adding presentations

content/presentations/201809-BASR.md

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+---
+date: 2018-09-04T09:30:00+00:00
+title: "Mapping Religious Communities in the UK: Borders, Boundaries and Big Data (research slam)"
+host: "British Association for the Study of Religion Conference (Belfast)"
+publishdate: 2017-06-05
+---
+
+Shockingly, there is no non-commercial database of places of worship in the UK. For this presentation, I will introduce preliminary results of a large-scale participatory research project which combined big-data methods with participatory geography to address this gap in data available to researchers. Begun in earnest in 2016, we have completed initial “seeding” of the dataset and now have over 40k geocoded places of worship hosted on a free geospatial platform. For this brief presentation I will highlight 3 key problems with geospatial data on places of worship (with a critical gaze towards Ordnance Survey and Google Maps), introduce our platform, and will offer 3 key research questions facing our team as we seek to ready this project for public (scholarly) consumption.

content/presentations/201809-celebrating_herbs.md

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+---
+date: 2018-09-08T15:30:00+00:00
+title: "Sacred Landscapes and Herbal energy"
+host: "Celebrating Herbs Festival (Springfield Sanctuary) 2018"
+publishdate: 2017-06-05
+---
+
+I'm delighted to be able to present some of my research and key questions facing the topic of spiritual landscapes at the Celebrating Herbs festival to a group of expert practitioners. Details can be found here: http://www.springfieldsanctuary.co.uk/mainfiles/festival.htm.

content/presentations/201809-research_conf.md

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+---
+date: 2018-09-10T10:35:00+00:00
+title: "Participatory research with practitioners and policymakers"
+host: "University of Birmingham Research Conference 2018"
+publishdate: 2017-06-05
+---
+
+Given the increasing profile of research impact and the growing maturity of impact case studies across the Higher Education Sector in the UK, it has become increasingly evident that researchers who want to make an impact need to implement their impact aspirations from the start. Jargon can differ, but across a range of disciplines scholars are now turning to participatory methods and co-research as a promising context for more robustly impactful research. For those scholars who are interested in enhancing their current research projects towards impact and broader public dissemination, this session will provide some tactical advice gathered during research on several case studies with environmental groups in the UK and Europe. We will discuss possible risks inherent in participatory approaches, particularly given the way that this kind of research can be a "long game" and require careful management across each stage. We will also discuss possible forms of engagement with different kinds of publics, including artists, policymakers, and third sector groups.