Friday, 16 May 2008

The hands in conversation

Bdfd_7 Here's another of those hurried poor quality photos that characterise this blog, and one that reveals a curious connection. I took this yesterday in Bradford Central Library. It shows the not-quite-everyday occurence of a lady demonstrating crochet to Emiel the goth. The cakes and the candle are woollen.

With my colleague Linda Constable I've been developing a variation of the Living Library concept, one which is locally-sensitive and non-confrontational, and helps to build relationships. It's unlikely that someone who is interested in talking about knitting would find a place within the established European tradition of Living Library - it's emphatically about confronting prejudices, but perhaps not that kind of prejudice - but our project encourages local libraries to take their own approaches and recruit their own catalogue of local people.

That's how we came to have Emiel (who's also featured in a promotional clip here on BBC Look North) sitting with a knitter on a sofa while both were waiting to be borrowed for a conversation, and getting absorbed in the arcane mysteries of The Woolly.

He and his two fellow-goths got the bug and one rushed off to buy some crochet hooks. Leaving me fascinated at the part played in this apparently trivial connection by (i) the organisation of the series of events, which set up numerous conversations that otherwise would not have happened, and (ii) the focussed occupation of the hands in conversation.

16 May 2008 15:02:17 | Cohesion and diversity, Information and communication

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Social mix and attachment The debate over social mix continues, which in itself is not a bad thing. Here's something from a report on The influence of neighbourhood deprivation on people's attachment to places, published by JRF and the Chartered Institute of Housing today: 'In general, high levels of mix of various sorts do not have much of a negative effect upon attachment. Indeed, some dimensions of mix (notably tenure and education) can be good for attachment. Where policy creates new communities, this research suggests that the most beneficial form of mix to consider is a mix of educational levels.' (Attachment is assumed to be a Good Thing). The summary points out that: 'Higher levels of social mix are not generally associated with lower levels of attachment' and also suggests that 'it might be useful to find ways of recognising or valuing local connections when assessing applications for social housing, since this may help to strengthen existing networks.' Indeed - noting that suggestions like this tend to get made in a tentative way, I'm gathering a little collection because I suspect/hope that there is some momentum building, and we'll gradually start whispering more loudly. Summary. Full report. Meanwhile, yesterday we had a report from the Dept for Work and Pensions, on Social housing and worklessness: key policy messages, coming a little while after this literature review. I still wonder about the government's new-found purpose in addressing 'worklessness' wherever it thinks it can be hit. I was struck by this paragraph: 'It is questionable whether interventions intended to diversify the social mix in existing areas of social housing will have a substantial impact on levels of worklessness for two key reasons. First, there are various practical challenges associated with the creation of more mixed-income communities. Second, it is questionable whether the promotion of social mix will effectively address social polarisation and concentrations of worklessness in areas of social housing. Disadvantage in the labour market was far more commonly associated with personal disadvantages and roles and responsibilities that were incompatible with work, rather than anything intrinsic about where people were living. This is not to suggest that gains might not be forthcoming from the promotion of social mix, but to point to the importance of such activities being complementary to efforts to improve the incomes and support the livelihoods of existing residents of disadvantaged areas.'
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How do you spell 'porn'? A few years ago I was at a European conference on social inclusion in the network society, where one speaker referred to the amount of progress that had been made but that 'we're not done yet.' I was reminded of that recently, when a friend who is an ICT tutor told me how she was asked during a session with a group of young lads, 'how do you spell porn?' At first she thought, as I'm sure I would have, that it was a light-hearted wind-up. But the guy genuinely wanted to know. From his point of view, he was being introduced to the internet and that's what he understood it to be about. Should she have obliged by telling him? I daresay that as an experienced tutor my friend redirected his attentions, but it illustrates the connection between literacy and personal exploitation of the internet. It's often pointed out - so often that I haven't bothered to check the figures meself for several years - that in the UK we have 20% functional illiteracy among adults. That statistic is a stifling disgrace. I am not of the view that those who cannot spell porn should be discouraged from exploring the internet, and it would be nice to think that broader learning experiences could be provided for more people. For sure, we're not done yet.

Kevin Harris

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