Making Liveable Lives: Rethinking Social Exclusion

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The main research objective is to move beyond exclusion/inclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer (LGBTQ) communities in UK and India creating a liveability model that can be adapted globally. Whilst work has been done to explore the implications of Equalities legislation, including contesting the normalisations of neo-liberalisms, there has yet to be an investigation into what might make every day spaces liveable for LGBTQ people. This project addresses social exclusion, not only through identifying exclusions, but also by exploring how life might become liveable in everyday places in two very different contexts.In 2013 the Marriage (Same Sex) Act passed in the UK, and in India the Delhi High Court's reading down Indian Penal Code 377 in 2009 to decriminalize sexual acts between consenting same-sex people was overturned by the Supreme Court. Yet bullying, mental health and safety continue to be crucial to understanding British LGBTQ lives, in contrast the overturned the revoke of Penal Code 377 2013, this has resulted in increased visibilities of LGBTQ people. These different contexts are used to explore liveable lives as more than lives that are just 'bearable' and moves beyond norms of happiness and wellbeing.This research refuses to be fixed to understanding social liberations through the exclusion/inclusion, in place/out of place dichotomies. Using commonplace to move beyond 'in place' towards being common to the place itself. Place can then be shared in common as well as collectively made in ways that do not necessarily impose normative agendas/regulatory conditionalities. Social liberations are examined in the transformation of everyday encounters without conforming to hegemonies or making 'normal' our own.Whilst the focus is sexual and gender liberations, the project will enable considerations of others social differences. It will show how places produce differential liveabilities both where legislative change has been achieved and where it has just been repealed. Thus, the project offers academic and policy insights into safety, difference and vibrant and fair societies.The study will use a 7 phase mixed methods design:1. Project planning and research design, including formally establishing the advisory group and meeting 1, setting milestones and setting in place all agreements/ethical approvals2. Literature review exploring key measures used to rate and assess LGBTQ 'friendliness'/inclusion nationally, supra-nationally and internationally3. A spatial assessment of LGBTQ liveabilities that includes, but moves beyond, the measures identified in phase 2, applying these at a local scale e.g. policy indicators and place based cultural indicators 4. Twenty focus groups (80 participants, sample targeting marginalised LGBTQ people), coupled with online qualitative questionnaires (150), and shorter SMS text questionnaires (200)/App responses (200) to identify add to the liveability index created in phase 3 and what makes life un/liveable for a range of LGBTQ people and how this varies spatially5. Participants in the data collection will be invited to reconfigure place through UK/India street theatre performances. These will be video recorded, edited into one short video and widely distributed. Data will be collected by observing interactions; on the spot audience surveys; reflections on the event 6. The research will analyse the data sets as they are collected. At the end of the data collection phase time will be taken to look across all 4 data sets to create a liveability index 7. Research dissemination will be targeted at community and academic audiences, including end of project conferences in India/UK, collating policy/community reports, academic outputs.The impact plan details the short (transnational support systems; empowerment of participants), medium (policy changes, inform practice) and long-term (changing perceptions of LGBTQ people) social impacts and how these will be achieved.