S6 Ep1 Bridging research and practice to save democracy: being brave & stepping into the unknown

Welcome to the People vs Inequality Podcast! In a time of crisis and fast change, this podcast is a space to reflect and learn with changemakers on how to tackle inequality. 

In this season we dive into the question of how academics and practitioners can better collaborate at this time of great need. As more and more countries are facing democratic backlash, both activists and academics are under attack. They are also in a unique position to defend civic space and human rights - especially if they come together. What can we learn from those working across these spaces on doing this well?

In this first episode we speak to someone who is particularly effective in bringing together knowledge and practice for real change. Liza Mügge is a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands who was recently nominated for a prestigious gender equality price. She’s well known for groundbreaking research ánd media impact in her field of gender and democracy. It's a great kick-off to the series that will hopefully leave you inspired to be brave and step into the unknown - because where else would change happen?

So please grab a coffee or tea and listen in on the conversation! 

Resources: 

More about Liza: https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/m/u/l.m.mugge/l.m.mugge.html#Ancillary-activities 

More about the research group https://politicsofdiversity.eu

Cartoons: https://pushbacklash.eu/dissemination/cartoons/

Toolkit theatre of the oppressed:  Tools of Resistance – Participatory Theatre against the Anti-Gender Backlash: A Toolkit for Universities and NGO’s

Men4dem project and reports: https://men4dem.eu/

Short summery of theatre experiment: https://men4dem.eu/news-events-in-the-media/radical-immersion-a-theatre-experiment-at-oerol

See also Instagram: @pushbacklash @beldan_sezen @MEN4DEM

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See https://afsee.atlanticfellows.org/academic-practitioner-collaborations for previous work of the podcast host on 'AcPrac collaboration' as part of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity Politics of Inequality project that also supported this podcast series.

Credits: The People vs Inequality Podcast is a co-production between Barbara van Paassen (host, creator) and Elizabeth Maina (producer). This episode was edited by Charles Righa.

Transcript

People vs Inequality Podcast S6Ep1 - Bridging research and practice to save democracy: being brave & stepping into the unknown

Barbara: Welcome to the people vs inequality podcast. In this season we dive into the question of how academics and practitioners can better collaborate at this time of great need. As more and more countries are facing democratic backlash, both activists and academics are all under attack. They are also in a unique position to defend civic space and human rights. What can we learn from those working across these spaces on doing this well?

In this first episode we speak to someone who is particularly effective in bringing together knowledge and practice for real change. Liza Mügge is a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands who was recently nominated for a prestigious gender equality price. She’s well known for groundbreaking research ánd media impact in her field of gender and democracy. My name is Barbara van Paassen and I can’t wait to kick off this series with Liza. So please grab a coffee or tea and listen in on the conversation!

Welcome, Lisa. Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm really happy you're here because I've come to know your work a little bit. Before we dive into that, say something about who you are, what you do, and some of the ways you're trying to collaborate. You as an academic with, uh, those of us in the world of practitioners. 

Liza: So, I'm Liza Mügge. I'm an associate professor in political science at the University of Amsterdam. And the past, well, 15 to 20 years, I have been working on diversity and politics in the broad sense of the word. I currently lead three research projects, two that are funded by the European Commission and one funded by the Dutch Research Council. And especially when it comes to projects that are funded through the Horizons Scheme, the, the European Commission, they are about impact and they also require collaborations with societal partners.

So I'm very passionate about these collaborations. I can't wait to tell you more about our experiences, what we've done, and all the exciting things that we have lined up for, for the future. I think there is indeed a great need for collaborations between academics, policy makers, practitioners, the arts and activists. I think that the current problems in the worlds, the political, but also regarding climate and so on, are so big that we need to collaborate because problems are seldom so isolated that they can be solved only by academics or only by practitioners, we need to collaborate. 

I think feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, they were a good example of how you can do that. So there was much more collaboration at the time between activists, academics, policy makers, they called it the velvet triangle. So I think we can take a lot of inspiration from them. 

And at the same time, I feel that now that there's a rise on the, on the radical and extreme right past years and it's growing. People are very concerned in many European countries. Many of my colleagues as academics, we are also, we face - especially those of us who work on issues like gender, gender identity, ethnicity, race, immigration - we face increasingly backlash. So yeah, we are all very concerned and I think it's really important to, uh, to support each other, to feed each other with expertise, knowledge, but also find ways where we, or projects where we don't collaborate. To make impact and to, on the one hand, to safeguard our democracy and at the same time, develop and think through new and innovative, innovative ways to change, uh, de democratic practices in a way that they are more sustainable. 

Barbara: Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. That brings me to, to one of the reasons that I'm so interested in this, in this topic and trying to find opportunities for collaboration and cross learning because when I look at the, democracy conversations, one of the things I notice is that there're still often.. the voices of those people being most affected by the attacks on rights and by the attacks on democracy they're often not heard. So for example, in the Netherlands, I mean there is a real right, a real attack on, on Muslims. Their space is really, is really small to be able to speak out and, and make themselves heard. Mm-hmm. Same goes for L-G-B-T-Q-I folks and others. So I'm wondering within that context of certain groups being hit harder or mm-hmm differently. Where do you see potential or how does that sit with, with the potential of collaboration and hearing more voices from practice when you do research? 

LIZA: When it comes to research, we have, I mean, there, there, there are several ways. So with, within the projects that, that I'm, I'm leading one project on backlash against feminism and gender equality. And I'm leading a consortium on masculinities and democracy, and particularly we're looking at ways how we can develop interventions at the end of the project based on academic research to, to prevent and counter anti-democratic masculinities. 

How can we make those voices heard? I think when it comes to data collection, you can use certain methods to make those voices heard through co-creation, for instance. And there are, yeah, many societal organizations, they work with co-creation already, so there's a lot that we can learn there. All forms of qualitative methods, participant observation, ethnography, interviews are ways to collect data to reveal voices that are minoritized, that remain invisible. The intersectional lens is very important in this respect because intersectionality per excellence is, can be used as, um, as a tool, as a method, but also as a tool to empower to, to reveal who's invisible and how people are depending on the context, differently hit by certain power dynamics or forms of oppression. 

So this is how we can address this in research in terms of collaborations with societal partners I also think that co-creation, that is how we do it within the MEN4DEM project that we collaborate with one societal organization, uh, gender justice organization specialized in the emancipation of young men and boys, and they have a whole network with organizations throughout Europe and actually the world, Men Engage. So we collaborate with them. We work with them because they have practical knowledge about men and boys that we don't have because oftentimes we in academia, we teach research, we talk, we root, we write, but we oftentimes do not have very close long-term contact and experience with the populations that we study. And some anthropologists do, but not all researchers have that. So there's a lot of knowledge out there that is very important when you study. 

The project includes six countries, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Greece, Germany, and, and Sweden. And we collaborate with organizations, Men Engaged affiliated organizations in each of these countries. So you get also country specific knowledge about the context, but also very different from very different fields. So it's great to learn from them, to hear what they need, what works, what doesn't work. 

We have one very interesting conversation about theory, for instance. So in January we had our kickoff event and we invited them all and we spent a weekend at the beautiful island of Terschelling to co-create and to get, to get to know each other, to think through the goals and norm of the project. And then I had a conversation with the Italian Men Engage organization, and, and they said, well, you know, like I need theory, but you have to bring it down. So for instance, in in, in this particular project on masculinities the work of a specific scholar, Raewyn Connell is very important, very influential, and she developed the concept of hegemonic masculinity. So he said, well, I can, I can not work with that concept. It's way too abstract. You have to bring it down.

And so that was really interesting to hear his perspective on theory. So what we did is. Prior to this weekend, we circulated a survey among all the participants, artists, activists from these six countries and academics. And the academics also is a very interdisciplinary group. So from social psychology to political science, media studies, anthropology, very diverse. And we ask them to list books or articles. They believe are very important conceptually for our project. And it could be anything, right? So there we had academic books, but also novels or more activist texts. And then we let them explain like, why is this book or text important to you? And for this project?

And we wrote a report about it in which we also showed the quotes and based on this, we, we develop what we call theory in action. So the idea is that. If you collaborate with artists, activists, and this interdisciplinary consortium of academics, we cannot approach theory as something fixed and stable, as something top down that we as academics develop and then you know, like force upon our, our societal partners. But something that, you know, like they also have to help and co-create this theory so that they can use it as well. And this created really interesting, uh, thought provoking discussions about what is theory, what is knowledge. So the idea is that this, that this theoretical framework will be updated as we go and the idea is that we will eventually write a more practical theoretical framework and a more academic theoretical framework in the end.

Barbara: Yeah, because I mean, if there's one thing I learned in these collaborations is that you both have your needs and in some way you also need to be able to, to deliver on, on those different needs. That's really interesting. And could you say, just go back a little bit to the why of this project. What is it you're trying to do there and, and how does this fit within a kind of a context of, democracy and democracy at risk.

LIZA: So the Men4Dem project is masculinities for the future of European democracy. The end goal of this project is to develop interventions to counter any pre prevent anti-democratic masculinities. And to do this, we look at the spread of anti-democratic masculinities and the socialization of anti-democratic masculinities and the justification of anti-democratic masculinities.

So for instance, there's one study on youth wings of political parties, and this study also includes a more ethnographic study online, what we call ethnography on influencers. Because in this, in this field of the radicalization of masculinities is what we see is that political actors are no longer, you know, like only the ones who are elected into Parliament.

They're also influencers online who are very influential politically, but they're not elected or they're not political actors in the formal sense of the word. But we need to take them very seriously because they have influence. So we need to have a better understanding how these narratives spread and how they're justified and how, you know, like at some point they become a adopted and included by mainstream political parties.

So in a way we will look at the journey of these masculinities and how they travel from pockets online that are pretty invisible for many of us until electoral politics and political leaders and how they, yeah. Use political masculinities for anti-democratic agendas. Yeah. And maybe for listeners, so this is the likes, Andrew Tate is a well known example of an influencer, I guess, in this regard.

Yes, absolutely. He's, uh, he's, he's one of the most famous ones, but there are many. Yeah, there're, there're, and we have no idea probably even. And we have no idea.

Barbara: So you already alluded to a few of the things, because often when I speak to people about collaborating between academia and practice, there is a lot of the people I speak to have an interest, but there is also obstacles. In terms of time or different backgrounds. Mm-hmm. Could you say a little bit more about some of the obstacles that you see both in your own projects, but also maybe with colleagues as to why do some academics engage? Yes or no. And then how do you make that collaboration work? 

Liza: I definitely think it's very time consuming because we speak different languages and we academics, we need to publish articles that are published in specific journals that have a ranking or you know, those articles are oftentimes not readable or even behind a paywall for, for, for people who are not in academia or, or who are not affiliated with universities. So I think also that for many of the societal partners, it's very hard to understand what we actually do and why we do what we're doing and why we believe it's so incredibly important. And I also think it's for many academics, it's really hard to translate their findings that they produce, not in a couple of weeks, but years and years of studying, analyzing, researching, and they write it up in a 20 page paper.

And then many have a hard time communicating the societal relevance of this paper, for instance, because there's a nuance and there's this and there's that, and nothing is certain, and we need more research. And so this is one difficulty that. When it comes to communication to the outside world, it's oftentimes difficult for us to be clear to and to communicate in a way that, you know, like, and our neighbor or our parents can understand what we do and why it's important.

Another obstacle is how can we translate our findings to solutions that are practical and feasible. I think there we can really help each other because societal organizations and activists, they, they know how to do this because they, they actually do the work on the ground oftentimes. So I think those are, are, are our challenges and it's, it's very time, time consuming. So, uh, and if you don't get, if it doesn't count for, for promotion, for instance, for the early career scholars, it cannot be very appealing unless they're very engaged. Yeah. To be very active, actively engaged in such collaborations because it will take time off their publishing, for instance.

Barbara: Yeah, this is something I often come across that it's really depending on someone's personal commitment to do this and sometimes, and it comes at a cost even. So that's, yeah. I'm always very impressed by people that do step out of those kind of set boundaries of what you should be doing as an academic or not, or that, yeah, you want to say something?

Liza: Yeah. I think that now with the, with the current political situation, there's more energy there and more people are like, yeah, that's what I'm wondering. Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh yeah, oh wow. We really need to do something right. So the willingness is a bit bigger, I think, than, than, than before. I think in the past it, it has been changing the past five to 10 years, but when I started it was, it, it had a bad, it, it looked bad on your cv and so you would not say you were an activist or a feminist or whatever you would say. Like, no, this is, uh, you know, like pure academic research. And it has nothing to do with, with activism in my field, in entirely political science. [Barbara: Entirely objective, as knowledge is.] Not objective because I always work with qualitative and mixed methods, and I'm originally trained as an anthropologist, so I would never say that, but yeah, we would not openly say that we were feminist or so, yeah.

Barbara: Yeah. And that's, that's interesting. So that's really changed of, of course I, I could imagine in other disciplines or I know in other disciplines it may not be as acceptable yet. So I've been speaking to quite a few people in preparation of this podcast and I understand there's still quite a lot of people that say, no, you shouldn't be doing that. We should just focus on our research and, you know, make sure that we are as objective as possible, which means not engaging too much. So there is still this sentiment in some places, but I'm glad to hear that not in your department as much. 

Liza: No, it really has changed. But also with the, with I mean we, I, I, I work in the Netherlands and if you see what, you know, like governmental policies, I've seen colleagues demonstrating against policies regarding university funding and so on. I never expected to be at a demonstration. And also our leadership has been visibly, you know, like pushing back against governmental policy, uh, at a scale I've never seen before. So there is much more willingness to protest and to protect also our, our values within academia. Our internationalization, for instance, which is under pressure, which is so important for us and for our knowledge, production and innovation. So, so there you really see that, that, that people are willing to speak out and protest. 

Barbara: Yeah. And also much needed because as you're saying, the, the role of universities really, it's a topic of debate, let's say. Yeah, definitely. So you need to be there to, to show what you stand for. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And when you're talking about, so do you see, when you see like a renewed interest or enthusiasm or people see the, the need to go beyond your own research, maybe in, in also defending, you know, the space even for doing research and for maybe civil specific space at large. Do you see other colleagues reaching out more to civil society organizations or other types of actors?

Liza: There's absolutely conversation, people reaching out to, to scholars. Great. 

Barbara: Yeah, I'm, I'm curious to hear a bit more about some of the project, some of the other projects that you've also been working on, and maybe what we can learn from that if others are hearing this and are thinking, you know, I'd love to, I'm either an academic or a practitioner and I'd love to explore collaborations or I'm in a project, but I get stuck all the time. What are some of the things, yeah, maybe you can speak to some of the other things you're doing and that have been working well for you. 

Liza: Yeah. I give can give you one example of a play that we developed with three universities and students and a societal organization. So this is one of the, the things that we developed for, for the Push*Back*Lash project. And we collaborate with theater of the Oppressed in Vienna. And Theater of the Oppressed is a theater form developed in the 19 six, uh, seventies in Brazil. It's a very political form of theater making. They don't work with actors, but with people, oftentimes with marginalized communities in neighborhoods as a way to find out what are their needs or to inform them about new political reforms, to collect their views. And it's a very powerful tool to address inequalities and to come up with alternatives. So it's a form to imagine a better world and to perform that better world and in the plays. So there, there are many ways to do it, but how we did it is that we developed a so-called blended intensive program. The first part of the program was a hybrid course, so I gave a lecture.

My colleague in Budapest gave a lecture. My colleague in Salzburg gave a lecture. We had seminars with our own students, very interdisciplinary student, population in all our universities, very international as well. And then the theater of the oppressed organization based in Vienna. Visited with the with their team each, each group of students to work with them, to introduce them to the theater form, but also to think, okay, if there is one topic that is important to you as student, what would that be politically?

And[Bv5] they all came up. There was also very interesting with sexual harassment and intimidation. So they produced a play within their own university on this topic and the, the. It, it is based on lived experiences. So the script is like a, a, a combination of lived experiences and then it would display was performed, uh, here in the University of Amsterdam and it was like a 20 minute play, and then they played it again and it was a moderator explaining the audience what to do, and then they played it again. But, and, but the, the audience could intervene who's like, Hey, what, what, when do you see something that is not right? Or which is weird? And then someone would put up their hand and say, stop. And they could take the place of that student actor and they could. Perform how and imagine what would be a better way to deal with it. And then we had a discussion and then we continued to play. So, so this we did in the in, in the first part and then we came all together and it produced one play together.

And we invited so-called policy makers, people in power that they could address their policy proposals to. And the policy proposals were based on interaction and discussion with the audience. It was a very mixed, mixed audience. And, uh, it, yeah, it was just this, this very powerful discussion that we, we, we had and it showed the problems that these students face are, it's a very good way, I think, to learn also for policymakers and administrators to, yeah, to, to, to learn what is actually going on in your organization and how can we change this in a way that works for the people concerned. It was really interesting to see how they, how they performed this sexual harassment and, uh, the obstacles that in university institutions Yeah provide and how the measures in place oftentimes don't work. Hmm. 

So this was, was really nice and for me as an academic. Because I never worked with this theater form. It was all completely new to me, and I tried to understand like, what is going going to happen? And then mm-hmm. The, the facilitator said, well, we don't know, because, you know, like the, the play will about what the students say is important to them.

So I had to completely let go and I was so nervous. I was very excited and, and very anxious, and it was just so great. So it also taught me that, yeah, just let go. You know, like if you, if you try something new, it doesn't matter, you know, like it can be a big success, but it can also fail and it doesn't matter because it's something new.[Bv6] 

And that is, I think that is really important that we. Step out of our comfort zone and we try something new. Yeah. And also letting go a bit of control from what they understand because you absolutely. I've learned a lot and uh, one of the students political science students said to me when the play was over, political science needs more theater.

You know, it was really nice. And also based on this experience I included in my other project of which I'm the coordinator, theater is a very important chunk of that. We have one, one Theater Group is, is is a partner and we can, we will collect data through theater plays, but it's also a very important tool for dissemination and the interventions that we are developing.

One of the interventions will be a life action role play. So the, the theater group, they will travel to all the countries, collaborate with those expert organizations I was, uh, talking about earlier, that are, uh, specialized in the emancipation of man and boys and so that they can tailor this life action, role play to the organization and, and, and their local, local context.

And as a pilot and an experiment this summer in June, we collaborated with another research project on polarization. So we combined it and we, um, we, we did a play on polarization and general roles, and it was two weeks to plays a day with about 200 people in the, in the audience. And we did an experiment. We did a survey, and we did focus group interviews. It was, was really a fantastic experience to, to work together outside. 

Barbara: And I was there. I, I guess, and you were there. And it was really interesting because we were given perspectives during the show, and obviously I got the trad wife. That was a really good exercise of like postponing my judgment or assumptions and trying to understand where someone was coming from, who has very different ideas than me, and yeah. And you saw the process of radicalization, so it was, I I thought it was really impressive. And I also, I, I really like what you're saying that it sounds like a also quite effective and efficient thing to do almost because you're, you're doing everything at the same time. You're collecting data, you're engaging audiences, you're disseminating. 

Liza: That was really interesting to see that it actually works, that people really, uh, yeah change their ideas about some characters and one of the, so in, in, in terms of how you can collaborate with societal partners and, and, and activists. We developed some of those characters during that co-creation weekend in January. 

Barbara: I see also all the energy with which you tell this, that's another, another benefit or impact I think, is it's energizing to be working in different ways. 

Liza: It is so incredibly nice because you get out of your comfort zone and you are pushed to think in different ways. And I'm an academic because I wanna learn. Well, I learned a lot from, from societal partners and activists and in another project in the Pushback Lash Project, we collaborated with an artist and we had several conversations about our research and our findings, and we sent her a paper and then we asked her to make a cartoon out of this, our research.

We had a conversation and I had full trust because I, I mean, their work is really terrific. I hope you can put it in the show notes for sure. Belden Sezan. Uh, and. And then I said, yeah, well I have to think a little bit. And then she just came up with this with different drawings and I was like, wow, how, how do you do that? You really saw us, you know, like I felt seen, you know, like that. She really captured our research in, in one image. It was amazing. I mean, I could never do that. I need much more words, so it was really, really nice. 

Barbara: And another, another good reason to collaborate there. Thanks. Thanks for that. As we're gonna round up, I'm curious to know like what would you hope for what academics in general, what do you feel academics could do better moving forward or what's your hope on their side and, and also on the side of societal partners, what could they do moving forward to make these collaborations? Happen more often, more effective, more fun. 

Liza: Yeah. I think these European projects can provide a great structure and also funding to, to do this because there is, I mean, there is an inequality because oftentimes academics, they have fixed jobs and they get a salary every, every month. But for acade activists and artists, this is oftentimes a very different situation. And if you have these European project or other funding, then everybody gets paid. And I think that is really important.

So you don't want people to do work for free. I think that activists and artists already often work for free or are underpaid. So this is really important to keep in mind that we, that we collaborate in an ethical, so this is, this is important, but you can also start with, you know, like going to invite each other for lectures., Invite each other for events to see like on what kind of issues can, can we actually collaborate well, and especially now because the, the problems that we have regarding democracy, but also other topics are so big that we really need to reach a bigger audience and to create better narratives.

And what we as academics can offer is knowledge. And we can test things. And activists and societal organizations, they have the practical knowledge. They know what works on the ground and what doesn't work. Policy makers know at what moment, for instance, you need to send MP or, uh, somebody else, uh, a policy brief. As an academic, it's very hard to understand what is the right timing, what is the right wording, and so on. So we really need to, to help each other with this, this dissemination, so that I think that, yeah, they're endless of opportunities to strengthen each other depending on your expertise and your wishes.

It is time investment, but I think it's time well spent because it's a lot of fun and you learn a lot. 

Barbara: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for this inspiring conversation. I'll put resources in the show notes because there is a lot that people can dive into and what I also really appreciate is that it also includes a lot of capturing of experiences and things that work and, and that's often something that I hear also in civil society as being needed. So the knowledge is there, but like bringing it together Yeah. Yeah. At this time is something that's really useful. Yeah. Is there some something else you'd like to share?

Yeah to academics, I would say go out there, share your research. If you don't know how to communicate it to a broader audience, just reach out to people who work in similar fields. And don't be afraid to experiment. I mean, it doesn't matter if it doesn't go according to plan. There's probably something useful that will come out of that experience. So it won't be perfect, but it'll definitely be a very inspiring journey. 

Barbara: Thank you Liza for sharing her wisdom and experience. And for showing us how to be brave and stepping into the unknown when you want to try out new things. And thank you listeners for joining us in today’s episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, were touched, inspired, please subscribe, leave a review and spread the word so more people can join. This really helps us. Of course check out the shownotes, because there is a bunch of really interesting resources. And watch this space for more inspiring episodes coming up. Ciao!