Erratics – commission for Hanne Lillee’s ‘Foreign Fauna’

Image credit: Hanne Lillee. Header image: Hanne Lillee (2019) Ovules I was delighted to contribute a piece of writing on pregnancy, food, decay and the Fortingall Yew, for Hanne Lillee's beautiful new book Foreign Fauna. Hanne writes: "The photographs explore growth and propagation, as well as decomposition and rot, and the repetitive force that transforms …

Just Humans podcast – Translation

I was honoured to be the guest on episode 2 of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research's new podcast Just Humans. We talked about my sociological research using fiction and poetry and Stir my new poetry pamphlet for the Distant Voices project. When we think about translation we usually think of translating from …

Becoming different together by Les Back — Streetsigns

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F915962224&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=500&maxheight=750&dnt=1 Vox Liminis is a project in Glasgow that challenges criminal justice and fosters communities through song writing and music  How do you imagine a new kind of life if you have served time in prison? How can music help people trying to walk that line out of prison to a free life?  In this podcast we visit an extraordinary project called Vox Liminis based in the Gallowgate, …

Stir, field works from the Distant Voices project

Stir (2020) is a collection of poems which were written while I was the research associate on the Distant Voices project (2017-2021).[1] I'm a visual sociologist (sociologist with an art practice as part of their approach) and these poems reflect on my experience of doing ethnographic research in carceral spaces, written from the perspective of an …

How to do things with songs

In this blogpost, I share a few insights from my analysis of the songs so far produced in song writing sessions as part of the Distant Voices project. I’ve been exploring how we can use these songs – which were largely written in collaboration with serving prisoners, as ways to explore the issue of ‘coming …

Castaway (podcast) for the Distant Voices project

In this PODCAST I interviewed S Code: the co-writer of the song Weather You about his favourite tracks in his music collection. The idea for this podcast came out of an earlier conversation with S Code about the restrictions put on the number of albums and DVDs you’re allowed in prison. With no ability to stream music …

Like Birds Flying Towards the Light (podcast) for the Distant Voices project

In this PODCAST the co-writers of ‘Pure and Right’: musicians Jenny Reeve and Jill O’Sullivan aka Bdy_Prts, and Mark Holloway (Acting) Head of Operations HMP Inverness share the ideas and experiences that shaped their song. The co-writers are currently living far apart in New York, Glasgow and Inverness, so the podcast was constructed out of …

‘We Who Are About To…’ Chapter 1 (sociological science fiction) for the Distant Voices project

‘Science fiction doesn’t try to predict the future, but rather offers a significant distortion of the present… [we] look at what we see around us and we say “how can the world be different?”’ – Samuel Delany (1984). Thomas - We who are about to... Chapter oneDownload The text in the link above is the first chapter …

In Her Direction (sociological fiction) in So Fi Zine (#1)

It was great sharing an office with Ashleigh Watson when she visitedGoldsmiths in 2017, and talking with her about making fiction and sociology. I contributed a short piece to the first issue of So Fi - her zine dedicated to sociological fiction. The piece I contributed: In Her Direction reflects on a moment during my doctoral …

‘The Girls Get Younger Every Year’ (play). Open access and available to download.

In response to a request from the 1752 group and because it was always designed to be an activist workshopping tool, I have made my play The Girls Get Younger Every Day open access. It is available to download here: Thomas_The Girls Get Younger Every Year_script I wrote this play several years after the experiences that …