the impact of these efficiencies, can you imagine how much labour is involved in hand-washing for a family, in walking or horse-riding to the next village or town, or how limited our views would be without access (for some) to the world. We also forget that somebody was responsible for these inventions, beyond providing us with an answer to a quiz question. But someone, or groups of people, had the capacity to first observe a problem, before moving onto solving that problem. This is not just about scientists and engineers, predominantly male, so why would they care about women’s labour at the washtub and mangle?
This raises some interesting questions around the 20th century growth and availability of household appliances, for example, washing machines, tumble driers, hoovers, electric irons and ovens, pressure cookers and crock pots, the list goes on and on. There is no doubt, with these appliances, that women’s labour has been markedly reduced, both temporally and physically and has increased efficiency in the home. But for whose benefit? Has this provided women with more leisure time or is it so that their labour can be harnessed elsewhere? Research would suggest that women are busier than ever, trying to balance paid work, with childcare, with housekeeping etc. So we can we really say that women are more efficient in the 21st century than in previous centuries, it seems not. All that has really happened is that the work they do has changed and in many ways, is less visible.
So what about the growth in technology, not least, generative AI? Am I to believe, as I was told by Tomorrow’s World when growing up, that computers would improve human lives immensely heralding the advent of the ‘leisure age’? Does the increase in generative AI such as ChatGPT, mark a point where most work is made efficient? Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see any sign of the ‘leisure age’, suggesting that technology (including AI) may add different work, rather than create space for humans to focus on something more important.
I have academic colleagues across the world, who think AI is the answer to improving their personal, as well as institutional, efficiency. “Just imagine”, they cry, “you can get it to write your emails, mark student assessment, undertake the boring parts of research that you don’t like doing etc etc”. My question to them is, “what’s the point of you or me or academia?”.
If academic life is easily reducible to a series of tasks which a machine can do, then universities and academics have been living and selling a lie. If education is simply feeding words into a machine and copying that output into essays, articles and books, we don’t need academics, probably another machine will do the trick. If we’re happy for AI to read that output to video, who needs classrooms and who needs lecturers? This efficiency could also be harnessed by students (something my colleagues are not so keen on) to write their assessments, which AI could then mark very swiftly.
All of the above sounds extremely efficient, learning/teaching can be done within seconds. Nobody need read or write anything ever again, after all what is the point of knowledge when you’ve got AI everywhere you look…Of course, that relies on a particularly narrow understanding which reduces knowledge to meaning that which is already known….It also presupposes that everyone will have access to technology at all times in all places, which we know is fundamentally untrue.
So, whatever will we do with all this free time? Will we simply sit back, relax and let technology do all the work? If so, how will humans earn money to pay the cost of simply existing, food/housing/sanitation etc? Will unemployment become a desirable state of being, rather than the subject of long-standing opprobrium? If leisure becomes the default, will this provide greater space for learning, creating, developing, discovering etc. or will technology, fueled by capitalism, condemn us all to mindless consumerism for eternity?
Share this:
25 Years of Criminology at UON: Looking Back
This year Criminology at UON is celebrating its 25th Anniversary! Exciting times! In line with the celebrations, the Criminology Team have organised a number of events as part of these celebrations. Ranging from the ‘Changing the Narrative’ VAWG event, organised by Dr @paulaabowles and the Deputy Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC), to a school’s event in June offering out miniature taster sessions to interested, local year12 students (more details T.B.C). As well all the exciting events, we have also had reflections from the Team around what it means to them and their journey with Criminology at UON. It is my journey which I would like to share with you now.
My journey begins in 2012 as a bright eyed and bushy tailed first year student moving away from home to Northampton to study Criminology. Having never done any Criminology, Psychology, Sociology, or Law before I was feeling very much out of my depth. However, little did I realise that my A-levels in Philosophy, Ethics and English Language would hold me steady. The first year was quite overwhelming: there were lots of tears and uncertainties. I remember it taking the entire summer between year 1 and year 2 to get my head around Harvard Referencing. But I survived! It was not until the end of year 2 and beginning of year 3 where I would say I began to ‘thrive’ in the discipline. As a student, one of my highlights was doing a research placement in year 2. Academically, I gained skills which prepared me for the dissertation in the final year, but it also brought me out of my shell much more. Pretty sure there were tears here as well- this has been a common feature of my journey with Criminology (as student and staff)!
In 2015 I graduated from UON with a BA in Criminology and in the September of that year began in the role as an Associate Lecturer in Criminology. This was incredibly scary but also incredibly rewarding. It was very interesting to be on ‘the other side’ of academia having so recently graduated and it took a fair amount of time to transition from student to staff (as academics we are also students so the transition is never fully complete)! I was involved on modules I had not had the privilege of studying and was able to work closely with esteemed colleagues I’d looked up to for so long and who had had a large impact in moulding the criminologist I was (and am today). In the September of 2020, after achieving my MSc in Criminology, I became a full-time lecturer and remain so five years later. The course and University has changed a lot in those 5 years, with some fabulous new modules in the BA and BA Criminology with Psychology courses, new colleagues offering a range of expertise and passion for areas within the discipline and some epic trips with a number of the student cohorts we have been blessed to have.
There have been challenges too, and lots of tears (especially from me), but the progress and evolution of Criminology at UON in the 13 years I have been a part of it have been monumental! Hopefully there will be even more positivity to come in the future. I feel incredibly grateful and blessed to have been involved with Criminology at UON for so long, and always look back on my student days with fondness. I’ve enjoyed my role as a member of staff and enjoyed being a part of the events the Team have organised and the new course which we have designed. A huge ‘Thank you’ must be written to the ‘founding father of Criminology at UON’ @manosdaskalou, without whom my, and many others, journey with Criminology at UON might be non-existent! So cheers to 25 years of Criminology at UON, the ‘founding father’, and to many more wonderful years (and hopefully less tears)!
Share this:
25th Year Reflection
I have been part of Criminology at UON as BA Criminology student, then Associate Lecturer then Lecturer in Criminology for about 13 years in total. My last reflection on my Criminology journey was in 2020 as I had just embarked on my new role as a Lecturer in Criminology. Every now and then I reflect on how lucky I am to be able to have a job role which has the potential to encourage a passion for learning, reading, writing, critical thinking as well as other life skills.
When reflecting on the 25th year Criminology anniversary I think mostly of the old Park Campus that I used to frequent and study at as a student. It had quite a nice feel to it and there was also enough surrounding nature for a famous badger to make this place part of its habitat! There were less books available online when I was an undergraduate compared to today so I have fond memories of going to the library often to have a browse and coming away with as many criminology related books that I could fit in my bag at once. Finding places where I could study for hours that were less frequented than the main library also gave me a bit of a buzz. There also used to be a Pavilion bar near to where the majority of exams would take place, one of my favorite past time memories is sipping on a beer in the Pavilion just after the end of my final third year Criminology exam season, (whilst secretly thinking of how I thought the exams went much better than expected).
When reflecting I am also reminded of how lecturers like Dr @manosdaskalou and Dr @paulaabowles can be incredibly inspirational and influential at guiding academic paths (such as my own!). The re-occurring ideas that ‘criminology is everywhere’ and that we should ‘question everything’ has boded well for helping me to make difficult decisions and in thinking about how I interacted with people when I was working within crime related industries.
In more recent years staff and students have moved to a new campus, have worked and studied through the challenges that come with Covid-19 and contextual uncertainties. This year has had some highlights for me, such as working on a new module Imagining Crime. Whereby we used inspiration from the novel 1984 by George Orwell to task students with committing weekly ‘thought crimes’ by seeing/hearing/reading about something criminological and questioning this by using critical thinking. Listening to the development of critical thinking via the ‘thought crime’ method has been a delight. The flexible, creative and multidisciplinary nature of criminology is also quite fabulous for maintaining interest in criminology over a long period of time but also for venturing into new and less explored areas. For instance, staff and students in Imagining Crime had the pleasure of attending a guest speaker session with @saffrongarside about children’s literature and the environment this academic year – at a time when Northampton itself seemed to be struggling to cope with flooding. Of course, this did highlight the importance of seeing environmental issues as criminological issues, but also the importance of considering children’s books as criminologically cultural artifacts, was something completely new and intriguing for me. I also gained a lot from hearing what our students (who are predominantly) young people think about environmental issues outside of the mainstream media angles that I have seen.
To round up, I loved my student life whilst studying BA Criminology and I am sure many others will say ‘ditto to that’. Long may the love for Criminology at UON continue!
Share this:
Criminology in the neo-liberal milieu
I do not know whether the title is right nor whether it fits what I want to say, but it is sort of catchy, well I think so anyway even if you don’t. I could never have imagined being capable of thinking up such a title let alone using words such as ‘milieu’ before higher education. I entered higher education halfway through a policing career. I say entered; it was more of a stumble into. A career advisor had suggested I might want to do a management diploma to advance my career, but I was offered a different opportunity, a taster module at a ‘new’ university. I was fortunate, I was to renew an acquaintance with Alan Marlow previously a high-ranking officer in the police and now a senior lecturer at the university. Alan, later to become an associate professor and Professor John Pitts became my mentors and I never looked back, managing to obtain a first-class degree and later a PhD. I will be forever grateful to them for their guidance and friendship. I had found my feet in the vast criminology ocean. However, what at first was delight in my achievements was soon to be my Achilles heel.
Whilst policing likes people with knowledge and skills, some of the knowledge and skills butt up against the requirements of the role. Policing is functional, it serves the criminal justice system, such as it, and above all else it serves its political masters. Criminology however serves no master. As criminologists we are allowed to shine our spotlight on what we want, when we want. Being a police officer tends to put a bit of a dampener on that and required some difficult negotiating of choppy waters. It felt like I was free in a vast sea but restrained with a life ring stuck around my arms and torso with a line attached so as to never stray too far from the policing ideology and agenda. But when retirement came, so too came freedom.
By design or good luck, I landed myself a job at another university, the University of Northampton. I was interviewed for the job by Dr @manosdaskalou., along with Dr @paulaabowles (she wasn’t Dr then but still had a lot to say, as criminologists do), became my mentors and good friends. I had gone from one organisation to another. If I thought I knew a lot about criminology when I started, then I was wrong. I was now in the vast sea without a life ring, freedom was great but quite daunting. All the certainties I had were gone, nothing is certain. Theories are just that, theories to be proved, disproved, discarded and resurrected. As my knowledge widened and I began to explore the depths of criminology, I realised there was no discernible bottom to knowledge. There was only one certainty, I would never know enough and discussions with my colleagues in criminology kept reminding me that was the case.
Why the ‘neo-liberal milieu’ you might ask, after all this seems to be a romanticised story about a seemingly successful transition from one career to another. Well, here’s the rub of it, universities are no different to policing, both are driven, at an arm’s length, by neo liberal ideologies. The business is different but subjugation of professional ideals to managerialist ideology is the same. Budgets are the bottom line; the core business is conducted within considerable financial constraints. The front-line staff take the brunt of the work; where cuts are made and processes realigned, it is the front-line staff that soak up the overflow. Neo-Taylorism abounds, as spreadsheets to measure human endeavour spring up to aide managers both in convincing themselves, and their staff, that more work is possible in and even outside, the permitted hours. And to maintain control, there is always, the age-old trick of re-organisation. Keep staff on their toes and in their place, particularly professionals.
The beauty of being an academic, unlike a police officer, is that I can have an opinion and at least for now I’m able to voice it. But such freedoms are under constant threat in a neo-liberal setting that seems to be seeping into every walk of life. And to be frank and not very academic, it sucks!
Share this:
Meet the Team: Tré Ventour, Associate Lecturer in Criminology
Hello everyone. My name is Tré and I will be one of the student success mentors [SSMs] starting from December 2021. Some of the now third-year criminology students reading this may remember me from when I attended some sessions within my role as a student union sabbatical officer (2019-2020) in their first year. However, as an SSM, I have previously been in some of the same situations many students have as I was also a student at the university (2016-2019).
The BTEC / A-Level-to-University pipeline can be challenging, but not impossible to navigate while the transition from school to university, is a social and cultural change that takes getting used to. Particularly the codes of acting and being so ingrained in university learning and working cultures.
I did my undergraduate degree in Creative Writing at Northampton. But I did my postgraduate degree in a completely different area of study — reading Race, Education, and Decolonial Thought within Leeds Beckett’s Centre for Race, Education, and Decoloniality. My academic interests are in race and social inequalities (but I previously used creative writing to discuss it), with my undergraduate dissertation being Permission to Speak: On Race, Identity, and Belonging. Furthermore, lots of my experience comes from the many talks I have done on Black history and race (including whiteness), further to the social investments I have in the local Northampton community where I grew up. Most recently, I am co-leading a Windrush project with a charity called NorFAMtoN built off an earlier largely Black community-led response to inequalities exasperated from issue relating to the COVID-19 pandemic (a project that is ongoing).
In 2018, I started using my knowledge on race to help organisations and that started with a theatre company called Now and Then Theatre where I was consultant on their play about Walter Tull. This took place in Buckingham and Northants. I became a student union sabbatical officer for Global Majority students in June 2019 where more questions about race occured. Leaving that role in July 2020, the overlap with the murder of George Floyd also saw more questions. And though I had done this sort of work prior to that summer, this time saw me and many of my colleagues being asked to do things where I have been freelancing as a race and Black history educator more consistently since September 2020.
Yet, I fell into criminology (as a sabbatical officer) when criminology programme leads @manosdaskalou and @paulaabowles contacted me to discuss my SU role, possibly in the July or August 2019. Unknown to me then, lots of the work I had done in the community including the types of poetry events I did (could be considered criminological). Over my year in the student union, I did think a lot about what my life would have been like had I done a creative writing-criminology joint honours degree rather than single honours creative writing. Anyhow, enough of whatifs. My life with the team since meeting Paula and Manos has not been the same, as they and Stephanie (@svr2727) convinced to go for my MA.
I didn’t study criminology in a formal capacity, but in terms of understanding crime — race and thus whiteness certainly have roles (which is my area). Criminology via many conversations with the team, pertinently interacting with Paula’s module on violence (and engaging with these students when I was sabb), showed me a context for my institutional experiences at university and elsewhere. Criminology simply added more layers to my understandings of the world. As an artist, I find criminology to be multidisciplinary informing some of my poetry as what happened when I went to Onley Prison in February 2020 showing criminology’s relevance in life beyond theory (as valuable as theory is).
As an artist, I try to approach as much as possible with an open-mind. Yet, as an academic as well, I also try my best to think how the issues we teach also have a human cost. For example, we must not only talk about violence as a purely academic matter. The decisions we make can have consequences. So, here then in your study time, I encourage you to think about the human cost of research (as there is both good and bad). Remember, there is no such thing as ‘being objective’ (there’s always a perspective or an agenda … see what I did there?). Debate with your lecturers, but more importantly debate with each other.
As an SSM, my role is about helping all students. Those that are just starting and also students that have been here for a while. I am here to help students that study at Northampton, including those who came straight from school all the way to those that came to university after a working career before going back to study. However, as an associate lecturer, I’m here specifically for criminology students.
My name is Tré and will be back at the university on a part-time basis starting from December 2021, and I look forward to meeting you all very soon! 😀
More on me here – https://linktr.ee/treventoured
Share this:
On doing a Masters degree in a year that felt like the last level of Jumanji
For the short time I have been writing on this blog (thanks @paulaabowles and @manosdaskalou for the first invite), I am certain I have said before that I never expected to go to university. At school, I was not particularly ‘academically gifted’ and was treated differently to the other children. Not only because I was a Black child in an almost homogenously white mass, but also because I was neurodivergent. Back then, I did not know terms like ‘neurodiversity’ or ‘disability‘ but I knew I was different because the teachers went out of the way to treat me differently (and not in the best way). It was only recently that I saw my school experience was intersectional, and how I was treated was traumatisingly ableist. At sixteen, I was forced to go to college to retake my GCSEs (or the equivalent), where I retook English and Maths while doing a BTEC Level 2 qualifiaction. Going on to do A-Levels at seventeen years old, I realised I did not exam well.
There, I saw I did well in coursework which I could do at home in an environment I was comfortable in, with time to mull things over and think. I also realised I did well in things I enjoyed. When it came to coursework, I almost sailed through it all, but exams that relied on memory tests … here, I struggled exponentially. Particularly as my dyspraxia impacts memory. As part of a longer thread on children’s education, Professor David Bowles tweeted
“Do you want kids to learn?
Here’s something we’ve discovered.
Kids learn things that matter to them, either because the knowledge and skills are “cool,” or because …
… they give the kids tools to liberate themselves and their communities.
Maintaining the status quo? Nope.”
@DavidOBowles (2020)
When people talk to me now, they have this belief that I have always been collected and together. And when people come to my sessions, or even came to see me when I was an SU sabbatical officer, they did not believe that I got into my undergraduate course (Creative Writing) via clearing. The fact I struggle (and still struggle) with exams is unbelievable to them. To them, I do not fit the picture (built on media-made stereotypes) of what is now called Special Educational Needs [SEN]. As a child, I had a Maths and English tutor in school (Mrs Thomas) and outside of school (JJ, who I’m still in contact with now … great human). It’s only now that I’m seeing that due to the institutionalisation of education, seeing students as individual learners is a challenge for many. One size does not fit all, and now I’m imagining that if autistic children, for example, were able to learn in the system via our special interests, how different things would be for those of us that learn in less conventional ways.
Doing my undergraduate degree, then graduating in July 2019 (mere months prior to the outbreak of COVID in March 2020), I am seeing I did well because I was in a discipline I liked. But more than that, because I was writing about things that mattered to me. The university’s creative writing course did not show me anything about Black British writing, so just as I recommend to all students I meet now (particularly those from historically excluded backgrounds), make two sets of notes: do your own reading as well as those your lecturer gives you. From late summer of 2019, I was in conversation with Criminology’s Stephanie Richards @svr2727 about masters programmes and she of course had all the solutions! Off the back of years of being interested in issues pertaining to racial inequalities and like-issues, I signed on to Leeds Beckett University’s MA in Race, Education, and Decolonial Thought.
Since then, my life has not been the same. Unknown at the point of signing up in the January/February of 2020 for the coming autumn, that we would be in intermittent lockdowns during my study time, I guess this worked out in the end. Yet, following Bowles’ points about learning, I was in an academic discipline that mattered to me (Critical Race/Whiteness Studies) and my final grades reflected the passion I have for these subjects and how courses like mine give students some of the tools to liberate themselves and their communities. My modules were in Research Methods; Decolonial Thought and Critical Race Theory; Race, Identity, and Culture in the Black Atlantic; Children’s Cultural Worlds (elective); Diverse Childhoods (elective), and Critical Whiteness Studies. They also offered Critical Ethnic Studies and Critical Discourses as electives. These modules (minus Research Methods) gave students free reign to write what they wanted as long as it tied into the topic in some way. e.g., in Children’s Cultural Worlds I wrote a postcolonial analysis of the classic C.S Lewis Narnia text The Horse and His Boy, with further comments on how the implementation of canonical texts on the English curriculum is not the problem, the issue is our gaze (later turning the essay into an online talk, which helped teachers inside and outside of my community).
The Coronavirus pandemic was stated to be ‘unprecedented’ but I would argue otherwise, as many generations before us all experienced pandemics. From the Plague to the Spanish Flu, there is a precedent. Yet, when disease has impacted countries in the Global South, countries like Britain have turned the other cheek. Ironically, it is also some of the countries in the Global South that have showed better preparation in fighting COVID-19. Doing my MA, the events of the last 18+ months are also things that lend themselves so appropriately to the course content. In discussions about colonialism and empire, this is not a conversation one can have without thinking about disease historically nor current climate change or capitalism. The nature of my masters was not only relevant to COVID, disproportionality, and others, but also the events in society following the Murder of George Floyd and the subsequent discourses around race equity/equality and anti-racism. One cannot pioneer anti-racism whilst ignoring the destructive nature of capitalism and how racial capitalism functions in our society.
Between September 2020 and September 2021, I did this degree online without setting foot in Leeds. Our lectures were pre-recorded and our seminars were on Microsoft Teams. There was something lost online, but the nature of the discussions was excellent. The fact I was the youngest in my cohort (25) was also welcome, so I was happy to learn from those often over ten years older than me, with many of them doing this course whilst also working in schools as teachers and senior leaders. Listening to their lives and stories was as sombre as they were enlightening. Teachers doing this degree whilst being treated ambominably in schools, we must consider how personal experience is also researchable (as I found doing an autoethnographic dissertation)
As someone that is neurodivergent, my ability to hyperfocus on subjects that interest me (even to the point where I forget to eat/sleep … quite typical of many neurodivergents I know), whilst previously was stigmatised in school, with Leeds it was actually encouraged. Not the not sleeping/eating part, but the critical analysis and taking those ideas further part. To overanalyse in my essays and take it that step further was a real boost for my confidence, to then be invited to make contributions to the primary education teacher training course as well. With lots of my colleagues being based in the North of England, it struck me when I also visited Manchester and Lancaster this year to meet two of my new friends, that there’s something in the northern air that quite agrees with me. It’s something that does not exist in the Midlands or the South. I cannot place it, but I want to inquire! My lockdown experience is very different to most students as my course was previously designed to be mixed-mode. Furthermore, my introverted nature means I can also be happy in my own space for long periods. Whilst my extroverted friends get their dopamine from being around others, those encounters when I do have them require me to be alone for long periods to get the same feelings.
What I do miss is the feeling of being on campus, while simultaneously being in a solitary corner of the library. However, our MA WhatsApp chat has bee invaluable, further to discourses on #AcademicTwitter. Whilst my undergrad often positioned lecturers as a bit more ‘us and them’ (almost like the schoolteacher-student relationship), my MA lecturers positioned themselves as mentors and more human who also love to tweet. Frequently, particularly Shona, would be tagging us in things useful to our interests which I still greatly enjoy. On my MA, I also got the opportunity to write a book chapter on empire, racism, corruption, and COVID-19 for an upcoming anthology (to be published by June 2022) in addition to be part of Leeds Beckett’s CRED paper series where I wrote a paper on how we can better teacher Black history as something that is multidisciplinary. Not looking at history through a tunnel.
In a year or nearly two years, that has felt like fourth level of Jumanji, my masters experience has been invaluable in keeping me grounded. Leeds Beckett gave me something that Northamptonshire (the place I grew up in) has not, and is still unable to give me, and it did so without even having to go there. I have still never been to Leeds, but hopefully I get to visit for graduation next year.
As this level of Jumanji continues, who knows what the future holds? Both COVID-19 and the reinterest in Black Lives Matter have shown us that society needs to be redesigned in a way that benefits the many not the few. The lockdowns have shown that those of us with disabilities were needlessly suffering under institutional violence from employers and education providers, and post-lockdown many employers are shifting back to those ableist ways of functioning. And doing my MA in one of the most interesting (yet bleak) years since 1919 is a reminder of what I am capable of. I just needed some coaxing into it!
Share this:
#CriminologyBookClub: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
As you know by now, a small group of us decided the best way to thrive in lockdown was to seek solace in reading and talking about books. Hence the creation of #CriminologyBookClub! Building on on what has quickly become standard practice, we’ve decided to continue with all eight bloggers contributing! This title was the second chosen by @paulaabowles and is our 13th book. Read on to find out what we thought….
I chose this book on the strength of its quirky title. In terms of quirkiness, it didn’t disappoint. What’s not to like about the adventures of a centenarian? Part history lesson, part Forrest Gump, the cast of characters includes Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek and Harry Truman, alongside Allan, Beauty and an elephant called Sonya (seems Criminology Book Club cannot escape elephants from our reading diet…)! The story, despite including all manner of improbable deaths, is a gentle read. In many ways, it reminded me of Leslie Thomas’ The Adventures of Goodnight and Loving and I do have to say I prefer that story. Nevertheless, it was lovely to see the representation of older characters in an adventurous tale.
@paulaabowles
A centenarian is the most unlikely hero! Their mortality alone makes them too frail and fragile to be featured in a movie where villains end up dead in a path of carnage. In this book, the title is not a metaphor but most literal. A century old man is running away in his slippers dragging a stolen suitcase; somehow the story of what happens next, becomes compelling in this fast-paced action-packed adventure. The old man is carrying with him also a century of stories involving “who’s who” of the 20th century! At some point you are wondering if this is a comedy of errors, a farce or a spy thriller. The old man, in his back and forth stories, is bringing to light the absurdity of the 20th century, the political and ideological conflict of the time. This part of the story becomes a bit of a parody and the flashbacks become a bit tiresome as they seem to take us away from the main story, as you are left wondering will the old man live another day?
@manosdaskalou
I found this book an absolute joy to read, laughing out loud throughout. The book was about a centenarian who gets into all kinds of adventures and has done throughout his life. Each story of how he accidentally fell into situations with various historical political figures made me chuckle. What I also liked was that the book was devoid of any emotion. The love stories were quite clinical, the life and death situations fearless but this is just what I needed, and I think it made the book even more funny. More slapstick humour than romcom, it was completely ridiculous and an unlikely tale but because of this I could laugh at the dinners with murderous war mongers and the protagonist’s penchant for blowing stuff up.
@amycortvriend
We’ve come full circle in relation to book choices: it is Paula’s choice once again! And in all fairness, this book was more enjoyable than the Yellow Room. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, was a book of two halves for me. The first half was witty, quick paced, and not like anything I had read before. However the second half of the book, was repetitive and without giving away any spoilers, the characters did not develop into the loveable rogues I thought they were. They remained quite stagnant. Nevertheless, I did really enjoy the book and found myself chuckling away at various points. Something which none of the other choices (excluding Inspector Chopra) have done. Good choice, @paulaabowles: I wonder how @manosdaskalou’s second choice will fare?
@jesjames50
The 100 Year Old Man was a novelty for me. Prior to this I had never encountered a book where the main character at 100 years old gets up to all kinds of unintended mischief. The sense of adventure included within the book was something that I needed at the time, although I found that the appeal of the book began to wear off at the half-way point. I also found some descriptions to be problematic from my own point of view, but overall I enjoyed the book!
@haleysread
I don’t suppose you get to be a hundred years old without having a few tales to tell. Allan’s life appears to have been a little more adventurous than most and his absconding from an old people’s home seems to be a continuation of mishaps and mayhem. A delightfully funny book, cleverly written to incorporate some historic characters into the narrative. The chapters jump from the past to the present and back again, sometimes leaving you wanting to skip a chapter to continue the narrative of the past or to find out what happens next in this tale of murder and destruction. Its amazing what you can get away with when you are a hundred years old. I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book.
@5teveh
I haven’t read a book like this before and really enjoyed the whole concept of a much older than average ‘hero’ and their adventures both past and present. The glimpses into his colourful past and the famous faces from throughout history that he met along the way gave this book an interesting sense of time and place – both completely fictional and yet almost plausible in the real world. The writing style was also different from the other books we have read as a group and I found it very funny in places. Overall I found the book slightly too long – the novelty began to wear off and I found myself a little fed up with the alternating chapters between past and present ( I preferred those set in the present, though I know others in the group preferred those set in the past) but am still excited to find out what happens to him and his friends in the next book!
@saffrongarside
I was not expecting what I was going to read….elephants, gangsters and men locked in freezers. This book is a light and easy read. It centres around the very colourful life of 100 year old Alan Karlsson. Throughout the book Alan takes you on a journey to meet some interesting historical figures such as Stalin and President Truman. In many ways Alan influences these characters, which in essence shapes events that have happened in history.
We also follow Alan’s life in present day, in which we follow outlandish characters through a very humorous story. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It kept me entertained and wanting more. Although some parts of the book were about some dark things, such as Eugenics and abuse under the guise of ‘medicine’ the humorous present-day story of Alan’s journey balanced this book out, making it a light hearted tale.
@svr2727
Share this:
It’s different now… it happened to me
A few weeks ago, @paulaabowles shared an article on the Criminology Facebook page which posed the question of whether graffiti is art or crime. My response was art. And like all art, not all variations, interpretations or styles are for everyone. I know I can look at some graffiti and be quite taken aback at the brightness, boldness and creativity which shines through. I can also look at some and go ‘eugh’. However I have the same reactions to various classical and well-known pieces. My unrefined self does not get all the hype about a number of Picasso’s works (possibly all the ones I have seen). Nevertheless this is the beauty of art: it is down to individual taste.
So for me, I was fairly certain on my opinions and convictions towards graffiti as an art form, and as an example of the CJS further stigmatising and criminalisation young people’s behaviours: something I am certain we are all quite familiar with at this stage in our criminological journey. However those beliefs and informed views were put to the test over the Bank Holiday (BH) Weekend, and in all honesty I think I am still trying to get to grips with them. It is different now…. It happened to me.
Some context: as those of you who have read various blog posts from myself will no doubt remember, my partner runs a small kiosk near one of the Royal Parks in London. Often during the weekends and summer months, I provide an extra pair of hands to help clean and serve during the busier periods. And as a result of the pandemic, my partner finds themselves going from a team of 4 down to just them, and me when I am able to support: this was the case for the BH Weekend. Off we popped, down to London for a day of serving hotdogs, drinks and ice creams. However our day was thrown off course by some ‘ugly’ graffiti all over the front of the kiosk.
My partner was angry, and felt personally attacked (not really sure by who- but guess that’s besides the point). It is not the first time the kiosk has had graffiti on it, but it is the first time I have seen it in person and witnessed my partner’s response. Rather than starting our working day and opening up, we had to clean the graffiti off. My partner set to this: just over 3 hours later some of it has been removed, but so has some of the kiosk’s paint. It looks a mess. We are now at midday and we cannot afford to remain closed and keep cleaning. We have lost 3 hours of trading time to try and remove it, only to remove some of it and some of the kiosk’s paint. I am informed that we shall need to go to B&Q to try and find some graffiti remover: Capitalism wins again! But seeing my partner cleaning for 3 hours, losing the trading hours and for this end result: I can’t help but feel angry, frustrated and in want of some kind of justice. It’s different now… it happened to me.
But what realistically would justice be in the scenario? What do I actually want as a result? I have no idea. I asked my partner who said they just wanted them ‘not to do it’. It is private property, will my partner call the police? Nope: just nuisance annoying behaviour, but not much anyone can do about it. I feel less inclined to call it art. I like my partner’s use of ‘nuisance’ behaviour: it feels very accurate. I do not think my partner was targeted, I think it was available as a surface to be used for that individual or individuals to express themselves. But I am shaken in my previously held convictions. Shouldn’t something be done. We lost 3 hours of trading, the kiosk now needs to be repainted and we shall need to purchase some graffiti remover. All for some expression of ‘art’? Shouldn’t there be some kind of repercussion?
I am not too sure. I also know when this has happened before, and I have not been present to witness the impact it has on my partner and the kiosk I have been very nonchalant about it. ‘Oh dear, that’s frustrating’, ‘ah well, never mind’. But being there and seeing it: I view it differently. And this is something many of us come to grips with when considering hypothetical moral situations and larger ethical questions. We think we will act one way, but if it happened to us: it is quite possible our opinions, informed views and beliefs would change. I still think graffiti is art, but I am not so convinced in my previous assertation that it is not a crime…
Share this:
My new year nightmare: finance, political imperatives and a lack of strategy
The new year is here. At its last knockings, the previous year offered hope of some sort of return to normality. The second new vaccine was on its way, far easier to store and distribute, it offered hope. Unfortunately, the joy of the new year has been somewhat muted as we have witnessed Covid-19 cases rise to new heights. Talks of stricter measures have turned into our new reality, as one minute the government insisted on schools opening then the next a partial U-turn before a forced full-scale retreat. But as we watch all of this unfold, I am reminded of a comment I heard from a radio presenter on the lead up to Christmas. Her view was that there was much to be happy about, we know more about the virus now than we ever did and scientists have developed a vaccine, several vaccines, in record time. Over the Christmas and new year period I reflected on last year and tried to think about what we have learnt.
Brexit has just proved to be a complete farce. Promises of a good deal turn out to be not so good, ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ the politicians said. And then in desperation, realising that any deal was better than no deal and that the best deal was the one where we were in the European Union they settled on something and thanked the gods that there was far more pressing bad news to hide their incompetence. So, we are now a ‘sovereign’ nation but poorer to boot and whilst we think we have regained control over our borders, it is only limited to bureaucratic, time consuming form filling, as we beg people to come here to work in our care homes and on the farms for a pittance. Perhaps the refugees that we have reluctantly accepted might help us out here. Brexit has been delivered but at what cost? No wonder Stanley wants to take up his opportunity for a French passport.
We are all equal its just that some are far more equal than others. We saw the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and I have a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to do that discussion justice; I’ll leave that to others that are far more capable. It did have a profound impact on me though as a former serving police officer, I would like to think it had an impact on others both retired and serving, but I’m not so sure. I think that quite often the police are simply a reflection of our society and I’m not willing to bet much on that changing rapidly. I remember Michael Holding, a former West Indian cricketer, turned commentator, talking about ‘white privilege’ and he provided what I thought at the time was a good example. Now I’m not so sure, this so called ‘white privilege’, isn’t privilege at all, it’s rights. It’s the rights that white people avail themselves of everyday in a democratic society (well that’s what we are supposed to be in anyway) without a second thought. The problem isn’t that white people have those rights, it’s that Black and ethnic minority individuals don’t, or where they do, the rights are somehow conditional. I might be wrong in my thinking, but I know one thing, without some very clear leadership from government, institutions and general societal attitudes are unlikely to change sufficiently. Although footballers and staff take a knee before every match, I fear that the momentum is likely to be lost. By the way, I’m not holding out much hope on the leadership gambit.
Sticking to the we are all equal theme; the pandemic has shone a spotlight on poverty in this country. Yes, Mr high and mighty Reece-Mogg, there really are very poor people in this country and they do need a helping hand. The fact that food banks are even required is shameful. The fact that foodbanks rely on charity is an even more shameful indictment of our government. The fact that a senior politician can stand up in the house of commons and accuse a charity of political motives when distributing aid beggar’s belief. I find it extraordinary that pre pandemic, homeless people were left to their own devices on the streets, reliant on charity and handouts and yet as soon as we went into lockdown, the government found money from somewhere to house them. What changed? My worry is that when the pandemic is over, the government are going to be more concerned about balancing the books than they are about the pervasive poverty endemic in our nation.
Children returning to school has been a huge issue for government and they rely on evidence that suggests that the best place for children is at school. A headmaster reminded us in an interview on the radio that this ‘online learning’ phrase that trips off the tongue is far easier to talk about than to achieve. What hits home is the huge disparity in opportunity for children to avail themselves of online learning. Poorer families cannot provide the technology required. Poorer families are likely to live in cramped conditions making it impossible for children to concentrate on work as siblings run around trying to keep themselves amused. And let’s not forget the plight of the parents who are more likely to be in jobs that require them to be at work, not home. Then of course there are those children that are vulnerable where school is a safe haven from abuse, whether that’s physical or mental or simply because school is where they will be fed. So, in a sense for many, school is a better place than home, but we really ought to be asking why that is. What does that say about our society? If I were to hazard an educated guess, I’d say its broken. The return of children to school had wider implications. What about the teachers and staff? It seems to me that government have different standards of risk depending on what suits. I’ll come back to this in time but I think the closure of schools owes itself more to the action of teachers in their refusal to turn up to work in an unsafe environment than it does any sensible government strategy.
Sticking to the education theme, the pandemic shone a rather harsh spotlight on higher education too. What became increasingly obvious was that the return of students to campus was purely financially driven. At least one vice chancellor put his head above the parapet and stated as much. His university would fail if he did not fill the halls of residence. So here we had a situation where scientific advisors were stating it was folly to open universities and yet universities did so with the backing of government. The reason, we can’t put education on hold and yet how many students take a gap year, before going to university? Putting education on hold doesn’t appear to be that damaging to the individual, but it is very damaging to a morally corrupt educational business model that needs halls of residence to be filled to prop up the system. To make matters worse, students flocked to university only to find that face to face teaching was patchy, the university experience was not what they were promised or envisaged it would be, and more time was spent in isolation and lock down than was healthy. If education was supposed to be good for their mental health, it had the opposite effect for many. I don’t think it required a rocket scientist to work out that online teaching was really going to be a default position, so either management and government were very naïve and reckless, or they were somewhat economical with the truth. Time to revisit higher education, I think.
Talking about government advisors, what’s the point in having them? Everything I read suggests that government advisors say one thing and government does something else or dillies and dallies its way into a dead end where it finally admits the advisors are in some way right, hence another eleventh hour lock down. The advisor’s said universities should not go back, they did and is it coincidence it coincided with a rise in Covid-19 cases? Advisors were saying schools shouldn’t go back but the government insisted they should and many did for just one day. There is a saying about tactics and strategy. Strategy is unlikely to be achieved without tactics but tactics without a strategy are useless. I have yet to understand what the government strategy is, there is however a plethora of disparate (or is that desperate?) tactics . The result though, anguish and suffering to more than is necessary. Some of the tactics seem to be based on decision regarding who is most at risk. We hear that term an awful lot. I watched the prime minister at lunch time, the man who promised us a fantastic Brexit deal, as he explained how important it was that children went back to school. Children are at very little risk going to school he said and then added, and teachers are not at very much risk or at least at no more risk than they would be normally. He bumbled and blustered over the latter part; I wonder why? A few hours later he told us schools would be closed until at least the 15th February. What happened to ‘no risk’? When we talk about risk, there are a number of ways of viewing it. There is the risk of death, easily understood and most definitely to be avoided, but what seems to be neglected is the risk of serious illness or the risk of ‘long Covid’. By ordering schools to be opened or that universities resume face to face teaching, the policy seems to have been that as long as you are not at a high risk of death then it is an acceptable risk. Time for a bit of honesty here. Does the government and do managers in these organisations really think that a group of people in a room for a number of hours with inadequate ventilation is not a serious risk to the spreading of the disease? Maybe some of the managers could reassure us by doing most of the face to face teaching when we prematurely come out of lock down again.
It seems to me that much is being made, on the news in particular, about the effect a lock down has on mental health, especially children. And I do understand the mental health issues, I can’t help but think though that whilst this is a very valid argument there is the elephant in the room that is either ignored or conveniently understated. The elephant; the fear engendered by the virus, the fear and anguish of those that have had to face the loss of a loved one. Just to put that in perspective that’s over 70,000 people whose families and friends have had to go through firstly the fear and anxiety of a loved one being ill and then the additional fear and anxiety of having lost them. Add to this the fear and anxiety of those that have caught the virus and ended up in hospital coupled with the fear and anxiety of their loved ones. Now add to this the fear and anxiety of those who have to work in conditions where they are at serious risk of catching Covid and the fear and anxiety of their loved ones. And then of course there is the fear and anxiety caused to the general population as the virus spins out of control. Somehow I think a little perspective on mental health during lock down might be needed. Is it any wonder teachers decided that what they were being asked to do was unsafe and unnecessary?
And then I think about all of those parties and gatherings despite restrictions. The shopping trips from tier 4 areas into tier two areas to snap up bargains in the sales. The Christmas and New years eve parties that defy any logic other than pure self-indulgence. Just as we see all of those selfless people that work in organisations that care for others or keep the country running in some capacity, we see a significant number of selfish people who really don’t care about the harm they are causing and seem to be driven by hedonism and a lack of social values. Unfortunately, that accusation can also be aimed at some of the very people that should be setting an example, politicians.
We should of course be happy and full of hope. We have a new vaccine (that’s providing it still works on the mutated virus) and normality is around the corner, give or take a few months and a half decent vaccination strategy (that’s us done for). A vaccine that was found in an extraordinary time period. I wonder why a vaccine for Ebola wasn’t found so quickly? I agree with my colleague @paulaabowles when she says we all must do better but more importantly I think its about time we held government to account, they really must do better. After the second world war this country saw the birth of the NHS and the welfare state. What we need now is a return to the fundamental values that prompted the birth of those provisions. There are so many pressing needs and we really mustn’t allow them to be forgotten. A strategy to tackle poverty might just ameliorate a raft of other ills in our society and the cost of tackling it might easily be mitigated by a reduction in demand in the NHS and many other public services. I can but dream, but my reality envisages a nightmare world driven by finance, political imperatives and a lack of strategy.
Thoughts from the criminology team 