Free Public Lecture
‘Refugee Stories in Scotland’
Professor Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow
Wednesday 6 December 2017, 12.30-1.30pm
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, The Octagon, Dunedin
Next month, we are delighted to host Professor Alison Phipps, the UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts at the University of Glasgow. A regular public speaker and media commentator on refugee issues, Professor Phipps will speak on her work with refugees in Scotland.
Summary of Talk
At times of great human suffering, we see extraordinary courage and compassion. Communities across Scotland, and Europe, have led with creativity, practical action and costly generosity in Calais, Lesvos and in receiving communities in Scotland. The people have led where larger institutions and some governments have been slow, reluctant and mired in outdated thinking and ineffective solutions.
At the same time, we have witnessed a vicious rise in xenophobia and structural violence against refugees. This has happened in Europe before and we have much to learn from the lessons of history. The last time Europe faced such numbers of refugees it failed. Facing its failure the articles protecting Human Rights were created and these very articles are now in peril. The last time the people of Europe said never again.
This public lecture will focus on the responses of civil society and policy makers in Scotland, within an uneasy UK, and at the time of BREXIT, and on the stories of day to life as people integrate into communities in Scotland.
Speaker Biography
Professor Alison Phipps, OBE, is UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts at the University of Glasgow and Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies. She is co-convenor of the Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNET). In 2012 she received an OBE for Services to Education and Intercultural and Interreligious Relations in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Arts, and of the Academy of Social Sciences.
The author of numerous books and articles and a published poet, Professor Phipps has undertaken academic and artistic work in a range of countries and regularly advises public, governmental and third sector bodies on migration and arts and language policy. She participated recently in a witness-bearing visit to Calais for Scottish Members of the Home Affairs Select Committee.
