Teaching and Impact: Justice, Borders and Rights

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The themes of the Justice, Borders and Rights stream appear in a range of OU courses. Justice and Rights are among the module themes of Investigating the Social World, which also includes migration as part of Block 4. Social justice is a core theme of Understanding Criminology. Citizenship, sovereignty and rights are part of Understanding Politics. Research into Migrant families and the ways in which refugees use digital technologies is part of Sociology module Understanding Digital Societies. Social Research: Crime, justice and society also explores some of the research on migration and families and refugee journeys.

Justice, Borders and Rights member collaborations with Counterpoints Arts for the Tate Exchange ‘Who are We?’ Project and Migration Museum Project have produced a wealth of provocative reflections and new approaches to researching migration, citizenship, belonging and participation. These approaches offer ways of engaging our students with questions of what it means to describe, understand and enact the social world.

We have produced OpenLearn materials to think about how researchers and artists can collaborate to investigate these issues, in particular focusing on issues of collaborative knowledge production, digital engagement and of course, questions of migration and citizenship. To celebrate Refugee Week 2020, Justice, Rights and Borders member Professor Marie Gillespie curated OpenLearn materials on the theme of refugee 'Understanding Refugee Experiences'.

Closely related to this has been our engagement as academic advisers to the BBC’s documentary ‘Exodus: Our Journey to Europe’ which has led to an OpenLearn unit.

While Open Learn materials are freely available to everyone, even those who are not enrolled with the OU, our enrolled students also have access to the full documentary series, which has been awarded several prizes for its innovative reporting style from the perspectives of refugees themselves, including two BAFTA awards.