Mobilising Manchester through the Manchester International Festival: Whose city, whose culture? An exploration of the representation of cities through cultural events

In times of ongoing austerity, local authorities are under increasing pressure to enforce a wide range of budget cuts. Culture is one area often under threat yet, despite this, there are areas of the UK that continue to support the kind of large-scale culture-led regeneration that has been prominent since the late 20th Century. Despite the multi-faceted benefits that culture can have for cities, urban regeneration literature has a tendency to focus on evaluative studies based on outcome rather than process, and studies of cultural policy focus heavily upon economic imperatives. In response to this, the work presented here aims to examine the practices involved within the production and promotion of cultural events. Through exploring the motivations of those involved in these processes and incorporating an understanding of culture’s diverse nature an understanding of the value placed upon culture is developed. Using a mixed methodology incorporating qualitative methods of observation, interviewing and document analysis, this thesis uses a grounding in cultural studies to explore the way one recurring cultural event illuminates processes of culture-led regeneration within a contemporary urban context. Themes of capital and power are drawn on throughout in order to examine the everyday practices that lead to the dominance of particular representations of the city through its culture. This approach allows for the problematisation of processes of culture-led regeneration, and the exploration of themes of city identity within this context. The research places culture as a key factor in the (re)production of city identity, highlighting how those in positions of relative power play a distinct role in the development and articulation of this identity. The ethnographic methodology adds weight to the field of culture-led regeneration by exploring cultural value through everyday practices, offering a different angle to both academic and policy-driven research in this area

CLASS Cymru: Developing an online resource to support care-experienced students. Executive Summary

Emerging from research within CASCADE looking at access to, and success in Higher Education (HE) for care-experienced students in Wales, CLASS Cymru is a website comprising of key information designed to help support care-experienced young people in Wales as they progress to university. With clear, simple guidance, this is a one-stop-shop for both professionals and young people themselves to find relevant guidance and information to effectively support this key period of transition

"More of a kind of patchy transition into university as opposed to the kind of smooth story that people expect." Transitions to higher education for care-experienced students

Despite an increased focus on supporting under-represented groups into Higher Education (HE), care-experienced young people are still significantly less likely to transition into HE than their peers who have not had this experience. With rates of children taken into care increasing in Wales, there is value in understanding how best to support care-experienced young people with educational transitions. Based on pan-Wales research into access to, and success in, HE for care-experienced young people, this paper presents the experiences of 13 young people in Wales regarding educational transitions and the support they have – or have not – had in their transitions to university. Recommendations are made for improving transition support and for creating better signposting to existing support

Awesome women and bad feminists: the role of online social networks and peer support for feminist practice in academia

In her book, ‘Bad Feminist’, Roxane Gay claims this label shamelessly, embracing the contradictory aspects of enacting feminist practice while fundamentally being ‘flawed human[s]’. This article tells a story inspired by and enacting Roxane Gay’s approach in academia, written by five cis-gendered women geographers. It is the story of a proactive, everyday feminist initiative to survive as women in an academic precariat fuelled by globalised, neoliberalised higher education. We reflect on what it means to be (bad) feminists in that context, and how we respond as academics. We share experiences of an online space used to support one another through post-doctoral life, a simple message thread, which has established an important role in our development as academics and feminists. This article, written through online collaboration, mirrors and enacts processes fundamental to our online network, demonstrating the significance and potential of safe digital spaces for peer support. Excerpts from the chat reflect critically on struggles and solutions we have co-developed. Through this, we celebrate and validate a strategy we know that we and others like us find invaluable for our wellbeing and survival. Finally, we reflect on the inherent limitations of exclusive online networks as tools for feminist resistance

Launching the CUBE: a restorative approach to a co-produced community centre

CUBE is a new multi-agency family support community-based service in one Welsh local authority area. CUBE delivers an evidenced-based, co-productive intensive family support service to and for the community it serves. The nature of the services offered were identified by a lengthy consultation with the community that indicated what they wanted: • A place to help families in need or affected by isolation or loneliness • A place where support is under one roof, rather family members using different services • Activities for community members of all ages run in day and evenings • A place offering support / information or just a coffee that runs beyond working hours • A place where everyone can feel a part of something. In-line with the co-production ethos of CUBE, the developers have adopted a restorative approach for all staff, partner agencies and clients and see this as central to successful implementation. During this project, researchers with deep knowledge of a Restorative Approach and Co-production worked with CUBE to ensure that co-productive and restorative approaches shaped the services and centre as intended

Improving access to higher education for asylum seekers: A partnership approach

This paper considers two, linked examples of innovative practice in widening participation activity designed to work with adult asylum seeker and refugee communities. Specific examples of interventions that have been undertaken at Cardiff University are de Live Local; Learn Local a suite of Aspire Summer School, offering a combination of courses in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) alongside academic short courses. The authors suggest these programmes are innovative as: (1) they provided free and meaningful English language courses; (2) they provided flexible routes to undergraduate and postgraduate study; (3) the programmes seek to remove structural barriers to education through a contextualised approach; and (4) the specificity of the Welsh context and partial devolution of Wales played a role in creating these opportunities. These interventions are presented in terms of their positive aspects and also where further development is required. The paper concludes with suggestions as to how higher education institutions can improve the provision offered to support asylum seekers and refugees