This year’s Knowledge beyond boundaries: Interdisciplinary Research Conference will take place on Thursday 16 June 2022, both in-person – in the new Marshall Building – and online. As part of the 2022 LSE Festival, it draws on the theme ‘how do we get to a post-COVID world?’ and is an open, friendly and inclusive space to showcase and interrogate a wide range of topics among different social science disciplines.

Inheriting last year’s success, the conference has enjoyed a positive response from current LSE students and recent alumni. Before the event kicks off, read on to hear about some of the brilliant scholars and their illuminating projects.

A brief roundup

Master’s students are the most enthusiastic presenter group with over half of the attendees doing their master’s degree at LSE. Undergraduate students also conceive strong academic passion. Moreover, it is great to see a number of proactive alumni coming back to LSE and participating in the conference.

As can be seen in the above graph, attendees come from various fields across the social science domain, with the majority coming from the Department of Social Policy. A word cloud result of research topics also indicates an emphasis on the transforming post-pandemic world among researchers, who reflect on technologies, education and working, health and wellbeing, international power and position and more, and explore practical steps towards positive social changes.

Meet the presenters

We are very pleased to have a conversation with some of the conference presenters, who share with us their motivations, interests and expectations about the research conference.

Henry Lowe – Master’s student, Department of Sociology: How child disempowerment precipitates gendered oppression

Gender oppression is a good example to open up the dialogue on how childhood narratives impact almost all forms of social injustice.

Henry has been interested in child research for several years. In this research, he investigates childhood from a different perspective—as a construction of colonial relationship. He looks into how certain forms of oppression in the adult world, such as gender, are imposed on children to influence their ways of thinking and operating, which then in turn has an enormous impact on how society functions in the next generation.

He takes part in the conference primarily to demonstrate how research can embed overarching senses and be applicable to different spaces to solve social problems. He also views the conference as an opportunity to practice public speech skills.

Sia Sha and Oli Chaplin – Master’s students, Psychological and Behavioural Science: Peer support and mental health done the right way

When looking into mental health peer support schemes, we need to know what people actually want, what are the barriers and how do people access it.

Sia and Oli are working jointly to review a peer support scheme in the mental health space – they hope to improve the experience and help more people access it. They are going to present research findings in a novel and innovative way—putting on a play to engage the audience.

Besides the project itself, Sia also shared with us his opinion about the value of research itself. Researchers hope to disseminate knowledge and get the attention of decision makers, and people need to know what an idea is and how it developed before change can be implemented. Research suffers intrinsic limitations, but exploration is important.

Kendra Mills – Alum, Department of Sociology: In the era of mass supervision: stigma, dispossession, and resistance

How should we understand the consequences of electronic monitoring usage for its subjects, and how should citizens and activists respond?

Having spent a significant part in lockdown while doing her master’s degree in 2019/20, Kendra particularly appreciates the opportunity to bring her research into conversation with other scholars and receive their feedbacks as an alum.

Kendra’s research is an adapted version from her dissertation. She is going to give a short talk entitled “AI, Surveillance and Data”, asking a series of interrelated questions about how and why the pandemic has accelerated the expansion of surveillant punishment systems.

She is expecting the conference to bring together a variety of junior scholars and offer an opportunity for rich and nuanced discussions across disciplines. She is also excited to see a variety of artistic outputs and creative mediums from other participants.

Zichen Hu – Master’s student, Department of Media and Communications: Implications of anti-ICT controversies for science communication: a case of UK’s biggest anti-Covidpass campaign

Such discourses or campaigns might have concerning ramifications on science communication which is essential for building more sharable and cooperative solutions.

Zichen’s research investigates the implications of the discourses against ICT (i.e., health tracing apps, Covidpass) on trust-building and reimagining the relationship between public health policy and civil rights. She will assume a biopolitical dimension to deconstruct a modernity characterised by the public health system.

She considers the conference as a valuable opportunity to share her passion for research, and expects a constructive dialogue with the panels and audiences. She aims to challenge or supplement the existing literature on her research interest, while being challenged—so that she could carry on more robust and critical studies.

There is a variety of the activities throughout the day including keynote speakers, panel sessions, film screening, and an evening reception with poster gallery.

Check out the full conference programme here.

And if you’d like to attend, sign up to attend in-person or online – you’ll be signed up to the whole day but can drop in and out of the sessions you’re most interested in!