Past projects

ChildHerit

Childhood and children in patrimonialization. Transmission, participation, development

Associated researchers: Marie Campigotto, Rachel Dobbels, Aboubakry Sow and Elodie Razy

This project (resp. Neyra Alvarado Solís, ColSan, Mexico) aims to show that heritage, childhood and development need to be considered jointly from an anthropological, historical and comparative perspective.

Indeed, insofar as heritage is a political, economic and symbolic issue and resource for the present and the future, the study of the role and place of children (actors, vectors and/or beneficiaries of heritage), as well as children's conceptions of heritage, are at the heart of the project.

ChildHerit is based on participatory research schemes co-constructed with players from different "heritage configurations": institutional projects, educational workshops, local initiatives and practices, protection of natural and cultural sites, etc. in Mexico, Belgium, Great Britain, Peru, Mauritania, etc.

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Children of the city, children in the city

Children of the city, children in the city. The urban as tested by gender and social background in Liège (Belgium)"

Associated researchers: Elodie Razy and Elodie Willemsen

This multidisciplinary faculty project (resp. Elodie Razy & J.-F. Guillaume, LASC-Pôle Sud-IRSS, FaSS) explores the role of gender and social milieu in the investment of urban spaces, involving students, children, researchers and teachers.

“Early childhood and the challenge of gender in an intercultural context”

IRSS-LASC Team: Léa Collard, Fanny Dragozis, Élodie Razy

This research project, funded by the “Office de la Naissance et de l’Enfance Academy” and led by Professors Florence Pirard and Élodie Razy, is part of an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional project involving four research centres (RUCHE and IRSS-LASC for ULiège, CRIG for the Haute École Helmo and CIR for the Haute École Leonardo da Vinci). The project focuses on the question of gender and interculturality in children's services. Taking a holistic approach, it mainly focuses on how questions of gender and interculturality are raised and experienced by professionals working in children's services – childcare centres, child-parent meeting centres, children's welfare services – and families, in particular the children who use these services. It relies on a collaborative approach between researchers from the University of Liège and from the Hautes Écoles, associated experts from different disciplines, and from initial and continuing education, and actors from the different services concerned. At the crossroads of theory and method in both education science and anthropology, this research will lead not only to scientific publications, but also to the development of a training tool offering a grid for the multi-referential analysis of key situations in order to support (future) professionals in their reflections.

Key words: gender, intercultural, early childhood, children, families, professionals, collaborative research, Belgium (Wallonia-Brussels Federation)

Four-year funding as part of the Concerted Research Action (CRA) 2019 program

REGULATING WORK

'Regulating work. A comparative study of the construction and transport sectors in Belgium and Cameroon'

Associated researchers: RUBBERS Benjamin, Donita Nshani and Ludovic Bakebek

Carried out in collaboration with François Pichault of the Haute Ecole de Commerce Liège, this project has received four years' funding under the Action de Recherche Concertée (ARC) 2019 program.

The project's starting point is the observation that, while the literature on informal economies provides a better understanding of how most of the world's population lives, it has not overcome the limitations inherent in the concept of the informal economy itself. For this reason, it remains incapable of accounting for changes in work in all its diversity and complexity. To fill the gaps in the concept, the project proposes new avenues of analysis, which will be put to the test through qualitative research into the regulation of work in two sectors of activity in Belgium and Cameroon.

A team of four PhD students is focusing on the role played in this process by state agents, on the one hand, and actors involved in the two sectors, on the other. Our hypothesis is that their regulatory activities do not result in a simple separation between formal and informal work, but in various more complex forms of work (in-)dependence. Such a research project touches on a broader scientific and political issue, that of thinking about the transformations of work beyond the model of stable, full-time salaried employment, and the binary analytical schema that accompanies it.

Article

WORKinMINING

Associated researchers: RUBBERS Benjamin, GEENEN Kristien, LOCHERY Emma, MCNAMARA Thomas, MUSONDA James, PUGLIESE Francesca

Over the past decade, Congo and Zambia have witnessed an unprecedented rise in mining investment. Companies of various sizes and origins have flocked to these Central African countries in search of the copper and cobalt we use in buildings, cars and electronics around the world. They have taken over the assets of state-owned companies and developed new mining and industrial projects both in traditional mining regions and in hitherto unexploited areas.

The WORKinMINING project focuses on changes in work in the context of this recent mining boom. It aims to study how the labor policies of new mining investors are negotiated by different categories of actors. The underlying hypothesis is that the companies developing new mining and industrial projects in Congo and Zambia have not so much broken with the tradition of industrial paternalism that marked these two regions during the colonial and post-colonial periods, as given it new directions. We need to understand how they have adapted their managerial models to the constraints they have faced on the ground, and how they are contributing to the emergence of new regimes of responsibility.

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Alter-rencontres

Animal encounters. Exploring the experience of otherness through microphenomenology

Associate researchers: Véronique SERVAIS

The aim of this study was to take a close look at the experience of encountering an animal. How is the experience of self and body affected by the presence of an animal? How does the experience of being in contact or in relationship with an animal manifest itself? How is intersubjective space experienced, and proximity felt? These questions will be explored using a survey protocol that involves inviting volunteers to "come into contact" with a mule in an arena. Explanatory interviews will then be conducted with the participants, and analyzed using a methodology specific to microphenomenology. The aim of the study is to identify the dimensions of experience (perceptual, bodily, emotional, cognitive) that are relevant in the encounter with animal otherness, in order to better understand its therapeutic dimension.

Funding: University of Liège

FOOD2GATHER: Exploring foodscapes as public spaces for integration

What roles does food play in creating public spaces and opportunities for people to meet and live together?

Associate researchers (Belgium) : Élodie RAZY et Mélanie VIVIER

This is one of the main issues of FOOD2GATHER, a European research project where the 6 country teams (Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Italy and Belgium) especially focus on the interplay between migration, food practices, and places.

FOOD2GATHER will also help to better understand:

how European host societies – both institutions and common citizens – place new migrants (refugees, displaced populations, newcomers, etc.), and how migrants place themselves in public spaces.
to what extent and in what ways food is a vector or an obstacle for the inclusion and exclusion processes of migrant populations in European societies.
how can the concept of foodscapes contribute to shaping relations, facilitating communication and reflecting changes between public spaces and people.

FOOD2GATHER promotes cooperation between researchers, stakeholders and the civil society through joint learning and interactive collaboration. FOOD2GATHER does not isolate theory but combines the concepts as they arise from our various forms of research: Meetups and get-togethers will always have a moment of reflection, where we aim to conceptualize the foodscapes as we see them unfold.

Focused on the daily life of asylum-seeking children and based on the concept of children's foodscapes (Dolphjin 2004; Johansson et al. 2009), the collaborative research led in the Province of Liège (Belgium) entails identifying and documenting the role and place of food and foodways, at the crossroads of the family, the reception centre and the school.

This project has received funding from HERA JPR Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement number 769478

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