‘Community Engagement and Intercultural Sensitivity: Ethics, Design and Practice’ – Panel and workshop with Rwanda Research Cluster

On October 13, the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities hosted a panel and workshop featuring members of SCVN’s Rwanda Research Cluster titled ‘Community Engagement and Intercultural Sensitivity: Ethics, Design and Practice’. It was led by Dr. Fransiska Louwagie and featured three speakers with backgrounds in ethnographic research: Drs. Anna Ball, Erin Jessee, and María Soledad Montañez. The full day event included an online panel in the morning and an in-person workshop in the afternoon, hosted at the Sir Duncan Rice Library at the University of Aberdeen.

It explored the questions: how can we ensure that engagement practices are sensitive to the cultural identities, practices and beliefs of those within the communities with which we work? And how can we design community engagement practices that enhance understanding, dialogue and agency across perceived differences, in ethical ways?

Following the panel, the workshop invited the speakers to share their experiences with safeguarding, consent, positionality, trauma-informed practice and participant agency. They examined what interculturally sensitive community engagement looks like in terms of research design, ethics and practice. They also focused on the use of listening as a methodology for community engagement of various styles, with lessons from academic experts in intercultural fieldwork with varied communities, including survivors of the Rwandan genocide and people navigating the asylum system.

Thank you to the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities and University of Aberdeen for hosting the panel and workshop.

From left to right: Rwanda Research Cluster Co-Leads Fransiska Louwagie and Erin Jessee, with Advanced Research Fellow, Anna Ball. Photo credit: Fransiska Louwagie.

For more information about the event: https://tockify.com/sgsah/detail/355/1760349600000