Modern Languages : Learning and Teaching in an Intercultural Field

My research interests focus on languages and intercultural studies, with a particular critical concern for the different ways in which people learn to live and communicate together by stepping outside comfortable or familiar contexts. My work is interdisciplinary and draws on the resources of social and cultural anthropology, theatre and cultural studies, theology, law, modern languages and education. My Ph.D. research and ethnographic training focused on open air community theatre in Germany. I have continued ethnographic work among tourists, modern language students, adult learners of tourist languages, in conflict zones and among sanctuary and asylum seekers, refugees and befrienders. At present I am developing research on languages and intercultural advocacy with asylum seekers and refugees; and through intercultural workshops on education for peace and non-violence with a growing focus on constructions of faith and on the contribution of theological perspectives. I am a published poet and bring poetic approaches to bear on much of my work. I was voted ′Best College Teacher′ by students and awarded the Student representative Council′s first Prize for Excellent Teaching in 2011. In the same year I was given a ′Teaching Excellence Award′ for a career distinguished by a commitment to significant and sustained excellence at the University of Glasgow. In 2012 I was awarded an OBE for services to Education, and Intercultural and Interreligious Relations in the Queen′s Birthday Honours. Click here for a full biography Together with Rebecca Kay I co-convene the Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network, a knowledge exchange research network based at the University of Glasgow.