RAPAR’s research generates reports, research articles, and chapters in edited collections, is presented to community, practitioner and academic audiences, and is featured in media reports. These pieces are listed here (NB. This page is a work in progress.)
Research reports
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The Building Resilience project aimed to learn about the impacts of COVID-19 and the lockdowns in marginalised communities, and to organise, empower and build networks of resilience with some of the migrant communities most marginalised by COVID-19 – those who are without status, including those with no recourse to public funds and those who are in the asylum process or who have been refused asylum.
Migrants without recourse to public funds and with limited immigration status, who work in exploitative conditions, and/ or face sustained social and economic exclusion, need to be able to speak about their experiences of the pandemic, and to work together for change. The Building Resilience project aimed to work alongside migrant communities to understand and hear experiences of the pandemic, to explore how resilience may be released and built, and to develop the process of building community networks of resilience. The Building Resilience project, funded by the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund, was a collaboration between RAPAR, Migrant Voice and Kanlungan Filipino Consortium. The report is available to download here. |
LATEST RESEARCH REPORT 2021: Releasing resilience and building networks of resilience: learning from the survey, interviews, and evaluation Citation: McMahon, G., Moran, R., & Dwarakanath, S. (2021). Releasing resilience and building networks of resilience: learning from the survey, interviews, and evaluation. London: Migrant Voice. |
Previous reports
2018: Young people's participation: learning from action research in eight European cities
The project Spaces and Styles of Participation (partispace, partispace.eu) started from the assumption that all young people participate, socially and politically, but not all participation is recognised as such. The Partispace study explored the different ways in which young people participate in decisions “which concern them and, in general, the life of their communities”. It asked the question: How do 15-30-year-olds engage with the public in formal, non-formal and informal settings and how is this supported or inhibited by local youth policies and youth work? The project, which was funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme, ran from 2015 to 2015 in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK.
RAPAR was a key partner organisation in the work and took part on one of the participatory action research projects of the project. Using participatory methods, YoungRAPAR worked together to conceive, write, and produce a play to depict, dramaturgically, the lived experience of being a young person seeking asylum in the UK's hostile environment.
The report from the project, which includes RAPAR's 'Faceless' project, is here.
Citation: McMahon, G., Percy-Smith, B., Thomas, N., Becevic, Z., Liljeholm Hansson, S. and Forkby, T (2018). Young people's participation: learning from action research in eight European cities. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1240227
The project Spaces and Styles of Participation (partispace, partispace.eu) started from the assumption that all young people participate, socially and politically, but not all participation is recognised as such. The Partispace study explored the different ways in which young people participate in decisions “which concern them and, in general, the life of their communities”. It asked the question: How do 15-30-year-olds engage with the public in formal, non-formal and informal settings and how is this supported or inhibited by local youth policies and youth work? The project, which was funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme, ran from 2015 to 2015 in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK.
RAPAR was a key partner organisation in the work and took part on one of the participatory action research projects of the project. Using participatory methods, YoungRAPAR worked together to conceive, write, and produce a play to depict, dramaturgically, the lived experience of being a young person seeking asylum in the UK's hostile environment.
The report from the project, which includes RAPAR's 'Faceless' project, is here.
Citation: McMahon, G., Percy-Smith, B., Thomas, N., Becevic, Z., Liljeholm Hansson, S. and Forkby, T (2018). Young people's participation: learning from action research in eight European cities. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1240227
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2012: Who's around NEET – and Why? Young Men from Somali Backgrounds
In the spring of 2008 dialogue with Focussing First on People enabled the Central Collegiate to become aware that within the Somali communities there were a number of young people who had become separated from any form of education, employment or training before or shortly after the end of their Year 11 at school. However, this impression did not appear to be borne out in the statistical data gathered by the Central Collegiate schools involved and collated by Manchester City Council. Accordingly, the Central Collegiate decided to commission some research that would help to illuminate how the statistical base on young people at risk of NEET was actually constructed. It would explore whether and how those statistics connected up with what was actually happening to these Somali young people and why. We were approached as independent researchers with backgrounds in research about both the Somali community of Manchester and meaningful learning. Preliminary discussions with the Central Collegiate and Focussing First on People broadened the scope of the research to include young people from Ethiopia and Eritrea. PDF of report. Citation: Moran, R.A. with Mohamed, Z (2012) Who's around NEET – and Why? Young Men from Somali Backgrounds. Manchester: RAPAR. |
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2000: Report on Female Genital Mutilation (Department of Women's Health Family and Community Health, 2000)
Before RAPAR's formation, a report on Female Genital Mutilation commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO) included work from Dr Rhetta Moran, Dr Hermione Lovel, and MS Zeinab Mohammed (University of Manchester) and Dr Margaret Njikam Savage (University of Douala) on the socio-economic and cultural aspects of FGM. The report is available by clicking here.
Citation: Department of Women's Health Family and Community Health (2000) Female Genital Mutilation. A handbook for frontline workers. Available on: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/70012/WHO_FCH_WMH_00.5_eng.pdf
Before RAPAR's formation, a report on Female Genital Mutilation commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO) included work from Dr Rhetta Moran, Dr Hermione Lovel, and MS Zeinab Mohammed (University of Manchester) and Dr Margaret Njikam Savage (University of Douala) on the socio-economic and cultural aspects of FGM. The report is available by clicking here.
Citation: Department of Women's Health Family and Community Health (2000) Female Genital Mutilation. A handbook for frontline workers. Available on: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/70012/WHO_FCH_WMH_00.5_eng.pdf
Research articles
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LATEST RESEARCH ARTICLE 2019: Recognition, inclusion and democracy: learning from action research with young people (Percy-Smith, McMahon and Thomas, 2019) Citation: Percy-Smith, B., McMahon, G. & Thomas, N. (2019). Recognition, inclusion and democracy: learning from action research with young people, Educational Action Research, 27, 3, p. 347-361 |
Abstract: This paper draws upon learning from three action research projects conducted as part of a Europe-wide project exploring young people’s social and political participation. Challenging dominant discourses about what ‘counts’ as participation and what does not, the paper explores how, through the action research projects, young people engaged in knowledge democracy in ‘new democratic arenas’. Building upon experiential knowing and creating knowledge and learning through practice, the young people explored their own democratic knowledge production, communication and engagement within a context of shifting discourses of participation, democratic engagement and active citizenship. The increasing preference of young people for more informal forms of participation as lived practice reflects a shift to young people constructing their own modes of participation and ‘remaking democracy’ in their own vision and according to their own needs. By working outside of the confines of normative assumptions of democratic practice and participation, young people exercised their own ‘political’ agency in response to their own priorities, interests and concerns and, in doing so, illustrated that new forms, understandings and practices of knowledge democracy can emerge that reflect the promise of inclusive democratic societies more meaningfully.
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Previous articles
2010: Whose health profile?
An article in Critical Public Health in 2010 explores the list of a meta-theoretical sociolinguistic theory of 'language creation from below' to ground the construction of a health profile by relating the theory to community participation research.
Abstract: 'Community profiling' is seen as the essential starting point for area-based policy initiatives, particularly in public and personal health. Whilst researchers acknowledge that profiles should try to encapsulate the realities of the everyday lives that they depict, 'reality' is a slippery and often ill-defined concept. This article uses a meta-theoretical sociolinguistic theory of 'language creation from below' to ground the construction of a health profile. Drawing on fieldwork, the paper relates this theory to community participation research. It explores ways of developing a knowledge base that integrates qualitative and quantitative datasets. It argues for a form of community health profiling that represents the variety in people's experiences of unequal socioeconomic-cultural circumstances. Audio interviews, photographs and results of residents'/inhabitants' surveys were used alongside mapped, quantitative indicators using geographic information system (GIS) technology. Use of information technologies enabled the creation of a collaboratively owned, multisectoral profile. The paper concludes by arguing for the theoretical framework used.
Citation: Moran, R. A., & Butler, D. S. (2001). Whose health profile? Critical Public Health, 11(1), 59-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581590010005377
An article in Critical Public Health in 2010 explores the list of a meta-theoretical sociolinguistic theory of 'language creation from below' to ground the construction of a health profile by relating the theory to community participation research.
Abstract: 'Community profiling' is seen as the essential starting point for area-based policy initiatives, particularly in public and personal health. Whilst researchers acknowledge that profiles should try to encapsulate the realities of the everyday lives that they depict, 'reality' is a slippery and often ill-defined concept. This article uses a meta-theoretical sociolinguistic theory of 'language creation from below' to ground the construction of a health profile. Drawing on fieldwork, the paper relates this theory to community participation research. It explores ways of developing a knowledge base that integrates qualitative and quantitative datasets. It argues for a form of community health profiling that represents the variety in people's experiences of unequal socioeconomic-cultural circumstances. Audio interviews, photographs and results of residents'/inhabitants' surveys were used alongside mapped, quantitative indicators using geographic information system (GIS) technology. Use of information technologies enabled the creation of a collaboratively owned, multisectoral profile. The paper concludes by arguing for the theoretical framework used.
Citation: Moran, R. A., & Butler, D. S. (2001). Whose health profile? Critical Public Health, 11(1), 59-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581590010005377
Book chapters
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Abstract: This chapter sets out the grassroots activism of a group of four young people aged 24– 29 who were seeking asylum in the UK’s ‘hostile environment’. Moving away from normative definitions of political participation as the formal activities of citizens, the analysis draws upon second wave feminist and Classical Marxist understandings of collective action. The chapter argues that by ‘speaking bitterness’ and creating ‘language from below’ in order to craft a play to depict dramaturgically their lived realities, the young people formed collective action and did politics ‘differently’. They engaged in biographically meaningful, ‘personal- political’ and ‘political- personal’ activism that focused on the particular needs of their wider group. They also made ‘democracy anew’ by practising democracy informally and in alternative, co- equal, meaningful and purposeful ways, within a hostile environment that ‘others’ them and alienates them from political and social participation.
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LATEST BOOK CHAPTER 2021: Young people’s participation: Revisiting youth and inequalities in Europe (McMahon and Moran, 2021) Citation: McMahon, G. and Moran, R. (2021) Young people’s participation: Revisiting youth and inequalities in Europe in M. Bruselius-Jensen, I. Pitti and K. Tisdall (Eds.) Young People’s Participation. Revisiting Youth and Inequalities in Europe (pp. 195-213). Bristol: Policy Press. |
Previous chapters
2016: Working 'with' local communities inside the Bigger Picture (Pais, et al, 2016)
This 2016 chapter explores the so-called 'rabble' as an intrinsic part of the European project, and how the ethical, social and cultural potential of Europe is bound up with the ways it relates to and treats those who lack full status in civil society. The chapter is viewable on google books: click here.
Citation: Pais, A., Moran, R., Mesquita, M., Straehler-Pohl, H. and Adamuz, N. (2016) Working 'with' local communities inside the Bigger Picture. In S.L. Corcoran and D. Kaneva (Eds.), Being "on the Margins": exploring intersections (pp. 17 to 29). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK : Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
This 2016 chapter explores the so-called 'rabble' as an intrinsic part of the European project, and how the ethical, social and cultural potential of Europe is bound up with the ways it relates to and treats those who lack full status in civil society. The chapter is viewable on google books: click here.
Citation: Pais, A., Moran, R., Mesquita, M., Straehler-Pohl, H. and Adamuz, N. (2016) Working 'with' local communities inside the Bigger Picture. In S.L. Corcoran and D. Kaneva (Eds.), Being "on the Margins": exploring intersections (pp. 17 to 29). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK : Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
2016: Co-Production: Working alongside refugees and asylum seekers: ‘Popular’ social work in action in Britain (Lavalette and Moran, 2016)
A chapter exploring the possibilities of 'co-production' to inform social work theories and practice, drawing upon a case study of a 'popular social work' organisation, RAPAR.
Citation: Lavalette, M. and Moran, R. Co-Production: Working alongside refugees and asylum seekers: ‘Popular’ social work in action in Britain. in Social Work in a Diverse Society. Transformative Practice with Black and Minority Ethnic Individuals and Communities, C. Williams and M.J. Graham (Eds) (pp. 109-126). Bristol: Policy Press.
A chapter exploring the possibilities of 'co-production' to inform social work theories and practice, drawing upon a case study of a 'popular social work' organisation, RAPAR.
Citation: Lavalette, M. and Moran, R. Co-Production: Working alongside refugees and asylum seekers: ‘Popular’ social work in action in Britain. in Social Work in a Diverse Society. Transformative Practice with Black and Minority Ethnic Individuals and Communities, C. Williams and M.J. Graham (Eds) (pp. 109-126). Bristol: Policy Press.
2013: Twenty-first century eugenics? A case study about the Merton Test (Moran and Gillett, 2013)
Abstract: Agreeing to expose a young refugee person to an intrinsically racist procedure - the Merton Compliant Age assessment – is agreeing to function as quasi-immigration officials. If the social worker then fails the looked after young person, they, simultaneously, place the child at acute risk of deportation and save their Local Authority money. Recently, legal occlusion of the medical scientific opinion that assessment of age measures maturity, not chronological in age has reinforced the legitimacy of social workers to take this ‘appropriate approach’ that is actually an essentialist one. A real case study contrasts the actions of two social workers: one independent, one how the local authority. It examines how statutory efforts to make an orphan refugee child into an adult to be deported effectively resisted?
Citation: Moran, R. and Gillett, S. (2013). Twenty-first century eugenics? A case study about the Merton Test, in Race, Racism and Social Work: Contemporary issues and debates, M. Lavalette and L. Penketh. (Eds.) Bristol: Policy Press.
Abstract: Agreeing to expose a young refugee person to an intrinsically racist procedure - the Merton Compliant Age assessment – is agreeing to function as quasi-immigration officials. If the social worker then fails the looked after young person, they, simultaneously, place the child at acute risk of deportation and save their Local Authority money. Recently, legal occlusion of the medical scientific opinion that assessment of age measures maturity, not chronological in age has reinforced the legitimacy of social workers to take this ‘appropriate approach’ that is actually an essentialist one. A real case study contrasts the actions of two social workers: one independent, one how the local authority. It examines how statutory efforts to make an orphan refugee child into an adult to be deported effectively resisted?
Citation: Moran, R. and Gillett, S. (2013). Twenty-first century eugenics? A case study about the Merton Test, in Race, Racism and Social Work: Contemporary issues and debates, M. Lavalette and L. Penketh. (Eds.) Bristol: Policy Press.
2011: RAPAR's seminal book on doing research with refugees, the first of its kind, published in hardback in 2006, is published in paperback in 2006. (Temple and Moran, 2001)
This book is the first specifically to explore methodological issues relating to the involvement of refugees in both service evaluation and development and research more generally. It builds on a two-year seminar series funded by the ESRC and attended by members of a range of statutory and voluntary organisations, as well as academics and refugees themselves. The participants jointly drew up a set of good practice guidelines that are re-produced in the book for the first time.
Key features include a focus on the methodology for active involvement of refugees; a discussion of barriers to involvement; suggestions for overcoming barriers; analysis of existing practices and ideas for change and a discussion of the implications for policy, research and practice.
Doing research with refugees is essential reading for anyone working with in the field. This includes academics, researchers, health and social care providers and voluntary organisations. Refugees themselves who are interested in their role in service evaluation, development and research will also find the book of interest.
The following chapters are included in the edited collection:
Citation: Temple, B. and Moran, R. (2011). Doing research with refugees Issues and guidelines. Bristol: Policy Press.
This book is the first specifically to explore methodological issues relating to the involvement of refugees in both service evaluation and development and research more generally. It builds on a two-year seminar series funded by the ESRC and attended by members of a range of statutory and voluntary organisations, as well as academics and refugees themselves. The participants jointly drew up a set of good practice guidelines that are re-produced in the book for the first time.
Key features include a focus on the methodology for active involvement of refugees; a discussion of barriers to involvement; suggestions for overcoming barriers; analysis of existing practices and ideas for change and a discussion of the implications for policy, research and practice.
Doing research with refugees is essential reading for anyone working with in the field. This includes academics, researchers, health and social care providers and voluntary organisations. Refugees themselves who are interested in their role in service evaluation, development and research will also find the book of interest.
The following chapters are included in the edited collection:
- Introduction - Bogusia Temple and Rhetta Moran
- Refugees as researchers: experiences from the project 'Bridges and fences: paths to refugee integration in the EU' - Elizabeth Mestheneos
- Limited exchanges: approaches to involving people who do not speak English in research and service development - Bogusia Temple and Rosalind Edwards
- Breaking the silence: participatory research processes about health with Somali refugee people seeking asylum - Rhetta Moran, Zeinab Mohamed and Hermione Lovel
- Home/lessness as an indicator of integration: interviewing refugees about the meaning of home and accommodation - Priya Kissoon
- The community leader, the politician and the policeman: a personal perspective - Manawar Jan-Khan
- Complexity and community empowerment in regeneration, 2002-04 - Felicity Greenham with Rhetta Moran
- Refugee voices as evidence in policy and practice - Kirsteen Tait
- Challenging barriers to participation in qualitative research: involving disabled refugees - Jennifer Harris and Keri Roberts
- Why religion matters - M. Louise Pirouet
- Action learning: a research approach that helped me to rediscover my integrity - Anna Maria Miwanda Bagenda.
Citation: Temple, B. and Moran, R. (2011). Doing research with refugees Issues and guidelines. Bristol: Policy Press.
Research presentations
2010: The Right to Care: Refugee Access to Health (Moran, 2010)
Presentation to Pennine Acute Hospitals, Sexual Health Service Education Meeting
The presentation is available for download here.
Presentation to Pennine Acute Hospitals, Sexual Health Service Education Meeting
The presentation is available for download here.
2003: From Dispersal to Destitution (Moran, 2003)
A paper presented at an international conference in 2003 advances a perspective on the destitution of people seeking asylum inspired by a meta-theoretical framework of language creation from below.
Citation: Moran, R. (2003) From Dispersal to Destitution: dialectical methods in participatory action research with people seeking asylum. Working paper presented at the International Conference “Policy and Politics in a Globalising World’, July 24th 2003, University of Bristol. Available on; https://www.scribd.com/doc/295862572/2003-bristol
A paper presented at an international conference in 2003 advances a perspective on the destitution of people seeking asylum inspired by a meta-theoretical framework of language creation from below.
Citation: Moran, R. (2003) From Dispersal to Destitution: dialectical methods in participatory action research with people seeking asylum. Working paper presented at the International Conference “Policy and Politics in a Globalising World’, July 24th 2003, University of Bristol. Available on; https://www.scribd.com/doc/295862572/2003-bristol
Media pieces
- Migrant who fled kidnap and gay conversion therapy on living in the UK during lockdown (Birmingham Live, 2021), citing the Building Resilience project report
- ‘I fled conversion therapy as a gay man in Gabon – now I’m living on less than £6 a day’ (iNews, 2021), citing the Building Resilience project report
- COVID-19 'exposed damaging immigration policies' - report (Sky News), citing the project report from the Building Resilience project, which was a collaboration between RAPAR, Migrant Voice, and Kanlungan Filipino Consortium, that aimed to understand, quantitatively and qualitatively, the effect of Covid 19 and lockdowns on marginalised communities in the UK
- Asylum seekers in UK 'hiding their identities' following last week's brutal attack in Croydon (Independent, 2017), quoting Dr Rhetta Moran about increasing incidences of hate crime against people seeking asylum
- Exclusive: ‘Shameless’ HSBC shuts Syrian refugees’ bank accounts (Independent, 2015), front page coverage of of RAPAR's research on shutting the bank accounts of Syrian people living in Britain
- Living in fear: my week with the hidden asylum seekers (Observer, 2014), which mentions of RAPAR work in Salford
- A cold shoulder for Saddam's victims (Guardian, 2003), quoting the work of RAPAR Founder Dr Rhetta Moran in Salford