The Diversity and Inclusion theme includes a range of impactful research projects in SoSS and beyond. It is an interdisciplinary theme, drawing on (inter)cultural studies, business studies, gender studies, accounting and finance, sociolinguistics, translation and interpreting studies. Our research contributes to the creation of inclusive communities, which makes them resilient, sustainable, creative and robust.
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Research bites from our Staff
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Dr. Annelies Kusters
Title: Mobile Deaf Project
Deaf people have been connecting with each other in international contexts since a long time, “calibrating” their signing towards each other. We are interested in how these connections work, and in barriers and inequalities people experience in these contexts. We explore whether deaf people’s international interactions can be regarded as examples of cosmopolitanism while also exploring the limits of deaf cosmopolitanism. We cover a spectrum of international deaf mobilities in four sub-projects, as deaf people from all over the world have been mobile in a variety of ways: migrating, seeking refuge, attending conferences, camps, travelling, and so on.
The sub-project on forced migration takes place in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya where a large number of deaf refugees from several African countries live. The sub-project on labour migration takes place in London where deaf people moved from all over the world. The sub-project on professional mobility takes place at various international deaf conferences, sports events and courses and consists of multi-sited field work. The sub-project on tourist mobility takes place in Bali where deaf tourists mostly from Europe, Australia and the US visit and make use of tourist services catered specifically to deaf people. This continuum of four different kind of mobilities encompasses different aspirations leading to professional, social and personal mobility. It includes different temporalities: short time stays, temporary forms of mobility, and settlement for long periods of time. It also focuses on mobilities of divergent socio-economic nature; on difficult ways and luxurious ways of navigating the world. As such, we aim to investigate how complex diversity works within the context of international deaf encounters.
Our research team consist of deaf multilingual signers, as to maximise access to various sign languages, access to distinct deaf networks, and insights into deaf ways of living. Our methodology consists of ethnography, in particular participant observation, informal conversations, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups. We make use of visual methods, including photographs, videos, maps and artwork created by participants and researchers. On top of this, we engage in the creation of ethnographic films in collaboration with deaf filmmakers.
We structure our analysis following four common key themes that emerged from our data: belonging, languaging, networks and immobility. “Belonging” captures experiences of inclusion and exclusion in different types of deaf spaces. It captures how deaf people of various backgrounds are never only deaf: being deaf intersects with race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, educational level, religion, and so on. We explore how differences in power and resources lead to inequality and oppression while also investigating what contexts lead to opportunity and empowerment. “Languaging” covers how internationally mobile deaf people communicate in order to align with their deaf or hearing interlocutors. This can include language learning and the use of conventional forms of International Sign, but also more flexible translanguaging practices involving the use of different sign languages, gestures, writing and fingerspelling in different languages and scripts, mouthings, speech, drawing, and so on. We also focus on language ideologies regarding these language practices. “Networks” refers to the ways deaf people find or produce deaf spaces abroad, such as deaf family homes, schools, clubs, organisations, businesses. These spaces do not exist in isolation but are networked, as such forming a current and historical “deaf mental map”. Our focus on “immobility” foregrounds barriers in mobility, such as due to failures to obtain a visa, being a refugee, and limits in relation to eg. gender or disability. Spaces of international deaf mobility are thus also spaces of exclusion, as well as spaces of encounters between less mobile and more mobile deaf people as and mobile deaf people are guided by deaf hosts who themselves may be internationally immobile.
Deaf Tourism in Bali
International Sign Unpacked
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Dr. Maryam Sholevar
Title: Mind the Gap: the Impact of Gender on Inclusion and Financial Literacy. The case study of
Ethiopia
This research focused on the impact of gender on acquiring financial literacy and access to and usage of financial services, particularly in developing countries. In other words, this work tried to answer questions such as: How do women attain financial information and knowledge? Are men more knowledgeable than women in terms of personal finance? What are the factors affecting access and usage of financial services? And how to improve the financial literacy and financial inclusion of Ethiopian women? Through this research, a new conceptualisation of financial literacy and financial inclusion, incorporating a pragmatic perspective, was developed. A comprehensive questionnaire was designed to examine financial literacy and financial inclusion and used to collect data on a number of variables. The sample was composed of 470 respondents, with an equal number of males and females.
In an extensive investigation of financial literacy (FL) and financial inclusion (FI) in Ethiopia, it was found that there is almost no gender gap in financial literacy whenever women are socially included (running a business, being the head of household, etc.) as compared with their male counterparts. Various aspects of FI and FL were separately measured to shed light on the different dimensions of FL and FI. This work shows that this gap is not intrinsic but extrinsic as a result of the social inclusion of women.
Why it is important? How is it connected to the Diversity and Inclusion theme?
Inclusion, financial and non-financial, could happen if we acknowledge the disparity. Despite the existence of big data on financial inclusion and financial literacy, the absence of relevant data on women is exhibited; even in the case of existence, the impact of gender would be slipped away from the key findings in the final report. In financially underdeveloped countries and even developed ones, the gender difference is bolder than in developed ones, and rules and norms favour men more than women. The higher life expectancy, shorter working life, and rapid changes in the financial markets have made women more vulnerable than men.
A crucial focus of the present study was on women, and thus, the sampling was made to equally cover women. This is indeed a major problem in gender studies, as the imbalance in gender inclusion results in huge gender gaps. The most critical finding of this work is that inclusion should be first social/cultural; the root of the problem is traditional social exclusion. As a result, any programme aiming to improve women’s financial inclusion should target social and cultural barriers (Sholevar and Harris, 2020). Upon removing these barriers, the FI/FL occurs in a regular manner (as expected for male counterparts).
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Mobile Virtual Learning for Indigenous Languages and Cultures
2019 was proclaimed as the International Year of Indigenous Languages (UN Resolution 71178 on the Rights of Indigenous People) and the UN declared 2022 -2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, “to draw attention to the critical status of many Indigenous languages across the world and encourage action for their preservation, revitalization and promotion” (UN website). In this context, the EU-funded IndyLan project, led by Heriot-Watt, designed an app for the promotion of indigenous languages and the cultures of their speakers in 4 European countries. The IndyLan application helps speakers of English, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish to learn Gàidhlig (Gaelic), Scots, Kernewek (Cornish), Euskera (Basque), Galego (Galician) and Davvisámegiela (Northern Saami), all endangered at different degrees.
The immediate geographical impact of the project is wide ranging. Thanks to this, the impact of the project extended to the European level and beyond, with more than 5,000 app downloads from all over the world (Top countries: UK, USA, Spain, Finland and Australia). The fact that USA was the second country and Australia the fifth demonstrates the international relevance of the app and of the project, beyond the European focus, as well as its potential for further exploitation and follow-on projects.
There was considerable interest from individuals, companies, stakeholders focusing on other endangered languages such as Jèrriais or Occitan, who contacted the coordinator to explore opportunities for further collaboration and add more languages. The fact that the majority of users who gave feedback and engaged with the project and the app were younger people is very encouraging. This was confirmed by user who stated in the final dissemination event feedback form: “It seems to appeal to young people, which is critically important for threatened languages to survive”. Through the development of the app material and through contact with project partners who speak some of these languages, participants enriched their awareness of linguistic diversity in Europe and heightened their intercultural competences and perspectives. The project also encouraged new partnerships in follow-on projects. Teachers and trainers acquired knowledge of ICT-based teaching/learning methods so that they can incorporate them into their curricula. For example, computer science teacher at a Gaelic-medium school in Glasgow Coinneach Combe assigned mobile app homework for Gaelic-speaking pupils. There has been interest in the app by organisations such as Bòrd na Gàidhlig and ELEN (European Language Equality Network) and we are currently liaising with them as to how we can follow-on from this project.
Saved by the App? Article in The Linguist on the IndyLan project.
Please contact the project coordinator Dr Katerina Strani if you wish to read the project’s Impact report.
You can download the app on iOS or on Android here
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JUSTISIGNS 2 project
HWU is a partner in the JUSTISIGNS 2 project. The project is led by a consortium of European experts from Ireland, Belgium, Spain and the UK who are collaborating and undertaking research within the deaf, migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking community to investigate the experiences of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence and their interactions with support agencies.
Here are two vlogposts in British Sign Language on the project, focusing on Supporting deaf female victims of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence – by Jemina Napier and Lucy Clark:
Transcript and more information here: JUSTISIGNS 2 project | LifeinLINCS
Transcript and more information here: JUSTISIGNS 2 project | LifeinLINCS
For information on more Sign-language-related projects in SoSS, please visit SIGNS@HWU
SIGNS@HWU is a group of researchers who focus on sign language studies and Deaf Studies. We are situated in the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, Heriot-Watt University. SIGNS@HWU was established as a cluster of the Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies in Scotland, to profile the world-leading interdisciplinary research being conducted at Heriot-Watt University.
Moving Languages
The Moving Languages project, led by Learnmera Oy in Finland, with Heriot-Watt as a partner (Co-I Strani), designed a mobile application for the linguistic and cultural inclusion of newly arrived migrants and refugees.
Linguistic isolation is one of the key barriers to the inclusion of migrants in host societies (cf Strang 2014). Mobile applications are an effective educational source that can be specifically targeted at migrants and refugees, as a considerable percentage of them are digitally literate and own smartphones (cf GSMA, 2017; Dekker et al, 2018; AbouJarour et al, 2017).
There are plenty of generic language-learning apps that are not designed for the needs of refugees or newly-arrived migrants. The Moving Languages app fills this gap with features such as : Targeted support languages (26 in total), Culture tab, Administration and Immigration tabs.
Users can learn English, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Finnish (main languages) from 20 support languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Estonian, French, Hungarian, Kurdish (Sorani), Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Somali, Tigrinya, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu. The app has been downloaded more than 4,000 times, mostly for Swedish, Finnish, then Italian, then English and German.
You can download the Moving Languages apps here
Click on the links below for information on other recent projects.
REDI (2019): Refugee Empowerment through digital inclusion.
InterTrainE (2018-2021): Intercultural Training for Educators of Adult Migrants.
Digital Heritage: Scotland’s sounds (2016-2019): Collecting and preserving access to Intangible Cultural Heritage within the digital environment; evaluating New Models for Scotland. Scottish Cultural Heritage Consortium Scholarship.
Curating Heritage for Sustainable Communities in Highly Vulnerable Environments: The Case of Scotland’s Northern Isles. SGSAH ARCS Studentship (2016-2019)
Alliance for Intergenerational Resilience (2019)
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Research bites from our Postgraduate students
Eilidh Johnstone, 2nd year PhD student, on the National Museum of Taiwan Literature. Eilidh’s topic is: ‘How Does a Translated Museum Feel? Text and emotion in multimodal space’. Eilidh is a joint CTISS–IRC student, and her supervisors are Dr Min-Hsiu Liao and Dr Katerina Strani (Joint CTISS–IRC student).
Eilidh’s research looks at interlingual translation in museums. She is interested in the ways that museum objects, spaces and texts combine to create an affective experience for the visitor. Eilidh has carried out field work at New Taipei Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taiwan, funded by a Taiwan Ministry of Education Short-Term Research Award.
Beth Hanley (MSc Interpreting, 2021) on Inclusive Interpreting:
Erika Kadlcikova, (MSc Translation, 2021) on Inclusive Subtitling