Alison Phipps holds the UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts at the University of Glasgow where she is also Professor of Languages and Intercultural
Studies. She co-founded the Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network and is a member of the Culture, Literacies, Inclusion and Pedagogy research and teaching group in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow where she teaches refugee studies, languages, religious and spiritual education, anthropology and intercultural education and education for non-violence.

In addition she has 20 years’ research experience, produced and directed theatre and performance in a number of countries, and is an advisor on migration and language policy to public, governmental and third sector bodies. She has written numerous books and articles and has published widely in the field of modern languages, tourism and intercultural studies and European anthropology as well as in the field of Higher Education Studies. She is a regular international keynote speaker and broadcaster.

Decolonising Hospitality through Languages: Pain, Joy, Gist

It’s easy to focus on language and literacy using metaphors of acquisition; of consumption; of levels and ladders and competence. Whilst these have served well during times, for some, of peace and of, for some, plenty, the majority world has not been so fortunate. What language learning and language look and feel like, their affective dimensions and physicality does not fit well into the metaphors which are central to the bureaucratic management of assessment regimes. This keynote intervention will bring a rich seam of work from within refugee experience and story and the poetic patterning of learning and orality and from a range of work undertaken in low to middle income countries.

Taking the richly generative theme of hospitality, and deepening this with the idea of fostership Alison will consider ways in which language research with those who have sought refuge opens out new dilemmas, practical improvisations and changes the hospitality landscapes for languages. In particular Alison will bring in work from the UNESCO report on Education and Multilingualism, and from the New Scots Refugee Research Report, which she co-authored with Dan Fisher and Esa Aldegheri.

Expect spoken surprises, southern epistemologies and maybe some lessons from the stars.

This presentation is the inaugural Dr Joy Northcott Memorial Lecture

Dr. Joy Northcott worked at the University of Edinburgh for over 20 years and was passionate about languages: learning them herself as a gifted linguist; teaching them as an experienced and popular practitioner; and committed to the professional development of other language teachers as a knowledgeable and expert teacher educator. This lecture, and the Dr Joy Northcott Bursary, to support language teaching practitioners who are currently displaced and who may not typically have access to language teaching conferences, is an acknowledgement of her contribution to language education and the esteem in which she is held by colleagues at the Centre for Open Learning and in the field of language education.