Comic Ethnographies: Exploring graphic narratives of social justice research

Comic Ethnographies: Graphic Narratives and Social Justice Research

16 November 2022, 4-6pm (UK time)

This online panel discussion brings together researchers, writers and comic artists who have used the comic format to explore and present questions of social justice and community action to an audience beyond academia. Invited speakers will discuss their recent and current projects, working collaboratively and incorporating design into research.

For further details and to register please click here.

A YouTube link will be sent to participants in advance of the event.

The event is generously supported by the CSICD and a British Academy small research grant.

Confirmed speakers:

James Walker, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Nottingham Trent University

James specialises in large scale collaborative digital projects. These include Dawn of the Unread, a graphic novel exploring Nottingham's literary history, Whatever People Say I Am, a series of comics challenging stereotypes, and Changing Minds, part of a campaign to raise awareness of misogyny. Current projects include The D.H. Lawrence Memory Theatre and The Loneliness of the Lockdown Runner on Instagram. Writing is just an excuse to talk to people. He teaches Creative Writing at NTU.

Hugh Goldring and Nicole Burton, Petroglyph Studios

Hugh Goldring and Nicole Burton are a writer and artist team based in Ottawa, Canada, in the traditional territories of the Algonquin people. They have been adapting scholarship into comics since 2014. Together they have produced comics on a broad cross-section of social issues ranging from policing to refugees. Their most recent publication is Wonder Drug: LSD in the Land of the Living Skies, a history of psychedelic psychotherapy in midcentury Saskatchewan, available through Between the Lines Press in Canada and AK Press in the United States. They are always looking for new opportunities to collaborate. You can see their work here.

Edmund Trueman, Junk Comix and Alejandra Pajares

Edmund Trueman has been creating and self-publishing underground comics for the last decade. He has written about social topics ranging from the refugee crisis to the squatting movement, as well as engaging with those movements first-hand. In 2021 he co-created the comic Dunkirk Jungle with Alejandra Pajares, based on interviews with residents of the Dunkirk refugee camp. In 2022 his first long-form graphic novel was published – Postcards from Congo. Also in 2022, he completed his first comic in collaboration with Petroglyph Studios – Entre Ici et Là-Bas.

Alejandra Pajares graduated in Anthropology and International Relations with an MA in Conflict Studies and Human Rights at the Utrecht University. She has conducted anthropological research on urban conflict and gender in Turkish Kurdistan, and identity formation at Greek and French refugee camps. Together with Edmund Trueman, she co-wrote the comic Dunkirk Jungle (2021) on the everyday life and hardships of migrants staying at a refugee camp in Dunkirk, Northern France. Currently, she is working on a new research project in Barcelona, collecting people’s stories on the effects of gentrification at a neighborhood on the fringes of the city.