Changing Lives, Changing Worlds conference

Last month, I attended the morning of the second day of the Changing Lives, Changing Worlds conference. This interdisciplinary conference showcases the research of postgraduate students. The theme of the session I attended was Voices of Youth and included a talk on the representation of Eastern European immigrants in literature (Fanni Suto), a talk about young politics in the UK (Ben Bowman) and a talk about the challenges in researching young people's experiences of child trafficking (Alinka Gearon). All the talks were extremely well presented, and gave me an interesting insight into other areas of academic research.

The talk that struck me most was the final session hosted by Alinka Gearon. She highlighted issues such as access to participants and also the complex ethical issues involved in researching the sensitive topic of child trafficking. From a social work perspective, she talked about her experiences in joining youth support groups, becoming part of these communities and allowing the children the time needed to build a relationship of trust and rapport. Initially, Alinka used a memory both to engage the children, but soon found that even references to memories were painful for some individuals. So, after asking the children what activities they liked, improvised dance sessions were held. These sessions were interactive, energetic and promoted social bonding. Alinka found that, as a result of these sessions, the children were happy to attend focus groups and interviews about their experiences.

Overall, her story so far really highlighted the importance of creativity in research, and also the impact that client involvement can have upon the research process and outcome.

I would like the thank the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Bath for hosting this event.