Conclusion
New Knowledge
The new knowledge gained from my research is that there is space to explore unexpected channels to reach audiences. Unconventional ideas and everyday things can get overlooked but it is in these areas that there may be new ways of approach.
What have been my positive implications
The positive implication of my research is that it has given me a place in the conversation on helping diverse communities integrate be that in universities and local areas. Before entering into my study I had no idea about community integration issues from a political aspect. I had my instincts from my own experiences and what I saw as a Londoner. Through my secondary research I learnt about the government and local council initiatives supporting community programmes for social integration in diverse areas. I researched these to see where my study would sit and have some positive impact. I knew that I wanted to get communication flowing and had the idea of workshops however, I was always open to alternative platforms. This is why my sessions have varied from singular to multiple participants, and my sessions adapted accordingly. The secondary research has lead me to approach and make connections with stakeholders who have the ability to make things happen on an administrative level. They have been key in passing on information and contact details to me to assist in putting my enquiry into practice. Through my key stakeholder I have been able to liaise with local community leaders to hold sessions to get results and feedback for my study.
What I learned as a result of the process
I have learnt that with determination it is possible to make a positive change. I started off with big ideas on a large scale. I wanted to study and make an impact on the whole of London. Looking at the work of the Mayor of London I learnt that initiatives were driven by local boroughs. So I narrowed it down to my Local Borough, Ealing. This was narrowed down even further when I pinpointed a stretch of road with global food outlets in my local area. As I started to use my project in this area I found other pockets within this community with a diverse mix that had an interest in food, these were Pitshanger Allotments and St Barnabas Church.
With regards to International students, I struggled to get an uptake for participants. In some ways maybe this aspect was redundant for now with students working from home. The idea was to help their integration into the university community through giving cultural validation in the new environment and culture that they found themselves in. I was lucky to be part of a co-curricular project that involved a global group that were not communicating and engaging. I used my Model and held a workshop to help with breaking down barriers (see Polar intervention) and inproving communication. It has been positive.
My learning edges
My learning edges have been:
Seeking to find ways to best infiltrate a person’s cultural being to extract their stories around food.
Finding new ways to present my finding embracing modern social media.
Finding organisations to collaborate and partner with to see through my initiative.
I chose to use the words Food, Culture and Storytelling. I had to interrogate these words and investigate everything about them. For instance exploring food early on in my research and wanting to represent a particular countries cuisine with a singular dish was not possible. I had to break it down even further and that is how I came to spice. Spices were indeed a more realistic representation of a global cuisine. Researching about spice taught me that actually the spice trade was how globalisation started.
What I learned through the process is that the word community is an awesome word. Everything I did lead to Community. London is a community of England, Ealing is a community in London, Pitshanger Lane is a community in Ealing, The Allotments are a community in Pitshanger, The bees on the allotment are a community. Everyone is part of a community in many forms: geographical, racially, culturally. One key thing in each culture is food. It is core of our being and a physical necessity. What I have enjoyed seeing on my journey is the ways that it has been used on an everyday level and for celebratory basis as part of traditions and cultures. It was the memories of experiences of food that I dug for in my conversations. It was the special recipes that held cultural value and the spices through their smells and tastes that evoked a person’s culture. I found how whoever I spoke to was so happy to share their story.
I learnt about the intricate nuances in conversation. The was an art to conversation. I learnt how to give form to the conversations to be held in my workshops through the model that I had devised. This was designed through the trial, errors and tweaking of my early sessions and in the latter was proved to be an effective facilitator in conversation to get the data that I needed.
The benefits and advantages to my stakeholders
My stakeholders have also been my gatekeepers into making things happen. They have been mentors to guide and direct me to resources and contacts. I have had to be thorough and professional in my presentations in order to give a clear vision of my objectives. I am fortunate that my stakeholders have been supportive. This may be because worldwide the drive for community integration is a hot issue and any initiative that is working towards a positive goal in that area is backed strongly. As any change no matter how small builds on the bigger cause. Having prominent stakeholders does open doors
What are the future implications and how has this now positioned me (and my stakeholders/community) at the end of this project.
I have been in constant contact with my key stakeholders because they are open to new ways in which to get community engagement. Having initially felt that a study on food in a world renowned creative education establishment was a silly dabble. I have validation that it is a worthwhile study. I am now working in collaboration with a local museum and an education establishment on projects planned for next year that draw on my research and knowledge gained through my research on Food, Culture and storytelling: How can food be used as a conduit in diverse communities to promote cultural sharing.
The final product of my project will be a social initiative called Food-Connect. This will be embodied in a website and possible App. The website will host the stories and recipes that I gather from local community members. Reading about other cultures should help understanding and break down barriers. It will eventually be a nucleus for promoting community activities for cultural-sharing. I hope for this to provide a conduit for getting the community talking and sharing.
The App will build upon the Model that I have devised. By each participant having gone through a session and process I hope for them to be armed with the skill to go on and apply the set of questions to another person and learn about a new culture. Hopefully this will trigger a chain of conversations and get conversation flowing. The App is yet to be designed but I envisage it to be a fun points based game – so for each new conversation you get a point and fill a section on a map.
2020 - Unprecedented Global Effects on my project - Racism, COVID
During my final year, my research became instantly relevant through unprecedented global occurrences.
Racism came to the forefront with the death of George Floyd. This brought to the table conversations on race, rights and correcting past wrongs to shape fairness and equality going forward. These events meant that people were already alerted to diverse community issues and were in themselves already debating and open to discussion. Within months I see that advertising has more representations of race and all areas of media have embraced the positive shift. For me personally, that curiosity of world cultures that I had gave me a head start and has placed me at the table of this global debate. Through my research I learnt who the key players in the UK were that held knowledge about local communities then I studied what measures they were taking to improve community engagement, and papers that had been written. The Mayor of London was giving grants: Seeds of Change. The British Council was liaising with groups doing workshops to create cultural awareness: Manchester University museum talks.
The COVID virus hit the world and we were forced into lockdown. I was in the midst of my research at this time into devising workshops that were food focussed. My enquiry was in ‘how can food be utilised as a conduit for cultural sharing’. Up until now food was an interest that you chose to partake in and chose to watch TV shows and buy books. Lockdown totally threw my platform up in the air. All of a sudden everyone was cooking and displaying it on social media. It meant that an area that I thought was a niche, had people of every age and demographic sharing their culinary creations across the globe. At first being disheartened I then realised that this was proof to my instinct that ‘Food does indeed promote cultural sharing”. So I embraced this shift by continuing my workshops digitally and continuing to discuss food and work with my local community. More and more doors kept opening up and I could see that there was a gap locally that needed to be filled. This is when I set up Food-Connect. This would be a website/social media that would showcase the memoirs and recipes that were being shared to me.