Event overview
with Mark Johnson, Goldsmiths, Deirdre McKay, Keele University and Gabriela Nicolescu, Goldsmiths. Part of 'Curating Development' - Autumn Term Seminar Series 2017
Curating Development employs artistic interventions, curatorial research practice and public exhibitions to explore Filipino migrants’ aspirations for and contributions to development in the Philippines. Funded by the AHRC, we have examined the experiences of Filipinos living and working in Hong Kong and London. Our aims were to a) define how, when and under what conditions migrants can and do contribute to development in the Philippines and b) examine how community art, art collaboration, and curation can increase the benefits of their development contributions and enhance their welfare. Here, we reflect critically on the methods we have developed and the outcomes of the arts-based events we sponsored. What more do we know about Filipino migrants’ investments? How does arts-based research contributed to raising awareness about and enhancing migrants’ welfare and material benefits in their host countries and ‘back home’? Our results engage two ongoing debates. Our findings shed new light on connections between labour migration and (under)development. Our methodology reveals how the blurring of UK AID and research budgets in the Global Challenges Research Fund shapes opportunities for scholars to make critical and creative interventions in development policy.
Mark Johnson is Reader in Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is Principal Investigator of the AHRC funded Curating Development project and of the British Academy project investigating migrant experiences of surveillance in Hong Kong. He has long term research interest on the Philippines including migrant and diasporan Filipinos living and working in different parts of the world.
Dr Deirdre McKay (Keele University) researches indigenous peoples, development and migration. She is the author of Global Filipinos (Indiana, 2012) and An Archipelago of Care (Indiana, 2016). She is CI on the AHRC funded Curating Development project and has worked with CIDA and AusAID-funded projects in the Philippines and with Filipino migrant communities in Canada, Hong Kong, London and online. Her current projects explore upcycled plastic arts and crafts, ‘private aid’ after natural disasters, and the potential for migrants to document their development contributions through community arts.
Gabriela Nicolescu is a Research Fellow and an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her general research and teaching interests include tourism and migration, the anthropology of art and museum studies, and medical, economic and political anthropology from material and visual perspectives. She is primarily concerned with the politics of representation and exhibition making in ethnographic/anthropological museums.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 22 Nov 2017 | 3:00pm - 5:00pm |
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