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Making Research Count: Towards an Inclusive Countryside
2024-04-18
Today, research impact has become a key focus of university-led research projects as the impact agenda takes central stage in funding applications, research evaluation, and a shift towards recognising our role in social change. We are asked questions like, “What will the impact of your research be?” and “What difference do you want to make with your research?”.
As part of my current role on The Rural Racism Project: Towards an Inclusive Countryside at the University of Leicester, I am continually thinking about research impact, as we as a team, ensure that we utilise our relative privilege and resource. Academic research has long been accused of sitting in an Ivory Tower and not engaging meaningfully in systemic change. The Rural Racism Project hopes to stand counter to this. Here, I provide some examples of the ways we are starting to push the envelope of academic research to prevent racism and to make the countryside more inclusive and welcoming for everyone.
Moving away from our ivory tower
The aim of the Rural Racism Project is not to churn out academic reports and journal articles, but to contribute to grassroots activism and social change. Here, the impact of our research lies within the cultural and economic capital offered within the University. Few grassroots organisations receive the level of funding and resource university projects get. Thus, we plan to use the financial, technological, practical, and social resources at our disposal to create meaningful links with those with lived experience of racism, but also, with communities, organisations, and policymakers with the social and political clout to affect change.
Working with our participants, we will re-story experiences of rural racism in respectful ways, centring the memories of those who have endured it. Indeed, we are already creating powerful links with environmental sector NGOs, grassroots inclusion organisations, wildlife NGOs and individuals with a passion for the countryside, and we want to continue to engage with everyone with a stake in the rural environment.
Re-storying the countryside
The second way we are making a difference is through uplifting the voices of minoritized ethnic individuals, giving them the space to be seen, felt, and heard. We are fostering a safe space for informal and formal support for research participants to share their trauma, experiences of racism, and feelings of unbelonging, and to begin to break down barriers to inclusion.
Our aim is to provide that informal support where
we can, but also to re-story the countryside, to encourage local and national conversations about the lived realities of rural racism. We hope to present these stories in innovative ways that reach all households in England including through:
- Knowledge exchange events with community and organisational partners in which participants can re-tell their stories and share exhibitions of their work which includes poems, photos, stories, and other art-based media that highlight participants’ personal and political reflections of racism and resistance.
- Production of a short film highlighting victim stories which will be publicly screened and disseminated in schools and colleges, at farming events and community festivals.
- 4-episode podcast series co-produced with our research partners, unpacking the lived realities of life in the countryside for minoritized residents and visitors.
- Leveraging our contacts within policymaking circles to seek to dismantle institutional and structural racism embedded in our cultural policies and practices.
Call to action: our transformational potential
Preventing racism and making the countryside more inclusive is a responsibility for us all. The intention to create change is built into our project title (Towards an Inclusive Countryside) and gets to the heart of what we care about; namely making the countryside a safe and accessible space for everyone.
We recognise that this change is not going to happen overnight, and nor can we do it alone. Collaboration with those with lived experience and with white allies living, visiting, and working in rural spaces will be crucial. We ask everyone to join us on this journey of personal transformation as we broaden our vision for rural spaces and share why it is important to be inclusive.
As Bree Newsome Bass, a Black filmmaker and activist said:
“We are living in times that will demand courage. When people ask me how do I draw hope, how do I stay encouraged, how do I continue to show up? The answer is that I look back. I look back and I look at how my existence here today is owed entirely to the courage of people who came before me. And so, what do I owe myself in that moment and to those who come after me? To exercise courage in this moment.”
If you have experienced racism or exclusionary behaviour in the countryside, we would love to hear from you. If you live in or visit rural spaces in the countryside, even if you are unsure about your role in anti-racism, we would love to hear from you too. I ask that we all exercise courage and compassion for each other, drawing on our love of the English countryside, and ensuring we enable everyone to experience a similar love and joy of rural spaces. As well as highlighting the problematic nature of racism in rural England, we want this project to be a message of hope, a collaborative call to action in which we all work together, through our love of the countryside, to ensure it is a place of beauty and joy for everyone.
Please contact us via email on ruralracismproject@leicester.ac.uk to be a part of the change to make the countryside more inclusive.
For further information and to keep up to date with the project, follow @RuralRacism on X.