Justice and Imagination in Global Displacement (JIGD)

A multidisciplinary collective working on global issues of social and spatial displacement
Justice and Imagination in Global Displacement (JIGD)

We are a research collective of multidisciplinary academics whose work deals with global challenges cross-cutting issues of social and spatial displacement (and associated harms), migration, memory and material culture, identity, race and ethnicity. 

We believe in combining a person-centred approach with a critical in-depth examination of lived experiences and narrative construction. We generate knowledge in the fields of experimental filmmaking and moving image, post-colonial literature, medical anthropology, spatial justice and their methods of practice.

The collective is dedicated to collaborative partnerships with marginalised communities locally and globally, to trace, respond to, and inform relevant policy and co-design and develop new forms of practice. We work iteratively using multimodal mixed methods of research that are decolonial, ethnographic, creative, psychological and anthropological. We have existing partnerships through our research consultancies across Higher Education Institutions, government organisations, NGOs and charities.

The research collective is based at the University of Plymouth with key collaborators across global research institutions, charities and thinktanks. The full list of members and partners can be seen below.

Research areas

  • 3 Social displacement
  • 3 Spatial displacement
  • 3 Harm
  • 3 Migration
  • 3 Memory
  • 3 Material culture
  • 3 Identity
  • 3 Race
  • 3 Ethnicity
  • 3 Experimental filmmaking and moving image
  • 3 Post-colonial literature
  • 3 Medical anthropology
  • 3 Spatial justice
  • 3 Architecture

Our recent news

Safer Keyham project
Professor Zoë James,  Dr Daniel Gilling and Dr Katie McBride have successfully attained the Home Office, D&C Police, OPCC and Plymouth CC funding to evaluate the Safer Keyham project, set up to support the Keyham community following the serious violence incident in August 2021. The significant funding provides among other things a  full-time funded PhD student position. This prestigious research will inform national (and international) policy and practice on dealing with serious violence incidents.
“New Skin For The Old Ceremony: A Kirtan”
Dr Arun Sood has his first novel out in 2022 - “New Skin For The Old Ceremony: A Kirtan” follows four estranged friends who reunite for a motorcycle trip up the Isle of Skye. A novel about youth, the ghosts of friendship, and growing up as a mixed-race person in a small but fiercely proud nation, the story spans India and Skye, seeing the characters exorcise past ghosts in order to face the present. Dr Sood has recently been praised by The Guardian on his folk album and corresponding book project which has been named Folk Album of the Month by The Guardian. Searching Erskine responds to an uninhabited island in the Outer Hebrides, and includes original musical compositions, oral histories, poetry and essays. 
NBC News interview
Dr Sana Murrani was interviewed by NBC News for an opinion piece about lived experience of displacement and fleeing war and conflict as part of an article that discusses the issues raised in Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-nominated ‘Belfast’. 

Our research projects

Find out more about our projects and research consultancies

Gypsies and Travellers Experiences of Crime and Justice Since the 1960s: A Mixed Methods Study Gypsies and Travellers Experiences of Crime and Justice Since the 1960s: A Mixed Methods Study
Dr Zoë James, funded by ESRC

Creative Recovery: Mapping Refugees’ Memories of Home as Heritage Creative Recovery: Mapping Refugees’ Memories of Home as Heritage
Dr Sana Murrani is the Principal Investigator with Dr Ioana Popovici as a researcher

Displacement Studies Research Network Displacement Studies Research Network
 Founded by Dr Sana Murrani, this research network seeks to provide a voice for the displaced and facilitates a platform for research projects with our global partners

Made in Migration Made in Migration
 Dr Sana Murrani is a research consultant for this British Academy funded project led by Dr Rachael Kiddey from Oxford University (Archaeology)

Nahrein Network Nahrein Network
 Dr Sana Murrani is a member of the Management Committee for this network, GCRF funded project led by Professor Eleanor Robson from UCL (History)

NETHATE: Network of Excellence of Training on HATE NETHATE: Network of Excellence of Training on HATE
Dr Zoë James, funded by European Commission/Marie Skłodowska-Curie

British Romanticism and West Africa: Griots, Bards, and Books British Romanticism and West Africa: Griots, Bards, and Books
 Dr Arun Sood is involved in this project, exploring how Romantic-period writing contributed towards a dominating discourse of British imperialism in colonial West Africa, and became a feature of mass education structures.

‘How We Remember – Memory Studies, Monuments, and Black Lives Matters’ ‘How We Remember – Memory Studies, Monuments, and Black Lives Matters’
 Dr Arun Sood, Arts Institute Podcast

Robert Burns, Black Lives and The Politics of Memory Robert Burns, Black Lives and The Politics of Memory
 Dr Arun Soon, Invited UK-US Fulbright Lecture

‘You Are Welcome Here’ ‘You Are Welcome Here’
 Dr Arun Sood, Collaboration with Imperfect Orchestra based on displacement

Fez: The Royal scent Fez: The Royal scent
 Dr Anya Lewin, funded by Arts Council England

Chez Paulette on the Sunset Strip Chez Paulette on the Sunset Strip
 Dr Anya Lewin, funded by Arts Council England

With Heartfelt Gratitude for the Painless Treatment With Heartfelt Gratitude for the Painless Treatment
Dr Anya Lewin, funded by Arts Council England

At Home in Europe At Home in Europe
Dr Anya Lewin, three-month residency at InterSpace, Sofia, Bulgaria

A mixed-method investigation of the gaming/gambling interface A mixed-method investigation of the gaming/gambling interface
 Dr Helen Lloyd, funded by Gamble Aware

Methodological solutions to support the Assessment of Individualised Care: The Mosaic Project Methodological solutions to support the Assessment of Individualised Care: The Mosaic Project
Dr Helen Lloyd, funded by University of Gothenburg Centre for Person Centred Care

Narrative for Person Centred Care Narrative for Person Centred Care
 Dr Helen Lloyd, funded by University of Gothenburg Centre for Person Centred Care

Related publications

Under review

Sood, Arun, ‘Mungo Park, Mande Orality, and Critical Indigenous Studies’, invited contribution to special issue: of ‘Decolonial Methodologies Special Issue’: Journal of Settler Colonial Studies (in preparation and forthcoming).

2022

Murrani, S., Lloyd, H., & Popovici, I-C. (2022) Mapping home, memory and spatial recovery in forced displacement, Social & Cultural Geography, DOI

2020

Close J, Spicer S, Nicklin LL, Uther M, Lloyd J & Lloyd H. (2020). 'Secondary analysis of loot box data: are high-spending “whales” wealthy gamers or problem gamblers?' DOI

James, Z. 2020 The Harms of Hate for Gypsies and Travellers: A Critical Hate Studies Perspective. Palgrave Pivot cover image

Murrani, S. and Popovici, I. (2020) 'Mapping Creative Recovery' report (European Cultural Foundation).

Murrani, S. 2020. Review of Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement, Journal of Refugee Studies, feaa077, DOI.

Naldemirci Ö, Britten N, Lloyd H & Wolf A. (2020). 'Epistemic injustices in clinical communication: The example of narrative elicitation in person-centred care' Sociology of Health and Illness: a journal of medical sociology, DOI 

Sood, Arun, ‘Mediations in Transatlantic Reception and Influence: Vernacular Orality and ‘The Rustic Bard of New Hampshire’, Studies in Romanticism Vol. 59, No.3 (2020): 163-185.

2019

Murrani, S. 2019. ‘Contingency and Plasticity: The Dialectical Re-construction of the Concept of Home in Displacement’. Journal of Culture and Psychology. DOI

Murrani, S. 2019. ‘Urban Creativity through Displacement and Spatial Disruption’, In: Michael E Leary-Owhin and John P McCarthy (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Henri Lefebvre, The City and Urban Society. London: Routledge. ISBN: 9781138290051.

Naldemirci, Ö, Britten, N, Lloyd, H, Wolf, A. (2019). The potential and pitfalls of narrative elicitation in person‐centred care. Health Expect. 00: 1– 9. DOI

2018

Hosale, MD., Murrani, S. and Decampo, A. 2018. ‘Introduction from the Editors’ to Worldmaking as Techné: Exploring Worlds of Participatory Art, Architecture, and Music. Cambridge, Ontario: Riverside Architectural Press, pp. iv-xxvi. ISBN: 978-1-988366-09-8.

Lloyd, H., et al (2018). Validation of the person-centred coordinated care experience questionnaire (P3CEQ). International Journal for Quality in Health Care, DOI

Lloyd, H., et al (2018). Patient-Reported Measures for Person-Centred Coordinated Care: A Comparative Domain Map and Web-Based Compendium for Supporting Policy Development and Implementation. Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR). 14.02.18 in Vol 20, No 2 (2018): February.

Murrani, S. 2018. ‘Estranged Space Appropriated’, In: Hosale, MD., Murrani, S. and de Campo, A. Worldmaking as Techné: Exploring Worlds of Participatory Art, Architecture, and Music. Cambridge, Ontario: Riverside Architectural Press, pp. 296-319.

Sood, Arun, ‘The Burnsian Palimpsest: Transatlantic Cultural Memory, c. 1840-1866’, Symbiosis: A Journal of Transatlantic Literary and Cultural Relations 22:1 (August, 2018) 49-73.

Sood, Arun, Robert Burns and the United States of America: Poetry, Print and Memory 1786-1866 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

2017

Popovici, I. (2017), 'Two Churches and A Hat: The National Bucharest Theatre or the Mythology of Post-War Romanian Architecture’, PARSE Journal, 3, 109-128.

Sood, Arun, ‘Patrick Colquhoun: Eighteenth-century Glasgow merchant’ in The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer 32:1 (2017) 15-18.

2016

Lloyd, H., Peters, M., Lloyd, J., and Fitzpatrick. R. (2016). The Role of Life Context and the Outcomes that Matter to People with a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia. Health Expectations. DOI: 10.1111/hex.12548

2015

Sood, Arun ‘A Modern Poet on The Scotch Bard: Walt Whitman’s 1875 Essay on Robert Burns’ in The Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 32:4 (2015) 230-236.

2014

Popovici, I. (2014), ‘Architecture Competitions – A Space for Political Contention. Socialist Romania, 1950–1956’, Journal of Architecture and Urbanism, 38, 24-38. DOI

Popovici, I. (2014),‘”The City as a Part of Nature, and Concrete as a Kind of Earth.” Japanese Architecture Meets 1960s-1980s Romanian Modernism’, Studies in History & Theory of Architecture, 2 (2014), 116-139.

Postgraduate research

We welcome postgraduate research interests in any one or combined fields of medical anthropology, urban displacement, humanitarian and development architecture, spatial justice, mapping migration, refugee and asylum seeker housing, Gypsy, Traveller and Roma studies, hate studies, post-colonial literature, memory and moving image.

For further information regarding postgraduate research please contact a member of the team.

<p>Group Hug by Flounder Lee 2020. PhD Researcher in Art and Media at UoP. Photo credit: Mehr Mesbah<br></p>

Group Hug by Flounder Lee 2020. PhD Researcher in Art and Media at UoP. Photo credit: Mehr Mesbah

Impact Case Studies

REF Impact Case Study: Dr Helen Lloyd
Person-centred coordinated care: reforming national health policy and accelerating national and international care delivery
REF Impact Case Study: Professor Zoë James
Influencing provision, policy making and police training in the UK and Romania to increase the profile of Gypsies,  Travellers, and Roma

Partners

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