Times Higher Education Award Shortlist Announced
Congratulations to Central’s Dr Ella Parry-Davies, whose collaborative creation with Filipina domestic and care workers living in the UK and Lebanon of a series of soundwalks about migration, domestic labour and the lived experiences of individuals who work ”behind closed doors”, has been shortlisted for the Times Higher Education’s prestigious Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Award.
Dr Ella Parry-Davies is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and a 2019 BBC/ AHRC New Generation Thinker. Through her postdoctoral project ‘Home-Makers’, Dr Parry-Davies is developing a collection of creative soundwalks with Filipina domestic and care workers in the UK and Lebanon. Contesting the undervaluing of care work, Dr Parry-Davies argues that the soundwalks demonstrate workers’ expertise in creating a sense of home overseas through urban practices that she sees as performative: live, embodied and collaborative.
Migrant domestic workers are away from their original homes, working (and often living) in other people’s homes. But feeling “at home” while on the move – through place-making and building communities – can be life-sustaining, and migrants must be expert at this. The soundwalks are designed to capture this expertise – to show rather than tell – because they enable the speakers to take listeners directly to the sites most important to them.
2020 marks the 16th annual Times Higher Education (THE) Awards, known widely as the ‘Oscars of higher education’. Award categories cover the full range of university activity across leadership and management, administration and academia. Despite the global COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting dramatic changes to working patterns, hundreds of entries were submitted from all corners of the UK, with over 80 institutions represented on the final shortlist.
Dr Parry-Davies’ work has been shortlisted for Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. This category recognises an individual or team at a UK higher education institution for innovative arts, humanities or social sciences research that has a far-reaching impact and has caught, or has the potential to catch, the imagination of the public.
Of the awards John Gill, editor of the THE, said:
“This has been a year like no other, and universities have faced unprecedented challenges as a result of the pandemic. While we are by no means through the crisis, the response over the last six months has been immensely impressive, and served yet again as a reminder of the dedication and commitment that exists across UK higher education. While this year’s THE Awards will differ from previous years, since we will not be able to gather to celebrate in person, the purpose remains the same: to highlight and champion the very best of the talent and creativity that shines out from our universities.
In 2020 more than ever, it is vital to recognise and shout about those achievements, and we have been gratified by the huge number of entries at a time when university staff had so many demands on their time.”
Winners will be announced at the virtual awards ceremony, which is scheduled to take place on 26 November 2020.
