Distant Voices: Coming Home

“遥远之声”回应了因受到刑事制裁的人数大幅增加和高犯罪率所带来的紧迫的公共政策和政治挑战。颠覆对“罪犯改造”的传统理解，该项目关注的不是“纠正罪犯”，而是探索和改变他们在惩罚后“回家”时的接受方式。该项目旨在：(1)提高学术界和公众对惩罚后社会再融合的理解；(2)开发创新实践，以更好地支持re/integration；(3)更好地让一系列公民、社区和民间社会机构参与再融合。作为一个借鉴犯罪学、流行音乐、政治学和其他学科的合作行动研究项目，“遥远的声音”将创造性实践（主要是歌曲创作和分享）、研究和知识交流结合起来，促进关于再融合的对话和学习，并加以实践和支持。它的参与性方法将广泛的不同位置的公民、组织和协会聚集在一起，形成一个“探索社区”和创造性实践。这一系列的参与者将在三个相互关联的活动中工作。(1)在“共同创作探究”中，参与者将彼此合作，并与专业音乐家合作，创作探索、代表和反思再融合的歌曲。(2)在“共同创作对话”中，这些歌曲将通过制作和发行一张备受瞩目的专辑、相关巡演和一系列公共活动（包括两个音乐节）来分享。还将制作一系列播客，并通过互动网站分享。(3)在“共同创造发现”中，由更广泛的调查社区组成的核心小组将与研究人员合作，使用协作参与式观察，并开发和采用一系列其他社会科学和艺术为基础的研究方法来探索他们的学习，并评估在项目中取得（或未取得）的成果。通过这些活动，“遥远之声”希望发展有关重返社会和康复的理论和概念，影响有关行为，为干预措施提供信息，并在更广泛的范围内鼓励发展一个更公平、更有活力的社会。

Distant Voices responds to pressing public policy and political challenges created by huge rises in the numbers of people subject to penal sanctions and by high levels of reoffending. Turning conventional understandings of 'offender rehabilitation' on their head, the project is concerned not with 'correcting offenders' but rather with exploring and changing how they are received when 'coming home' after punishment.The project aims:(1) to improve academic and public understandings of social re/integration after punishment; (2) to develop innovative practices to better support re/integration; and (3) to better engage a range of citizens, communities and civil society institutions in re/integration. As a collaborative action research project drawing on criminology, popular music, politics and other disciplines, Distant Voices combines creative practices (principally songwriting and sharing), research and knowledge exchange to enable dialogue and learning about re/integration -- and to practice and support it. Its participatory methods draw together a wide range of differently situated citizens, organisations and associations to form a 'community of enquiry' and of creative practice. This range of participants will work across three inter-related activities. (1) In 'co-creative inquiry', participants will work with one another and with professional musicians to write songs that explore, represent and reflect on re/integration. (2) In 'co-creative dialogue' these songs will be shared through the production and release of a high-profile album, a related tour and a series of public events, including two festivals. A series of podcasts will also be produced and shared via an interactive website. (3) In 'co-creative discovery', a core group of the wider community of enquiry will work with the investigators to use collaborative participant observation and to develop and employ a range of other social science and arts-based research methods to explore their learning and to assess what has (and has not) been achieved in and through the project.Through these activities, Distant Voices aspires to develop theories and concepts of reintegration and rehabilitation, to influence related behaviours, to inform interventions and, more broadly, to encourage the development of a fairer and more vibrant society.