Welcome to the Discourse Unplugged website.

What is Discourse Unplugged? We are an open research seminar for PGR students, researchers, lecturers, and professors interested in discourse analysis. It is an opportunity for researchers from a multitude of backgrounds for meeting and practising our analytical skills.

In the very first meeting, back on 15th October 2014, we thought a blog may be a good idea to share our thoughts, writing, agreements and disagreements at our monthly meetings.

We sent a short piece of discourse by email prior to the meetings, where we discuss, analyse, interpret, and deconstruct the text. We follow UoM-SEED’s policy of not sharing any confidential or sensitive material on our website.

Meetings are held at the University of Manchester (currently online because of the Covid-19 pandemic). Please check this blog for updates!

Here is to seeing and talking to each of you online and offline (whenever that would be possible)!

For more info and joining the mail list, please write to discourse.unplugged@gmail.com.

Meetings record

Academic year 2021/2022

Convenor/GTA: Luan Cassal (MIE-UoM)

30th Jun 2022 – online (End of the year)
A care-ethic informed Foucauldian analysis of the accounts of ‘essential working’ in the UK
Claire Briegel (doctoral candidate in counselling psychology at Uni Manchester)

26th May 2022 – Hybrid
Care in first childhood at Favelas da Maré, Rio de Janeiro
Dr Ilana Katz, post-doc researcher at Institute of Psychology, Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil)
Special session co-organised with Childhood Research Group (MIE)

16th Mar 2022 – Online
Book launch: “Foucault in the food bank” by Chris Moller
Special session co-organised with KPI-MIE and Discourse Unit

24th Feb 2022 – Online
LGBT+ History Month session: Trans pedagogies and decolonising education
Guest lecturers: Jaya Jacobo (Coventry University) and Mariah Rafaela Silva (Universidade Federal Fluminense & Grupo Conexão G)

Jan 2022 – Cancelled in support of UCU industrial action

6th Dec 2021 – Online
Piece of material: The Powers That Be (Cassils, 2015)
Discussion: Luan Cassal (PhD student in Education – UoM)

1st Nov 2021 – Online
Draft chapter: Decolonising Mental Health
Author: Dr Ilana Mountian (Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil)

7th Oct 2021 – Online
Opening seminar: Research Practices in Discourse Analyses
Guest Speakers: Dr Letizia Alterno (UoM-UK) and Prof Amana Mattos (UERJ-Brazil)

Academic year 2020/2021

Convenor/GTA: Luan Cassal (MIE-UoM)

21st May 2021 – Online
Piece of material: LGBT Action Plan, published by the British government in 2018
Discussion: Luan Cassal (PhD student in Education – UoM)

22nd March 2021 – Online
Extract of research
Author: Jane Johnson (Doctoral candidate in Counselling Psychology at UoM)

2nd March 2021 – Online
Draft paper: Post-socialist geopolitical uncertainties – Researching memories of childhood with ‘child as method’
Authors: Dr. Zsuzsanna Millei (TAU) and Dr. Erica Burman (UoM)

27th January 2020 – Online
Extract of research: Vietnamese workers’ professional identities
Author: Kim Dang (PhD candidate at Bielefeld University)

17th December 2020 – Online
Extract of research: Ethnic Inequality in ‘Severe Mental Illness’
Author: Dr. Maria Haarmans (Research Associate at Cathie Marsh Institute-UoM)

26th November 2020 – Online
Text: advertisement from a Danish hotel
Discussion: Erica Burman (professor at MIE-UoM)

27th October 2020 – Online
Text: “Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations: An Interview with Michel Foucault”.
Discussion: Luan Cassal (PhD student at MIE-UoM)

25th September 2020 – Online
Texts: “Discursive analysis of experience: Alterity, positioning, and tension”, by Antonia Larraín and Andrés Haye (2012); “Including social discourses and experience in research on refugees, race, and ethnicity“, by James Cresswell (2012).
Discussion: Cristián Iturriaga (PhD candidate at MIE-UoM)

Academic year 2019/2020

Convenors from MIE-UoM: Luting Zhou (first term); Luan Cassal (second term)

22th July 2020 – Online
Text: “Intersectional Methodologies in Social Psychology: Epistemological Displacements
Author: Amana Mattos (Professor at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

19th June 2020 – Online
Piece of research: Interview on radicalisation
Author: Zahra Alijah (Lecturer at MIE-UoM)

28th May 2020 – Online
Text: “Surface Reading: An introduction”, by Stephen Best
Discussion: Jackie Stacey (Professor at SALC-UoM) & Julia Molinari (Tutor at University of Nottingham)

23rd April 2020 – Online
Piece of research: The politics of psychosocial support in the refugee camps of Greece
Author: Artemis Christinaki (PhD student at MIE-UoM)

19th Mar 2020 – Online.
Piece of research: The construction of vicarious trauma
Author: Jo Shuttleworth (Lecturer at MIE-UoM)

Feb 2020 – CANCELLED due to industrial action/Strike UCU

15th Jan 2020 – Ellen Wilkinson Building, The University of Manchester
Piece of research: The understanding of racism within the therapy practice.
Author: Angelina Baslari (Doctoral Student at MIE-UoM).
Author’s comments about our meeting: “The Discourse Unplugged was a very useful platform where fruitful discussion was unfolded and various perspectives were constructed. It helped me view my thesis extracts from a different angle with much depth. The people who attended it expressed remarkably interesting views”.

11th Dec 2019 – Ellen Wilkinson Building, The University of Manchester
Text: Understanding and enactment of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
Author: Laura Goodfellow (PhD student at MIE-UoM)
15th Nov 2019 – Ellen Wilkinson Building, The University of Manchester
Text: Reception teacher in a Primary school
Author: Geraldine Leydon
14th Oct 2019 – Ellen Wilkinson Building, The University of Manchester
Text: Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City – World Heritage Site
Discussion: May Newisar
30th Sep 2019 – Ellen Wilkinson Building, The University of Manchester
Text: Utterance Analysis Procedure
Author: Cristian Iturriaga Seguel

Academic year 2018/2019

Convenor: Luting Zhou (MIE-UoM)

(to be updated)

Academic year 2017/2018

Convenor:

Tuesday 19th of June 2018-10am to 11:30am in AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building,  The University of Manchester – Text : ICT IN EDUCATION POLICY in Rwanda

Wednesday  -March 21st 2018 10am-11:30am -Room AG.9-Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester: Text: Law against LGBT phobia

Monday  -January 29th 2018 11am-12:30pm – Room C3.21-Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester-Text: Rohingya Rofugees

Monday  -October 9th 11am-12:30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester-Text: Curriculum of singapore

Academic year 2016/2017

Convenor:

Monday February 13th, 2017, 11:00am-12:30pm in AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building,  The University of Manchester – Text : tbc

Monday December 12th, 2016 at 11:00am-12:30pm in AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : the Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation Report – 2015 HM Government 

Friday July 7th 2017 – 11am-12:30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : tbc

Monday June 5th 2017 – 11am-12:30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : tbc

Monday May 8th 2017 – 11am-12:30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : tbc

Friday March 10th 2017 – 12pm-1:30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : Transcript of a research interview of a police officer on dealing with mental health emergency situations

Monday February 13th 2017 – 11am-12:30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : Transcript of a research interview by Fafa of a mother of a deaf child in Malaysia

Monday December 12th 2016 – 11am-12:30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : Policy document regarding Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation (March 2015)

Monday November 28th 2016 – 2:30-4pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : Transcript of a research interview by Monique Husaymen of a male client of Commerical Sex Workers in South Africa

Tuesday November 8th 2016 – 3:30-5pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : Transcript of a research interview by Nancy Leaver based on experiences of workplace bullying in the NHS

Monday October 31st 2016 – 2:30-4pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : DfE Policy statement: prosecuting unregistered independent schools  (issued 18 May 2016)

Academic year 2015/2016

Convenor:

Friday July 1st 2016 – 3-4:30pm – C2.17, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : An account of the lived experiences of schizophrenia written by Molly Watson for Schizophrenia Bulletin (2015)

Friday June 1oth 2016 – 12-1:30pm – C2.17, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text: Time travelling; Whose Iraq Stories?

Tuesday May 10th 2016 – 10-11.30am – C2.17, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text: Artist Samir Harb’s comics that amongst other themess concerns Palestinian struggles in every day life

Monday 25th April 2016 – 10-11.30am – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : A clinical psychologist’s evidence-based approach to fatherhood

Friday 11th March 2016 – 12-1.30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : Pixação (a Brazilian word which became a popular resistance to the bourgeois “graffitti”)

Friday 29th February 2016 – 12-1.30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : Bury Children’s Trust’s “Strategy and Guidance for the Active Participation of Children and Young People, 2015 – 2018”

Friday 29th January 2016 – 12-1.30pm – AG11, Ellen Wilkinson building, The University of Manchester – Text : Redefining National Identity in Uzbekistan: Symbolic Tensions in Tashkent’s Official Public Landscape

Discourse Unplugged

More info: discourse.unplugged@gmail.com

Contact

All those interested in attending, or suggesting a text to analyse in a future session of discourse unplugged, or for more information, please contact:

discourse.unplugged@gmail.com