Kavya's PhD research is an ethnographic study exploring women's experiences with punishment and care in a women's centre in England.

Introduction

From September 2021 to June 2022, I completed my doctoral fieldwork in a women's centre in England. I had planned to conduct an ethnographic study, relying on participant observations to make sense of the social world in the Breddon Centre. Employing my methodology in practice, however, led to ethical negotiations that reshaped my experience in the Centre. This will be the subject of this chapter. I will reflect on my co-location as researcher and colleague in the Breddon Centre and describe how this unique positionality led a number of ethical tensions and dilemmas. While my commitment to reflexivity may not have resolved these dynamics, it helped me consider the boundaries of my involvement in the organisation, and just how far I would go to understand the Breddon Centre and its inhabitants.

It was late afternoon at the Breddon Centre. I was sitting in the office writing down some of my observations when Abi walked in. ‘Hey Kavya. Do you want to come visit a client with me?’ I nodded. ‘Sure,’ I said, gathering my belongings and walking with her to the car park, where we got into Abi's car to visit a 24-year-old client named Thea at her home. Thea met us at the door, her face leached of colour. Her eyes were red. She looked like she had been crying all day. ‘Hi darling,’ Abi said, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

Eliska's PhD research focuses on the experiences of Czech children with incarcerated parents, with an emphasis on how children of prisoners are informed about parental incarceration.

Introduction

This chapter provides an account of the relocation process to pursue higher education studies in another country, with a specific focus on my move from Czechia to the United Kingdom. It illustrates my fluid journey towards adjustment, in line with Oberg's (1954) theory of ‘culture shock’. In addition, the chapter reflects on my experience of moving from one higher education institution to another, describing the process of getting used to different institutional settings and the benefits of being part of an international cohort of researchers. Finally, my chapter provides an account of maintaining research ties with one's home country and argues for the possibility of the symbiotic co-existence of multiple spatial identities.

Moving from one country to another country – Czechia to the United Kingdom

Completing my secondary education at the Austrian Grammar School in Prague, I was exposed to an omnipresent culture glamorising studying abroad, and thus making the most of my obtained language skills. Having obtained both Austrian and Czech A-Levels, it would have been expected of me to study either in Austria or Czechia. Many alumni of my Austrian Grammar School did, but I chose to move to the United Kingdom instead. The simple reason for this was that neither Austria nor Czechia could ‘criminology’ be studied at an undergraduate level.

Alex’s PhD examines sexual violence from the narratives of victims/survivors and offenders who identify as sexually and/or gendered minoritised men and/or non-binary individuals. It draws upon the singularised normality of masculinity and how this influences survivors when reporting, offenders when perpetrating, and the police’s responses to survivors and offenders within cases of sexual violence.

Introduction

This chapter will provide an overview of my experiences in applying for doctoral research funding. Initially, I will explore the necessity of reflective writing when discussing my experiences of attaining funds for my PhD research. I will also examine the competition I faced when applying for my PhD’s research funding. This will be complemented by discussions on applying for research funding and the importance of research proposals having both originality and innovation (Baptista et al, 2015). I will also discuss the process of constructing my research proposal, centrally around imposter syndrome and my identity as a gay man. This chapter hopes to reveal the three key processes to attaining doctoral research funding, including developing a personal statement, presenting research to a potential doctoral supervisory team, and how to hopefully obtain funding for the PhD itself. I will follow this with deliberations around how I secured a Visiting Lecturer role and the intrinsic conflicts I faced as a young academic. It is important to acknowledge that this chapter examines sensitive issues, where I expose my lived realities of bullying, sexual violence, victimisation, and dysphoria with both my sexuality and gender

Chelsea's PhD research examines the social, cultural, and economic implications of the COVID-19 lockdowns on young people in Stoke-on-Trent.

Owen's PhD research explores hedonism within Stoke-on-Trent's night-time economies through the use of ethnographic methodology.

James’ PhD research, inspired by the changes in the scene that arose out of the socio-economic culture of football in the early 1990s, involved extensive study of a football hooligan group in the North of England using ethnography in the form of participant observation.

Introduction

This chapter is borne out of an unusual collaboration and role reversal in academia, the conventional norm being that academic staff school PhD students and guide them through the process. In contrast, reversing these norms’ role, we considered the frustrations and challenges of the PhD from the point of view of two doctoral candidates, Chelsea and Owen, and one supervisor, James, both sides trying to be honest. The conventional story of the PhD, of course, is that of the ‘academic apprenticeship’ served by candidates where the master draws on their extensive subject area expertise and knowledge of the subject, knowledge of research methods, and skills to see the PhD successfully completed, learning from an established supervisor who is the senior and expert. In reality, the truth is that the process is one of collaboration, where all learn from one another and find their way through imperfectly.

Buildings of Refuge and the Postcoloniality of Asylum Infrastructure challenges the narrative of ‘migration crisis’ in Europe, offering instead an analysis of how European Union (EU) enforcement policies have created a ‘border crisis’ that manifests in the everyday life of local spaces. Situated in the Macerata province in Italy, Paolo Novak’s deeply situated ethnography of 65 Centri d’Accoglienza Straordinaria (Extraordinary Reception Centres for asylum seekers, or CAS) examines the situated manifestations of the EU border interactive machine. Through detailed observations of buildings – ‘the protagonists of the book’ – the encounters within them (including owners of the buildings, employees of organizations running the reception centres for asylum seekers, and people living in these spaces), and the history of these spaces, Novak makes an original and necessary contribution to understanding the infrastructures of bordering through a situated account of local places. This does not just mean turning from the global to the local, as Novak argues, ‘placing the study of borders, migration and their infrastructure does not (simply) mean shifting the analytical focus from global, regional or national scales to local ones’. Rather, the detailed descriptions of these spaces and the various layers of interactions between them and the people that live there seek to situate the fluid geographies engendered by the EU border machine, ‘recognising that each place is the product of diverse trajectories and relations, each uniquely and unevenly expressing the immense movement of the world’.

As we approach this final break in our PhD journey, we find ourselves at the last overlook before the path ahead disappears into the horizon. This is not just a moment to rest, but a place to recognise that although this leg of our journey is coming to an end, it is also the beginning of something new. The chapters we have just traversed have shown us that the end of the PhD is not a final destination, but a gateway to new explorations. The knowledge and skills we have gained continue to evolve, guiding us on uncharted paths. As we pause here, let us reflect on how far we have come and how the journey of learning and discovery stretches beyond the confines of the doctoral experience. This is our last pitstop, but far from the end of our expedition.

In Chapter 14, Nick Gibbs explores the final stages of a PhD journey, focusing on the Viva Voce examination and the challenges of navigating the academic job market. Nick reflects on his own experience, emphasising the importance of thorough preparation for the Viva and offering practical advice for handling its rigorous demands. He also addresses the often-precarious nature of early academic careers, stressing the need to build a robust professional network and strategically approach opportunities. Despite the challenges, Nick encourages readers to stay resilient, believe in their expertise, and view the Viva as a stepping stone toward a rewarding academic career. Nick's chapter is particularly valuable not only for those navigating academia but also for those considering a transition out of it.

Issues of religion in public life seem rarely too far from the headlines across Western European liberal secular states. There have been a number of by now well-known and much debated social and political controversies over various issues. These have included the presence of religion in public places and spaces, in relation to acts like praying (in schools or near abortion clinics), or to religious signs and symbols in public institutions; or the presence in the landscape of religious buildings, for example, mosques and minarets, or in the soundscape of the call to prayer issuing from them. Issues of gender equality and equality around sexuality have also been prominent, whether in the workplace, education or perceptions of how these ideas are baked into religious doctrines. Free speech and hate speech, and the right to criticize and satirize religion, religious beliefs and religious figures have also been prominent, and at times with tragic effects (one immediately thinks of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo or beheading of Samuel Paty in France, for instance).

All these controversies provoke deeper debates about religious freedom, equality and attitudes to the place, role or even very idea of religion in contemporary society, and they cast a bright light on inevitable and inescapable tensions when it comes to the place of religion in public life. These debates and controversies point to a set of anxieties in liberal secular societies related to religion that are at once new but which are also haunted by history.

Religion and religious issues are usually framed as ‘a problem’ in academic as well as political frames (Davie, 2015: 228). In social science, theology is likewise most often ‘mentioned in a pejorative sense’ and set in an oppositional binary to everyday or lived religion (Helmer, 2012: 230) or more commonly is simply ignored by social and political theorists (Billingham and Chaplin, 2020). Multiculturalism is no exception to this general social scientific malaise in relation to religion. This chapter sets out how religion features, or doesn’t, in the writings of prominent multicultural theorists. It suggests that religion has so far received insufficient attention, especially in relation to the stronger arguments multiculturalists make for ethno-cultural rights, recognition and respect. This then provides the ground from which the book's subsequent chapters develop its positions and framework for recognition for a post-multiculturalism and religion.

This chapter does this in two main steps. The first discusses how and why religion is either marginal for or treated with great suspicion by many, especially liberal multicultural thinkers. In the second step it turns to an alternative, the Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM), for which religion occupies a more prominent place. Here the chapter first makes the case that this form of multiculturalism stands out in its treatment of religion, the public role it accords religion in relation to the common good and in relation to the notion of political secularism. It nevertheless then goes on to argue how Bristol School multiculturalism can be seen as equivocal on religion, and it makes the case for the importance of a focus on religion on its own terms.

This chapter focuses on the issue of multiculturalism and identity. It first outlines multiculturalism's concept of recognition in relation to social group identity, in both negative (ascribed) and positive (claimed) terms. It then relates these to the core concept identified in Chapter 2 for the Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM), namely ethno-religious. It develops that discussion and argues that ethno-religious can represent a form of misrecognition of religious identities for two main reasons: in how the religious more often serves as a proxy for the ethnic and in questions of the adequacy of the notion of identity itself. It suggests the implications of this for wider considerations of public religion, which then sets up the subsequent chapters. In this, it begins to set out the argument of how the post-works in relation to the issue of identity, so core to multicultural theorizing, acknowledging the important overlaps but not conflating ethnic with religious identity categories (especially where the latter becomes reduced to the former) and the need to at times consider these categories separately and as distinct. Through this discussion the chapter also sets out the initial parts of the framework of recognition that this book develops.

Why identity matters

We can start by saying something about why identity matters in multicultural societies and for theories of political multiculturalism. There are two main reasons for this. One is what we might call a negative reason: discrimination and the need to address it. Patterns of disadvantage and discrimination can often form along group-lines.

In his book The Dignity of Difference the late former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks challenges positions which seek to ignore or push aside difference in favour of sameness, or which see difference as problematic and something to be overcome in order to achieve unity. Rather, he argues, ‘difference does not diminish; it enlarges the sphere of human possibilities’ (2002: 209). In a challenge to liberal societies, Linda Woodhead has argued that questions about whether religion has a place or what place it has are the wrong points of departure. Rather, we should be asking how liberal societies can deal with pluralism, including conflict, and create a society in which ‘both religious and non-religious people and institutions are able to choose, contribute, belong, express their opinions, debate and contest’ (2013: 213). This concern, of the dignity but also the possibility of difference has been central to this book.

Core to this has been a view of a deeper pluralism that encompasses ethical, institutional and legal dimensions, and includes questions about what it means to be human and live in and construct social worlds in secular but religiously diverse societies. Pluralism, on this account, is more demanding than simple diversity. Tolerance may be a minimum requirement, but more is also necessary. As Goodman argues: ‘… it does not mean homogenizing. Pluralism preserves differences. What it asks for is respect’ (2014: 3). For Diana Eck, director of the Harvard Pluralism Project, pluralism is ‘the energetic engagement with diversity’, ‘the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference’, ‘the encounter of commitments’ and ‘based on dialogue’.

In this chapter, the final piece of the framework of recognition is put into place, something that has been implicit in discussions in previous chapters, but which now needs more focussed attention. The final principle, multilogue, is crucial to how the framework as a whole operates (see Figure 1).

A lack of dialogue has been a central point of critique of multiculturalism for some, and an aspect of its tendency to reinforce group boundaries and not deal with intra-group domination (Cantle, 2016; Zapata-Barrero, 2017). A first point to make is that this criticism overlooks that dialogue has been a central feature of the writings of figures such as Taylor, Parekh and Modood. It is, nevertheless, probably fair to say that the dialogic aspects of Taylor's foundational essay have received comparatively less systematic attention than theorizing identities has. This is perhaps especially the case in relation to a developed body of literature that has been extremely significant for questions of religion and politics, namely that focussed on religious reasons and language in public and political debate. A major sub-theme of liberal secularism and its critics has been precisely this matter, but multiculturalists have said little on the subject. It is this that forms the central concern of this chapter. Indeed, it is this that provoked the title for the book as a whole and its use of the prefix post-.

One of the most well-known and commented on works in this area is Habermas's (2006) essay ‘Religion in the Public Sphere’.

What role and place, if any, religion should have in public, especially in public institutions, is a vexed issue. Secularists of a variety of persuasions often see religion as something that can and should be separated from politics and public life. This might be because they see it as simply belonging to a different realm, one more personal and private, more other-worldly than this-here-and-now-worldly. Stronger versions may even see religion's presence in public life as inherently destabilizing, even dangerous, on the view that religion is particularly divisive, or even prone to intolerance and violence. Multiculturalists, or at least some multiculturalists, take a different view and emphasize the public good of religion and state-religion connections. Nevertheless, the argument was made in Chapter 3 that for multiculturalists there is a good deal of ambiguity about how religion relates to categories of ethnicity, and that multiculturalism should consider religion as a separate category from ethnicity, not because the two don't overlap in important ways but because conflating them obscures significant considerations and issues. This chapter picks up where Chapter 3 left off. It further elaborates the framework of post-multicultural recognition and develops it further with a focus on the vertical dimension and on dignity and religious freedoms. It introduces the feature of differentiation to the framework and how this relates to support for and interference in religious groups as part of their recognition. This chapter explores the significance of this for thinking about the inclusion and accommodation of religion in the public sphere; that is, in the law and public institutions.