Community, Culture and Heritage

Advancing Community, Culture and Heritage Through Social Work Research and Practice - Dr Dan Allen

Dr Dan Allen, Principal Lecturer in Social Work, and Associate Professor Bonnie Jensen (University of Greenland) lead SafeHarbour Greenland, an international research and practice partnership advancing the University’s theme of Community, Culture and Heritage. As an affiliate researcher with the Children & Adolescent Research Environment in Greenland, Dr Allen contributes to a programme of work grounded in the protection of Indigenous identity, the preservation of cultural knowledge and the promotion of community-led social change.

Designed to safely reduce the number of Greenlandic children living in State Care, SafeHarbour Greenland aligns closely with the Greenland National Research Strategy 2022-2030, which prioritises sustainable community development, cultural continuity and the strengthening of welfare systems. The project also reflects the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, particularly the rights to culture, participation, protection from discrimination and self-determination. Through this approach, SafeHarbour Greenland supports Indigenous leadership in designing systems that respect historical experiences and cultural resilience.

Officially launched in February 2025 with national recognition, SafeHarbour Greenland has already achieved a landmark accomplishment: the establishment of Greenland’s first ever Care-Experienced Council. This Indigenous-led forum brings care-experienced young people together to influence policy, shape service reforms and preserve community voice within social welfare development.

SafeHarbour Greenland builds on UKRI (National Environment Research Council) funded project that deepens understanding of community adaptation, social development, environmental change and cultural continuity across the Artic region. These foundations have enabled ongoing international collaborations that strengthen global scholarship on Indigenous rights, intergenerational wellbeing and culturally grounded social work practice. Through SafeHarbour Greenland, Dr Allen and Associate Professor Jensen are advancing research that honours cultural heritage, foregrounds Indigenous knowledge and places community agency at the centre of social change. Their international collaboration demonstrates how collaborative, rights-based research can generate meaningful, sustainable impact across borders.

Figure 1: Dr Allen with Mio, a Human Rights Organisation in Greenland

Social Eating Past, Present and Future - Prof. Bryce Evans

Bryce Evans, Professor of Modern World History, has produced research that has been used in a wide range of policy interventions around healthy eating and combating loneliness and social dislocation through communal dining: from NGO Nourish Scotland's £1m Public Diners project, to the £1.65m DISHED UKRI project, to the parliamentary / trade union Right to Food project; to policy briefings for the Food Foundation; to community talks to diverse groups around the country, to the local Scouse Kitchen scheme.

https://www.nourishscotland.org/projects/public-diners/ 

https://www.ids.ac.uk/projects/dished/ 

https://www.bfawu.org/campaign/right-to-food/ 

https://foodfoundation.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-09/Community%20restaurants%20policy%20briefing_2.pdf 

https://www.churchillfellowship.org/ideas-experts/fellows-directory/bryce-evans/

Creating Storytelling Communities, Growing a Glasgow Scene (2024-2025) - Assoc Prof. Stephe Harrop

Funded by Creative Scotland, Stephe Harrop, Associate Professor of Drama, developed a project that explores the work of the Village Storytelling Centre to nurture a creative ecosystem rooted in contemporary storytelling, for, among, and with Glasgow’s people and communities. It uses dialogical research methodologies to document the experiences of the Village’s diverse community of practitioners and participants, which are communicated through a series of first-person ‘stories’.

The resulting report identifies how interactions between the Village Storytelling Centre’s activities, from grassroots storytelling communities, to emerging cohorts of new storytellers, and growing networks of established storytelling professionals, are empowering the creation of new platforms and events across a range of neighbourhood and city-wide locations, enhancing the cultural vitality of these areas, and positively shaping the emergence of a contemporary storytelling ecosystem with a distinctively Glasgow style and spirit.

Memories of the Arandora Star among Italians in Liverpool - Dr. Simona Palladino

This research project aimed at producing a video-documentary that would inform the heritage of the Arandora Star sinking. With the objectives of disseminating research findings to a non-academic audience and of raising awareness of effects of xenophobia and discrimination on individuals and communities, this project collected experiences of older people based in Liverpool, with an Italian background, about the Arandora Star sinking during the Second World War.

This project was grounded on previous research on the role of memories and oral history related to the Arandora Star sinking (Palladino, 2024) and on xenophobia and discriminations towards Italian migrants in the UK, during the Second World War (Palladino, 2022). This film contributes to scholarship on place attachment and place identity amongst older Italian migrants (Palladino, 2019; 2024b) and expands knowledge of the role of research via video-documentary practices with communities of older migrants (Palladino, 2024c). It also drawn on previous Knowledge Exchange initiatives for a non-academic audience, such as a Public Lecture at Liverpool Central Library (June 2025).

The multidisciplinary team includes: Dr Simona Palladino (Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education and Social Sciences) with research expertise on Italian migration, qualitative interviewing, oral history; Honey Crespo (Senior Professional Tutor, School of Creative and Performing Arts) experienced film-maker responsible for the filming production; and Prof Bryce Evans (School of Humanities) historian with expertise with archival material.

The research project produced a film-documentary (14:35 minutes) titled ‘The Arandora Star Sinking’, capturing memories of the tragedy from the perspective of a descendant of the victims. It is an interview with one participant, Vincenzo, whose grandfather was interned and perished on the Arandora Star.

See the film-trailer here.

This film will be used as a pilot for a bigger research grant proposal and shape future Impact activities (creativity, culture and society). The Liverpool Maritime Museum have expressed interest in showcasing the film in their Conflict gallery.

The film was funded by the Inspire Fund at Liverpool Hope. The creative output was produced from July to October 2025, and the film was launched on 10th December 2025.

Relevant publications:

• Palladino, S. (2024a) 'Oral histories of Italians in the North East: the sinking of the Arandora Star'. Modern Italy. Cambridge University Press, (29):314-328. https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2024.22
• Palladino, S. (2024b) 'A Journey through Places of Belonging' Convergências: Famílias E Políticas Públicas, 4(4), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.34024/c.2024.4.19597
• Palladino, S. (2024c) 'The Participatory Documentary: Age is Just a Bingo Number', Sociological Research Online, Volume 29, Issue 3, Sage. https://doi.org/10.1177/13607804231181761
• Palladino, S. (2022) 'How the Second World War and its Aftermath Shaped a Sense of Identity amongst Older Italians in the North East of England', Immigrants & Minorities, Taylor and Francis, 40 (3): 277-305 https://doi.org/10.1080/02619288.2022.2098122
• Palladino, S. (2019) 'Older Migrants Reflecting on Aging through Attachment to and Identification with Places', Journal of Aging Studies, (50):100788 Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2019.100788

 ‘The Arandora Sinking’ film flyer – October 2025