SGSAH and “COST New speakers of minority language” doctoral students enjoy Enterprising Culture research training event, Oban, 2017

Enterprising Culture: Entrepreneurship, Endorsement and Engagement of Minority Language in Europe’s Remote Rural and Small Island Communities.

Earlier this year (a very cold and bracing Oban in February!)  the Scottish Centre for Island Studies ran a two day event in association with SGSAH and COST New speakers of minority lanaguge network.  The programme of the event can be seen below but it included a series of engaging talks and ‘walk abouts’ from both experienced and less experienced researchers interested in the relationships between remote and rural culture, minority language contexts and the research opportunities and complexities around enterprise and development in these terms for Scotland, and beyond.

Here is some of the feedback on the event

“Place, inter-disciplinarity , multi-linguistic, walking workshop.”

“Supportive atmosphere”

“Enthusiasm of event organisers”

“Capturing thoughts as we went along”

“Really helpful event with lots of inspiring ideas to explore for my PhD”

“Thank you for organising this- it’s been really great!”

“It was brilliant tae be in Oban, and tae haa the contact wi’ the place and talk aboot wir’ subject in context.”

“Underlined the veracity of cross-disciplinary research methodologies as a PhD approach.”

“The varied programme was really nice.”

“Having a speaker from the Isle of Man was great!”

“The location worked extremely well.”

The mix of papers was very interesting and provided different disciplinary context to the subject of minority language.”

“Visiting local agencies and hearing their perspective was very useful.”

“Thank you for putting together such a refreshing event!”

Only suggestions for improvement were that a few speakers were a bit “too quiet”, that the SAMS venue was a bit ‘far out’ from Oban but our car-share policy got everyone there and back fine J,  and we could (should) have delivered more of the actual event in Gaelic! All very helpful and we’ll certainly take these on board for future events.

Thanks to everyone for all their feedback and comments and most especially for such great participation and enthusiasm for the event.

Kathryn

Special thanks goes to James Harrison @Culture Vannin,  Isle of Man, to the team at the Furnan Gaelic Centre, Oban and to Norman Bissell, Scottish Centre for Geopoetics.