There are deep connections between the North East and Ireland dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. Here at Newcastle University, we have a pool of expertise in this area. So there is tremendous potential for the region to develop a centre for research excellence in British-Irish Studies. The centre would have an international reputation. It would have peace, reconciliation and human rights studies as a central focus.

Sarah Campbell and Karen Corrigan are leading a project that they hope will result in the instantiation of such an Institute. They are working with support from Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute. They welcome input on how experts in social justice at Newcastle might contribute to their ultimate goal.

Irish Studies Institutes provide hubs for research linked to the island of Ireland. Much of this work has focused on aspects of the region’s troubled history. In particular, there is a focus on policymakers and the major ethnic groups (Protestant and Roman Catholic). These groups work together to bring about peace and reconciliation. This is vital for the social well-being and economic growth of any community. The key characteristic of Institutes exploring these themes is the fostering of inter-disciplinarity. Their main function is to boost the visibility of this field globally.

“We both grew up on the borderlands between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland during one of the most troubled periods of Irish history. It has shaped our view of the need to ensure social justice in communities. Various communities often have very different access to cultural, linguistic and socio-economic capital. These experiences have also made us keenly aware of how important it is to provide opportunities to explore how language and history combine to mediate views of Ireland and its people in relation to Britain both locally and internationally.”

• Dr Sarah Campbell is Lecturer in British/Irish History in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University
• Professor Karen Corrigan is Professor of Linguistics and English Language and Director of Research in Linguistics, Newcastle University

Newcastle University Centre for Heritage

We began collaborating with the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience(ICSC) in 2019 to reflect these issues. 

Leverhulme Fellow Dr Gönül Bozoğlu explores the social memory of the marginalised Greek inhabitants of Istanbul, both past and present.

The Greek-Istanbuli communities in Istanbul and Athens are dwindling. These communities negotiate a collective memory of duress and marginalisation. This particularly relates to twentieth-century events unrecognised in official heritage and politics. These events included:

• a punitive wealth tax
• the 1955 Istanbul Pogrom
• forced displacement for some Greek-Istanbulis in the 1960s
• tensions over Cyprus in the 1970s

The communities in Istanbul reduced dramatically as a consequence. Yet they keep historic ties to the city stretching back to Byzantium. For the diaspora community in Athens, their Istanbuli life stories are important touchstones of identity.

Official practice often presents a singular view of a dominant heritage. This has the effect of further marginalising and alienating minority groups.

Dr Bozoğlu uses digital mapping techniques and creative ethnography, particularly filmmaking. Using these methods, she is able to represent marginalised life stories. She works with communities to exhibit their memories as a powerful means of countering alienation.

Sometimes, official state recognition of historic marginalisation of groups is unlikely to occur. Dr Bozoğlu's work involves new thinking about what we can do for social justice in such cases.

Research suggests that techniques of memory rescue enable communities to lay claim to their past. They are able to claim the emotional, symbolic and moral ownership of sites of memory. The techniques include sensory, community-focused digital remediation via memory maps.

The project has a multidisciplinary steering group across:

• Heritage Studies (Professor Rhiannon Mason)
• Digital Cultures (Dr Tom Schofield)
• Archaeology (Dr Mark Jackson)

The project aligns with the Centre for Heritage. The Centre is a leading, global hub. It studies the legacies, effects and uses of the past in the present at all scales, from the geopolitical and global to the personal.

Researchers at Newcastle University are drafting a bill that will strengthen human rights.

Article 22 will identify the law and policy changes that are needed to secure economic and social rights in Britain. This includes workers’ rights, as well as the right to:

• adequate housing, education, health, food, and social security
• an adequate standard of living

• A social justice story: read more about Article 22

An international exhibit blends historic photographs and oral histories. It uses these to convey the history of African Americans in Pittsburgh.

Newcastle University’s relationship with the African-American freedom struggle is personified by:

• our honorary doctorate for Dr Martin Luther King Jr in 1967
• the city-wide commemoration of that moment in Freedom City 2017

It compels us to continually embed social justice as part of the University’s work.

In his speech at Newcastle, Dr King asked listeners to understand the intertwined dimensions of the three great challenges confronting the world. These are the problems of war, poverty and racism. His words ring ever truer today.

Freedom City 2017

Freedom City 2017 is an exhibition featuring the legacy and memory of civil rights in the American city of Pittsburgh. It draws on a powerful combination of voices and images.

The exhibition pairs:

• historic photographs from a long-time Black Pittsburgher, Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris, with
• excerpts of oral histories drawn from an ongoing project headed by Newcastle historian, Dr Benjamin Houston

“We used this combination of voices and images to foreground Pittsburgh’s black experience as complicating our understanding of how race is lived in segregated contexts. In this way, we hope to testify to African-American resiliency but also the undeniably powerful impact that race and poverty have in shaping their world,” Dr Houston said.

Above all else, direct testimony from Black Pittsburghers and photographs that document their world embodies the central message of Dr King's Newcastle speech. This is that racism looms over our world and yet ‘aspirations for freedom and human dignity’ remain as unquenchable as ever. It is wholly consistent with Dr King's vision that everyday people have knowledge and can speak their own truths to power and understanding.

• Dr Benjamin Houston is Senior Lecturer in Modern US History in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University

Professor Rhona Smith is the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia.

UN Special Rapporteurs serve in their individual capacity. They are not remunerated. They report every year to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Rapporteurs monitor, report and advise.

During her missions, Professor Smith meets with the highest level of government ministers, members of the diplomatic community, representatives of civil society organisations and other stakeholders.

She undertook her seventh mission to Cambodia from 29 April to 9 May 2019, at the invitation of the Royal Government.

Investigating Cambodia’s anti-drug campaign

Cambodia is in the second year of an extensive anti-drug campaign.

Thousands of arrests and pre-trial detention have had a huge impact on already overcrowded prisons. During earlier visits, Professor Smith observed and discussed this with prison governors, the Minister of Interior (Deputy Prime Minister) and the Minister of Justice.

In May 2019, Professor Smith visited a district hospital, social affairs centre and drug rehabilitation centre. She investigated community-based treatment programmes for drug users with dependency issues.

Investigating forced relocation

A field trip to Kampong Chhnang followed up her previous mission in November 2018. She visited some of the Khmer and ethnic Vietnamese floating communities in Tonle Sap.

Thousands of households are being relocated to dry land. These include many poor families reliant on fishing for their livelihood.

For ethnic Vietnamese, the problems of relocation are compounded. They are currently not recognised in Cambodia, despite living there for generations, and cannot own land.

This fieldwork contrasts with the many land rights, contested land concessions and forced relocations Professor Smith has worked on over the years.

A six-month delay in the forced relocation was secured in November. In May, the complex situation was again discussed with the Provincial Governor and a range of senior officials. Follow-up meetings with the Minister of Land Management and Urban Planning and the Minister of Interior were also held.

Rights and freedoms

Human rights are interdependent, indivisible and interrelated. Unsurprisingly, most issues investigated by the Special Rapporteur involve a range of rights and freedoms.

Professor Smith has regularly expressed concern at the restrictions on civil society and political space. Indeed, while she was in Cambodia, she spoke at two workers rallies for International Labour Day on 1 May and commented on freedom of expression and media restrictions on World Press Freedom Day on 3 May. Professor Smith presented her report to the UN in September 2019.

“Peace without justice is unsustainable; development without freedom leaves people behind.”

• Professor Rhona Smith is Professor of International Human Rights and Head of the Law School at Newcastle University