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KAREN FOLEY: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Student Hub Live Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the Open University showcase of new curriculum. We have a jam-packed programme for you today, introducing you to some of the new modules and qualifications from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. So whether you're considering one of these options or you're just interested in studying the arts and social sciences, we've got a range of academics here to inspire you and tell you about why their subject area is so exciting right now.
My name's Karen Foley, and I'm a lecturer at the Open University. And I'll be hosting today's session. And my role really is to interview the panel of guests that we've got here today, to put your questions to them and to make sure that we cover some of the content that we've planned for today in time. But it is a live, interactive show, and that means that you have the opportunity to talk to each other, to ask questions in the chat, and to also tell us where you are, how you're feeling, which subject areas you're studying, on the interactive widgets which you'll see appearing on your screen.
Now, to tell us what you're doing and how you're feeling, you can click on the item that applies to you and then press Send, and your results will submit. Sometimes, when we ask things like how you're feeling, you'll see a word cloud, and you need to fill in three things. Now, if you can only think of one or two, that's absolutely fine, but you will need to put something in each space. Otherwise, it won't register. So just put a full stop or a cross in, if you can't think of up to three things.
And you can talk about whatever is on your mind. And if there's something that you'd rather not raise in today's session, you can email studenthub@open.ac.uk and we will get back to you. You can also put questions on Twitter, the hashtag is #studenthublive18, but the best way of talking to us in the studio today is through the chat. And HJ and Damon are going to be feeding your comments in and talking to you and answering your questions in today's session. Welcome both.
HJ: Oh, thank you!
[LAUGHTER]
DAMON: Hi!
HJ: We're just getting ready to go in the chat. Everyone seems really excited for these sessions, because we've just come up to submitting our EMAs and exams. And, earlier today, we talked about moving on, going to the next level. So there's lots that will be relevant to us.
And I know a lot of people were looking forward to the Classics session. They were saying that the criminology is very timely with a lot of stuff in the news at the moment, as well. Also, we've been thinking about-- we've had our Open Minds magazine through for anyone who've had them today. And we've found out there's a new alumni website. So we're going to be checking that out later.
So there's a lot going on and a lot we're excited, too. But anything goes, in the chat. Me and Damon are here to put your thoughts, comments, and questions to our wonderful guest who I know would love to hear from you.
KAREN FOLEY: And, Damon, as well as working in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, you tutor, as well, so you're a great person to have on the chat. [LAUGH]
DAMON: I might know a little bit about some stuff, but yeah, yeah, I do.
KAREN FOLEY: Excellent. So put Damon through his paces, if you will. We're going to start on the day with some criminology sessions. So first we're going to look at the undergraduate curriculum. We're then going to look at economics, music, religious studies, classics, environment and society, the MA in philosophy, and then ending with some more criminology, looking at the MA Crime and Global Justice.
So, to find out about exactly what time each session will start and what's included and who our guests are, you can look at the Student Hub Live website-- that's studenthublive.open.ac.uk-- to find out more. You can drop in and out as much as you want to. And, if you can't stay for the whole day, you can watch on Catch Up, also. And there are a range of sessions on the YouTube channel, as well, that you might want to take a look at also.
OK, let's get cracking. Our first guests are from Criminology, a very, very popular subject area. So, welcome, Steve Tombs, Keir Irwin-Rogers, and Victoria Cooper! You're here to represent Criminology, and we wanted to start with a broad overview of what criminology at the Open University is all about. So, Steve, could we start with you, please?
STEVE TOMBS: Yeah, of course, Karen. Criminology's got a bit of a history at the Open University. And it's got a kind of distinctive flavour, as well. So, in terms of the history, I mean, there were some very well-known books associated with the modules that are produced at the OU over the past 30 or 40 years. And they're books that, of course, are designed for courses and modules that run at the Open University, but they're used in criminology courses up and down the country. I used them as a student, and I also used them as a teacher long before I came to the Open University.
KAREN FOLEY: So let's take a look at some of these books and also the Twitter handle, as well. We've got a slide that shows you some of the key modules, which is here appearing on your screen now. So, Steve, some of these books that you're talking about, are these books that students can buy? Or are they books that inform some of the module?
STEVE TOMBS: No, these aren't books for the current modules, although DD301, of course, is currently being taught-- a wonderful path, our new degree. But I think all of the books say something about the way in which we approach, have approached, criminology at the OU and do approach it, and that's really to put crime and criminology within a much broader social-science framework.
So we teach the nuts and bolts of criminology, of course. That's our job, and that's what it says on the tin. But we do it in relation to key social-scientific concepts. That's what's been done through history. That's what we're hoping to live up to here, with our new degree. So concepts like power, the state, inequality, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, these are all key concepts which inform every part of our teaching and which are reflective in these classic books.
KAREN FOLEY: And the department has grown phenomenally, over the last couple of years, hasn't it? You've got some amazing people, representing all of these really diverse areas, as well. Do you want to talk us through what that degree might look like for students, and also about how some of those research interests are informing some of the questions you're asking?
STEVE TOMBS: Yeah, sure. I'll overview the qualification, and maybe one of my colleagues can talk about our colleagues in the department. But, at the moment, we're producing five new 60-credit modules to take our students through from level 1 through to level 3, [INAUDIBLE] in criminology. The first bespoke criminology module that students will encounter is DD105, Introducing Criminology, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. Hopefully we can talk about that in a bit more detail later on.
Two modules at level 2, DD212, Understanding Criminology, which introduces students to theorising around crime and criminal justice, in ways which doesn't feel theoretical, doesn't feel too challenging, but actually is quite challenging, I think. A sister module, D205, which looks at the ways in which evidence and knowledge about crime and criminal justice is created, investigating crime and criminal justice. And then two modules at level 3, DD301, 311, Crime, Harm, and the State, which looks at ways in which the state labels certain phenomena as crime, labels certain phenomena as harm, and what that means, and indeed how the state itself produces crime and harm.
And finally, what really is an independent-study module, DE315, where students have a pretty exciting opportunity, I think, to focus in, in an extended way, on a key contemporary issue in criminology that matters to them.
KAREN FOLEY: I think we've got a slide, as well, where we can show students about what the qualification looks like. Here we can see the slide, Steve, as well. So we've got here the levels that you've just described. How much choice is there, then, in this programme, for students?
STEVE TOMBS: There's no choice in terms of the modules that make up the programme. So the five modules plus an introductory social-science module, taken before DD105, constitutes the programme. So there's no choice, in terms of which modules to take or not to take, on the BA. But within the modules there's considerable choice, in terms of which topics to focus upon, what to write around, what to study around independently. So the choices are built into the modules and into assessment into pathways inside the modules, as opposed to specific modules which can or can't be taken.
KAREN FOLEY: And, of course, students may well choose to take one of these modules as part of an open degree.
STEVE TOMBS: Absolutely, yes. And some of these modules will also form parts of other degrees. So we have a degree in Law in Criminology, we have a degree in Psychology in Criminology, and some of these modules also form parts of the criminological offerings of those degrees, too.
KAREN FOLEY: Brilliant. So we're going to take a look at some of those in more detail. But, Vickie, I wonder if we could talk a little bit about why we work as criminologists. And, I guess, the things that we're individually bringing to the curriculum are informing, then, what is actually being developed.
VICTORIA COOPER: Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting question. Essentially, criminologists are interested in social justice. And, for a lot of criminologists, what that means is that they research and they study social groups who are experiencing severe disadvantage, who are marginalised, set on the fringes of the state, on the fringes of society. And, as part of their inquiries, criminologists, they tend to look at the ways in which social processes and the ways in which mechanisms of social control operate in order to keep those individuals and social groups on the margins.
And, as part of that, criminologists are interested in how the criminal justice system itself becomes a key area in which mechanisms of social control are exercised over marginalised groups, such as young unemployed people, black and minority ethnic groups, homeless individuals, sex workers, prisoners, LGBT prisoners, and a whole diverse range of social groups. So they look at the criminal justice system to think about, well, how are they treated and mistreated within the criminal justice system, as well?
But also, while as criminologists we look at those areas, criminologists also look at other types of crimes and other crimes, crimes that are committed by other social groups. So, for example, crimes of the powerful, and corporate crime. And there they look at-- well, actually, those, when we look at those crimes, often there's no criminal-justice intervention, you know, when we think about the differences between these, the ways in which these social groups interact and come into contact with the criminal justice system.
So, essentially, social justice is a big focus and a big concern for criminologists. And this is reflected in our modules. This commitment to social justice is reflected in our Criminology degree programme, here at the Open University. So, for example, 105 module, and also DD212 module, we have topics such as sex workers, prisoners, self-inflicted harm in prison. We have topics such as violence and the violence of austerity. And these are some of our research areas that we look at, within our research, and that we bring to bear within our criminology modules. And I think that's what makes our Criminology degree programme diverse but also coherent one, because it all coincides with our individual research areas.
STEVE TOMBS: I think, also, totally all of that, and built on top of that, I think, the fact that the areas, some of the areas you talked about-- so, around homelessness or corporate harm-- you know, these are our research interests and, of course, our areas of expertise, and they are reflected in the module, but they're also areas in which we work as kind of campaigners or as policy advisors. We work outside the academy, and we kind of bring some of that insight, I think, energy and enthusiasm and expertise, I hope we bring some of that into the modules. And I think that's not unique, of course, but I think it is a kind of a peculiar feature and an important feature of our brand of criminology at the OU.
VICTORIA COOPER: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it is through our campaign work that helps to generate new research ideas, as well, and new research concerns, actually. So a lot of criminologists are led by campaigns and by the issues that these campaigns are bringing to bear. So, as criminologists and people who are interested in issues of social justice, we listen very carefully to campaigners and listen to their issues and think of ways in which we can bring those issues to the students, as well, in our modules.
KAREN FOLEY: Yeah. And we're going to show, at the end, some of the blogs and ways in which you're doing that. But I wonder if we may start fixing on some of the modules, as well. And one I know that we really wanted to focus on was DD212.
KEIR IRWIN-ROGERS: Yep. So DD212, a fantastic module. Me and Vickie have been working on this for some time. It's called Understanding Criminology. So, I guess the first thing to point out about 212 is that it's not like many other criminology modules that students might take.
So it doesn't focus on a particular topic. It's not about policing. It's not about imprisonment. It's not about corporate crime. It's actually about helping students and supporting them to see different criminological topics in different ways. It's about seeing the world in different ways and giving them the tools to do that.
And often, on criminology modules, the way we teach is through the use of themes. So, on DD212, we have four themes, and two of those are power and inequality. And then we apply those to a particular case that is in criminology, to understand those topics in more depth.
One of those is mass incarceration, on 212, that we return to many times. And, yeah, we see that through a lens of power and inequality that we think gives a more detailed an in-depth understanding of mass incarceration. That's the process of imprisoning very high rates of population.
So, in the US, for example, this is particularly stark, where there's more and more people in prison. The rates have been going up for several decades. The same thing has happened in the UK to a lesser extent, but historically it's still very high.
And so we would ask, what is driving mass incarceration? What are the reasons why the prison population is going up? And we would then look to a lens of power and inequality, to understand that.
So we can see very clearly that mass incarceration, it doesn't affect all people across society equally. It very much applies to certain groups. And we ask, well, why is that? It seems that people at the bottom end of the socioeconomic hierarchy are being picked up more than others.
And so we turn to this concept of power, and we see power and inequality as being very closely intertwined. So, for example, laws that may press down on people at the bottom end of the socioeconomic hierarchy. They seek to govern and regulate the behaviour of those who have relatively little access to resources and wealth, relatively little power.
And it's not just the laws themselves but the institutions of state that enforce those laws. They're very much focused. They gaze downwards. While, at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy, where people may well be engaging in behaviours where harms are much greater than at the bottom, but yet for some reason, there seems to be a blind side to those behaviours-- often not picked up. But when they are picked up, it's much more lenient in terms of the punishment.
And Steve-- it's a bit embarrassing trying to articulate myself in this, because Steve is one of the world leading experts in this.
[LAUGHTER]
He'll probably go on to talk about this in 105 in a much clearer way. But, yeah, that's what DD212 is trying to do. It's not looking at particular topics, although absolutely, when students reach the end of the module, they will know about certain topics in much more detail, and we hope they enjoy those topics. But, really, the key thing about 212 is helping them to have those tools, to look at whatever it is they're interested in in a different way. And not just in criminology. Once they finish the module and the degree, whatever it is they go on to do, for the rest of their lives we've given them tools to look at things in different ways.
And I think that's incredible. I mean, I'm a pretty sad individual, probably, and not an expert. But I think when there's something really difficult to understand and really impenetrable, there's nothing more satisfying, I think, than when you've been reading about something or learning about something and then you see that thing in a completely different way. Like, I think it's empowering, and it's exciting, and it's liberating.
And that's what 212 is about. It's about getting students to that point. So, yeah, I'd highly recommend.
VICTORIA COOPER: No, absolutely. And also it's about, you know, one of the things that we do try to teach on the module is that the concept of crime changes. And how we define crime, how we see crime, changes all the time. And I was thinking about the example of abortion and the recent referendum in Ireland. You know, abortion was illegal, three weeks ago, and it's not illegal in Ireland.
So we're constantly trying to remind students that what we think of as crime today, is crime today, won't be the same this time tomorrow and this time in the future. So it's always reasoned to students, encouraging them to think about the concept of crime.
STEVE TOMBS: Yeah. I mean, someone who was a criminal three weeks ago--
VICTORIA COOPER: Yeah.
STEVE TOMBS: And all that's associated with that, there must be something different about them, suddenly isn't a criminal. Right? So now they're somehow normal-- to use that dyad, norm and pathological stuff.
KAREN FOLEY: Not enough people are tried for witchcraft these days.
[LAUGHTER]
Not enough! [LAUGH] Let's take a quick trip to the hot desk. HJ and Damon, how are things with people back at home?
HJ: Well, they're quite good. We are actually talking about some of-- we're talking about the definition of crime changing, and we've come across digital crime, as well, something that's come up a lot. So we're talking about data misuse and how information is used against different people.
And I find that really interesting. And we talk about working conditions, as well. So it does seem, in the chat, as well, that it changes, depending on the situation we're in and how it's moved from traditionally thought of cops and robbers to all of this new sort of crime that's emerging.
DAMON: Yeah. And, moving online, so, GDPR, data misuse, the issue of using data for political gain, and the investigation investigations going on into that. And also, Donald Trump's hair.
[LAUGHTER]
KAREN FOLEY: Well, yes, what we think of crimes can really vary.
[LAUGHTER]
It's very topical. So a lot of this is about sort of campaigning and also making things matters of concern and also approaching the world with different lenses, different aspects of the social sciences, in a very sort of multi- or interdisciplinary way, to look at issues. But, Steve, starting at level 1, then, how do students actually start working with some of these ideas, so that they get more complex, where they're using these various lenses? What happens in DD105?
STEVE TOMBS: Well, DD105 partly does what it says on the tin, Introducing Criminology. So it overviews some of the key concerns, the topics, the areas of interest and research that fall within the broad rubric of criminology. So that has to do that, and that's what it does, and that's quite right. It is a kind of grounding for what comes later in the degree.
But the key task, I think, and it links into something that Vickie said is picked up in 212, the key task for DD105 is to problematize this idea about crime, to understand that what is a crime is constructed, it's socially constructed, it's constructed in different political context, different economic context, and different historical context. And that construction isn't just a matter of chance.
It's a matter of struggle. It's a matter of resistance. It's a matter of power. It's a matter of inequality. It's a matter of who has the resources to impose their version, their construction, their definition of crime on others.
So it picks up some of the issues around power and inequality-- which, again, are developed through DD212. And I think what DD105 also does is to say that we can look at the same phenomenon through different kinds of lenses, so we can see something which looks like a crime, and may indeed formally be processed as a crime, but we can also see that as a site of harm, as a site of violence, as a site of inequality.
So it's not that there are mutually exclusive ways of looking at phenomena, but there are kind of multidimensional ways, if you like, different perspectives to take at the same time upon the same phenomenon. So it really introduces students to a field, a substantive area, but more importantly introduce our students to the way of thinking, which is then developed, as Keir and Vickie were talking about in 212, is developed throughout the year, throughout the rest of the degree programme.
KAREN FOLEY: I wonder if you might give us a brief example, Steve. You know, today, the anniversary of Grenfell. I know that's one of the pieces of content. And, very briefly, because I know you can talk about this for a long time, and indeed we're showing some of the clips later in the programme today of you doing so.
But, you know, we mentioned this idea about crime being very temporary located. How does Grenfell then change? And what are you doing, in terms of how that's looked at, both in the module and perhaps one year on, in terms of how society is viewing that as a criminal act?
STEVE TOMBS: Yeah. Well, you're quite right. Today we should, of course, remember Grenfell, more than many other days. Yeah, Grenfell does form part of the module.
So Grenfell can be viewed as a crime. In fact, there have been eight or nine prosecutions related to Grenfell. They've all been cases of fraud, of people who claimed to have lost family or indeed to have lost possessions in the fire. There's also an ongoing investigations by the metropolitan police into corporate manslaughter, which involved the council, the tenants management organisation who owned and ran the block of flats, and some of the main contractors and other private-sector companies. So that case is being developed and eventually the recommendation will be made to the Crown Prosecution Service.
But Grenfell is also a site of harm. It's a site of physical harm. 72 people lost their lives. It's a site of physical harm. People have life-changing injuries.
It's a site of emotional and psychological trauma, harms associated with the experiences of that night and since. It's a site of financial harm. People have lost things financially, that some people have had interruptions from work. They've had to pay for medical bills. 85 local businesses have closed, as a result of the fire and the change in the local area.
And I think it's also a site of cultural harm, in a sense that people there have lost-- people in and around the tower who survived have lost their accustomed ways of living. They've lost what it was like. They've lost seeing, you know, the trip to work on the bus, or the tube, the same-- because they've been relocated, right? They've lost people they'd bump into in the park or the shops or the cafe or the local pub.
All the kind of just normal social interactions which often make life worth living have been taken away, because people have been relocated-- those people who didn't lose their lives have been relocated. And that's generating ongoing harm. So I think we can look at something like Grenfell as different kinds of crime or as different kinds of harms.
We also need to understand Grenfell in terms of inequality, because Grenfell, the residents of Grenfell Tower were among the 10% most poorest residents in England, in the richest borough in England. And that goes a long way to explaining how the fire was produced and indeed how the fire was dealt with, or not dealt with, in its immediate aftermath.
KAREN FOLEY: Mm. No. And people are talking about, sort of, just, with that in mind, as well, how something can be very much specific to the UK and a specific instance, place, time, et cetera. People are talking about the World Cup, for example, and people travelling to Russia, and what may or may not be legal there, how people may or may not be treated. LGBT, for example, is something that's been come up.
And, again, how you know what is and isn't a crime. You know, it's not always intuitive. And to what extent that's a personal responsibility. So there's an awful lot of chat that this has generated that I just wanted to reflect in the discussion, because I think these are some of the very issues that you're grappling with. What can be or cannot be categorised, by whom and by when, and who does that impact on. And Grenfell's an amazing example of the layers of things that you're looking at, and the various implications, and the responsibilities, both on an individual and less localised level.
I want to finish with something you mentioned earlier, which was the sort of campaigning issues that you were talking about, and how you're going about doing that. We've got your Harm & Evidence Research Collaborative, Steve. So we're just going to show you a couple of examples that you can find out more about. So could you briefly just-- because we literally have a minute-- tell us what the HREC is about? And we'll show people how they can go and see that.
STEVE TOMBS: Yes. Essentially, it's a research group in which all of the department are involved in. And one of the things we do is write short blogs. And the blogs relate to material which we might use academically, but they generally emanate from some of the work that we're doing outside the university.
So, for example, one of our colleagues, Julia Downs, has just written a piece based upon her research in and around sexual violence and movements, social movements, which work around sexual violence.
KAREN FOLEY: We've got an image here of the injustice of injustice, making a feminist complaint, and-- yeah. So there are some examples here. And another is the border-crossing-movements one, as well, which we'll show you in a sec.
STEVE TOMBS: Yes. And Evgen is one of our PhD students and just coming towards the end of her programme of study. And she's been researching the treatment of asylum seekers and migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos. I mean, groundbreaking material, really, and heartbreaking material, also. And so she's reflecting some of that work in her blog.
KAREN FOLEY: And the way that you're blogging about things takes these issues and shows, through various lens, something in a quite nicely bite-sized way of looking at a particular issue. And blogs are a great way of getting academic content and thought out, aren't they?
VICTORIA COOPER: Absolutely. And it's also a really useful taster for students, as well, to look at the website to see our blogs on there, just to get an idea of the topics that we're interested in and what our research involves. So the blogs are good also for our students, too.
KAREN FOLEY: Brilliant. And we've got the links of those on the Resources page, so you can look on the website for OUcriminology.wordpress.com and find those blogs for yourself and have a read through them. They really are excellent.
So thank you very much, Vickie, Keir, and Steve, for coming on, today. We've got more criminology later in the show, with Samantha Fletcher, who'll talking about the MA Crime and Global Justice. If you'd like to find out more about that, then join us for that at 4:40 this afternoon.
But, for now, we're going to have a short break. We've got a who's-who video, then some 60-second adventures in economics, because we're then joined by some of the economics team, to talk about the economics of everyday. I'll see you soon.