In her Budget speech in November last year, Rachel Reeves told the public that the UK’s net financial debt was £2.6trillion: 83% of GDP.
She also promised “stability for our economy” and “security for our public finances”.
With that being said, why on earth are taxpayers being charged for a study titled “Reducing Disability Stigma in Kenya through Strategic Media Representations”?
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It kicks off this January and lasts a year, costing £87,751. Some may point out that that’s a fairly small sum in the grand scheme of things, but even spending a penny on this is utterly stupid (and it’s just a microcosm of the whole system).
Here’s an exert from its abstract:
“Ableist portrayals in East African media have significantly contributed to the stigmatisation of disabled people, resulting in reduced opportunities in housing, employment, healthcare and civic engagement (Ndavula and Lidubwi, 2022; Rugoho, 2024). Collaborating with the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ), Signs TV and Action Network for the Disabled (ANDY), this project will pilot the design and testing of a toolkit for inclusive, non-stigmatising disability representations in Kenyan mainstream media. The aim is to enable media makers to sustainably reduce stigma and improve social attitudes through media content, considering the intersection of disability, age, gender, religion, class and other social identities.”
Taking place at Bournemouth University (ideally-placed for research in Africa), the project is funded by the utterly atrocious Arts and Humanities Research Council:
Its lead researcher is Dr Catalin Brylla, who is Bournemouth’s “Principal Lecturer in Film and TV and Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice”.
“He is also Fellow of the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image and Chair of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.”
According to his profile on Bournemouth University’s website, “Catalin undertakes research in the areas of media audiences, social cognition, cognitive film theory, stereotypes, embodied experience, representation, ethnography, disability, gender, post-colonialism and practice-led research. His research is practice-led and impact-driven, and it aims for reducing the stigma of marginalised communities.”
In the past he worked on an “AHRC-funded project on disability and media advocacy in Tanzania”, and he has “made several feature documentaries that represent marginalised or stigmatised social groups, aiming to bypass ‘othering’ stereotypes. These include “Zanzibar Soccer Dreams”, portraying women’s football on the predominantly Muslim island of Zanzibar.”
In addition to this absolutely critical work, he has supervised a PhD project on “An Ethnography of Political Activism against Gentrification in Hackney”.
Deep state interlude
Interestingly, Brylla’s Bournemouth profile also shows how his work contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals:
While trawling taxpayer-funded grants, I have noticed that many abstracts bring up the UN and its Sustainable Development Goals – as if ticking off a box to get funding. Hmm!
Anyway…
Dr Brylla’s research is utterly pointless. I doubt Kenya asked for him to “Map opportunities and obstacles in the Kenyan media industry for changing media practices”, and UK taxpayers certainly didn’t.
Sometimes I think the UK effectively has “Universal Basic Income”, it’s just that we are paying for crazy numbers of “academics” to sit around decolonising their own farts all day (they may as well be doing that).
