The Artists and Academics working with the UNESCO Chair at the University of Glasgow will host their first Spring School in May 2018. 

In recent years, there has been a renewed focus on the place of the arts and arts based methods, or languages and multilingual methods, in the work towards intercultural integration with refugees. This has opened up new forms of academic and artistic endeavour, as well as new methods. For this first Spring School we invited arts-based interventions and workshops as well as academic papers which sought to blend, in experimental form, both artistic and academic forms of presentation. 

The UNESCO team are interested in multiscalar understandings of integration as a practice rooted in hospitality, at all levels of society, from the individual and home, to local communities, institutions, cities and towns, to the national and international. The concept of integration has attracted critique in academic and public discourse when used as unidirectional, suggesting a one way process and burden of effort resting solely with the refugee.

The Spring School will showcase the ways in which individuals, communities, societies and institutions have accommodated and hosted each other and reflect on the ways in which the arts and academic research offer insights into the processes of welcome and integration. Interpreted in the broadest sense, these themes range from how we engage with our neighbours to topics such as slavery and imperialism and their connection to the present. In particular, the Spring School will focus on artistic, multilingual and educational dimensions.

Jane will be presenting a keynote on the Wednesday of the conference - 'Practising musical hospitality - an exploration'.