This episode is a recording of the opening keynote address Prof David Gramling delivered at the UNESCO RIELA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2025, in Glasgow, Scotland. Here is the abstract: Good News Bernice Johnson Reagon once sang for us a corrective teaching, along the lines that: “It’s ‘good news’ when you reject things as they are. […] And they don’t say ‘it’s good times’, they say ‘it’s good news’.” Fifty years later, these are definitely not good times. And, in this powerfully str...
Jul 16, 2025•42 min
In this episode, Elder in Residence Mike Gonzalez interviews Mohammad Alkhatib and Daniel Calvert about teaching languages, inclusion, second language acquisition, ESOL, linguistic landscapes and translanguaging pedagogy. Please visit our website for the shownotes, including their biographies: https://bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Jun 06, 2025•37 min
In this little bonus clip, you'll hear from a number of participants about their experiences at the UNESCO RIELA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating. The music is by Soloway Choir, a choir made up of Ukrainian women, currently living in Glasgow.
May 05, 2025•2 min
In this episode, Dr Tawona Sitholé speaks with academic and author Jo Beall (FAcSS) about her debut novel, Meadowlands Dawn, set in apartheid South Africa during the 1980s. Their conversation explores Jo’s personal connection to the story, how she switched from academic to creative writing, and the important distinction between love and infatuation. For the full show notes, including biographies of the speakers, please visit bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Mar 13, 2025•47 min
A wee bonus message for you all. Full show notes, including the names of the speakers and the languages: bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Dec 23, 2024•1 min
This week we have an episode in a different language for you. Listen to TafBob Mutumbi, telling us a story in Shona, one of the languages spoken in Zimbabwe by around 9 million people. Tafadzwa Bob Mutumbi is an actor, Director and Theatre maker from Harare, Zimbabwe. TafBob strives to create, perform and direct provocative ritual theatre pieces that are innovative and functional. He is committed to using his craft and artistic voice to tell marginalised African narratives with the express inten...
Nov 27, 2024•14 min
In this second episode about the Drawing Together project, Alison Phipps interviews Ravi Kohli, Kate MacKinnon, Sharon McGregor and Christine Uwase about their experiences working on the project. Please refer to part 1 for the full background of the project. For the show notes, including biographies of the speakers and links to the project, please visit: bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration. Rough timings of this episode's content: 0 to 1m50s: Alison briefly introduces the Drawing Together project and ...
Nov 13, 2024•52 min
In this episode, Alison Phipps interviews Ravi Kohli, Sharon McGregor and Christine Uwase about the Drawing Together project, a project that looked at the relational wellbeing in the lives of young refugees in Scotland, Finland and Norway. For the full show notes, including biographies of the speakers and links to the project, please visit: bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration. Rough timings of this episode's content: 0 to 4 mins: Alison introduces the Drawing Together project team 4 to 12 mins: Ravi i...
Oct 29, 2024•44 min
This episode is a collection of 4 poems, written by the 4 keynote listeners Erdem Avşar, Adrianne Kalfopoulou, Herbert Cea and Heidi Perez-Cordero, who each summarised a day of the UNESCO RIELA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2024, a large conference which takes place every year in May in Glasgow. For more information about the event, please visit bit.ly/RILASpring24. For the full show notes, please visit bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration.
Oct 23, 2024•17 min
This episode is a recording of a session entitled 'Exploring creative, cross-cultural research collaborations: A case study of an MSF run thalassemia clinic in Lebanon', which was meant to take place at the UNESCO RIELA Spring School 2023, but which was cancelled because of the situation in Lebanon at the time. Dr Molly Gilmour has now kindly shared the research that she conducted, together with her colleagues Belal Shukair, Fatima Fouad and Nader Tabri. For the full show notes, including bios o...
Sep 25, 2024•45 min
In this episode, UNESCO RIELA PhD researcher Pinar Aksu discusses her workshop at the RIELA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2024 (Word Springs). Pinar's PhD research looks at the connection between art and law in the context of migration and how arts practices can be part of creating social change, as well as access to justice within the immigration system. Her workshop explored the language used to describe migration in headlines, legislation, policies, and by lawyers, and invited partic...
Sep 11, 2024•25 min
This episode was recorded at the UNESCO RILA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2024 (Word Springs). In it, Michael Quinn argues for the inclusion of stories in teaching, to add a philosophical dimension to traditional fact-based teaching methods. For the full show notes, please visit bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Aug 21, 2024•22 min
This episode was recorded at the UNESCO RILA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2024. In it, Gillebrìde Mac'IlleMhaoil / Gilbert MacMillan shares stories from South Uist and surrounding islands, as well as some Gaelic songs. For the full show notes, please visit bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Aug 14, 2024•20 min
Margot Leys Johnston interviews Dr Hyab Yohannes from the UNESCO RILA team about his research into the 'refugee condition'. For the full show notes, including short biographies, please visit bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Jun 26, 2024•35 min
This episode is a rerecording of a session we hosted at the UNESCO RILA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2023, hosted by By Nadine Malcolm (Due North Studio), Lee McNeish (University of Edinburgh) and Cáit O'Neill McCullagh (independent artist). "Who Are We Now?" explores the destruction, and subsequent emergence, of culture in the northern Highlands, centred around the concepts of agency and ownership, and how destruction creates space for the new. How does learning about loss help give a...
May 11, 2024•57 min
In this episode, James Rann and Katherine Mackinnon from the University of Glasgow introduce their project 'Власними словами | In Our Own Words', which is a project that brings Ukrainians in Glasgow together with other Glaswegians and uses creative writing and multilingual translation to build confidence, community and mutual understanding. For more information about the project and the speakers, please go to the show notes: bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Apr 24, 2024•36 min
This is the second of a two part conversation between Dr Dan Fisher, and researchers Sawsan Abdelghany, and Adam Williamson on their work on ESOL in the asylum system. In this episode, Dan and Adam are interviewing Sawsan. Sawsan Abdelghany is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Glasgow, and a heritage language tutor. She graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a Masters in TESOL and has worked as an English-Arabic interpreter for asylum seekers and refugees in the Scottish le...
Mar 13, 2024•39 min
This is the first of a two part episode in which Dr Dan Fisher talks with Sawsan Abdelghany and Adam Williamson on their work on ESOL interpretation in asylum appeals. In this part, Sawsan and Dan are interviewing Adam. Adam Williamson is a freelance translator and interpreter based in Paris, where he works with English, Spanish and French. He began his interpreting career in the asylum system in Glasgow, where he encountered a variety of challenging circumstances and ethically compromising situ...
Feb 14, 2024•39 min
Afamba apota is a Zimbabwean proverb recited to remind ourselves of the unpredictability of going on a journey. This radio play is a playful look at the important matter of migration. Join self-proclaimed master documentary maker Paul Lamont as he enters the migration corridor and meets the inhabitants. Created by members of the Mideq team, a full list of credits can be found on the Mideq website: https://www.mideq.org/en/resources-index-page/afamba-apota/ For the show notes and the transcript o...
Feb 09, 2024•33 min
In this episode we hear from Mukuka Kasonde and Brice Catherin about their project Our Stories: a series of storytelling workshops in Zambia to create children's literature with a local slant. They are interviewed by Olivia Ndoti. For the full show notes including biographies, please visit https://bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration.
Jan 25, 2024•49 min
In this episode, Narjes Hashemi is interviewing two members of the Afghan community in Canada about their work to preserve Afghan cultural heritage. For the full show notes, please visit:https://bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Dec 20, 2023•20 min
Listen to Esa Aldegheri interview Avril Bellinger and Deirdre Ford about their book 'The Strengths Approach in Practice: How It Changes Lives'. An incredibly uplifting conversation, just what we need in these challenging times. Can you hear the creaking chair? Avril Bellinger, Honorary Associate Professor in Social Work, University of Plymouth UK, is an academic activist, international volunteer, founder of Students and Refugees Together (START), co-author of The Strengths Approach in Practice: ...
Dec 05, 2023•1 hr 1 min
At the UNESCO RILA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating, which took place in May 2023, Scotland-based curator Dr Deirdre MacKenna and psychologist Dr Laura Cariola hosted an online panel discussion, introducing their approaches to working with culturally plural mindsets. Through relational and interdisciplinary frameworks, these researchers have initiated a new collaboration to explore what it means to be ‘Third Culture’, and are working to activate consideration of and give voice to people wh...
Nov 29, 2023•30 min
On 14 October 2023, the UNESCO RILA team participated in the Fairies and Folktales event, held at New Lanark UNESCO World Heritage Site during the October week. Hope Wang, PhD candidate with the UNESCO RILA team, wrote a story for the event. Listen to her story and ask yourself: what is your utopia? Want to come and see New Lanark for yourself? Why not join our family-friendly event Shared Spaces: Migration Past & Present on 16 November: https://bit.ly/RILA_JoinUs
Oct 18, 2023•12 min
TW from around 41:30: rape and trauma In this episode we look at the Routledge Handbook of Refugee Narratives, which was published in February 2023. It is a conversation between one of the editors (Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi) and four chapter authors (Himadri Chatterjee, Agnes Woolley, Sydney Van To and Asha Varadharajan). Topics that get covered are the relationship between narrative and literature, between fiction and non-fiction, questions around witnessing and forgetting, traumatic repetition, ...
Sep 20, 2023•51 min
At the UNESCO RILA Spring School 2023: The Arts of Integrating, held in May 2023, 4 keynote poets captured the event in a poem. They are Marzanna Antoniak, Chantelle Warner, Anita Govan and S'phongo. For the full show notes, please visit https://bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Sep 06, 2023•13 min
In this episode, as part of the Sites Unseen project, Sadie Ryan and Brittnee Leysen from the UNESCO RILA team travelled to Mi’kma’ki, the homeland of the indigenous Mi'kmaw people. Mi'kma'ki spans a big geographical area in Eastern Canada, including the area that's also known as Nova Scotia, meaning 'new Scotland'. The Mi'kmaw have been living in the area for at least 11,000 years, and possibly much longer. Most of the Scottish settlers started to arrive about 250 years ago. But it's the name N...
Aug 23, 2023•23 min
Dans cet épisode, poète et bénéficiare d'une bourse de la fondation Artist Protection Fund Bertony Louis parle avec Prof Charles Forsdick (Université de Liverpool) et Rachel Douglas (Université de Glasgow) de sa poésie, la situation actuelle en Haïti et sa nouvelle vie à Glasgow. Pour plus de détails, consultez la page des notes https://bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Aug 09, 2023•34 min
In this episode, recorded in May 2023 at the UNESCO RILA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating, Prof Isabella Corvino from the University of Perugia analyses the musical integration strategy of the Orchestra dei Braccianti. The orchestra brings together musicians, farmers and workers from all over the world, united by their working situation in the Italian fields. For the full show notes, including links to the music, please visit https://bit.ly/thesoundsofintegration
Aug 02, 2023•44 min
This week's episode is a soundscape created by UNESCO RILA Affiliated Artist Erdem Avşar from recordings he made in the bay of Camas Tuath on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. The UNESCO RILA team and GRAMNet travel to Camas every year on a researcher development trip and this soundscape has captured the space and some of the activities that happened during those trip in 2022 and 2023. In Erdem's words: "Camas is not a place that you go to. But one that you carry with and within you. In a world (the ‘...
Jul 26, 2023•26 min
