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Teaching Integrative Restoration® - iRest®

11/25/2023

I’m delighted to have completed my Level 1 Teacher Training with the Integrative Restoration Institute®. And I am looking very forward to sharing iRest® teachings and practices with people of all ages in the South East of England.

Based on the ancient teachings of meditation, iRest is an evidence-based transformative practice that leads to psychological, physical, and spiritual healing and well-being.

Its practice is integrative as it heals the various unresolved issues and traumas that are present in your body and mind, and restorative as it enables you to recognise your innate peace of mind that is always present amidst all changing circumstances of life.

iRest provides you with tools to help you relax deeply, release stress, increase resiliency, improve your interpersonal relationships and provide you with greater mastery and control in your life.

iRest nourishes noble qualities such as joy, peacefulness, empathy, forgiveness, patience and lovingkindness toward yourself and others,
and supports you to resolve issues such as insomnia, anxiety, fear and depression.

For further information, please don’t hesitate to contact me: [email protected].

Celebrating women's life stories: Oxford's Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and Next 100 Years

3/23/2021

Dana Denis-Smith, Founder of Obelisk Support and First 100 Years/Next 100 Years campaigns.

It was a great pleasure to celebrate International Women’s Day this year in the company of some remarkable women. I had the honour of speaking with Her Honour Judge Khatun Sapnara, a Circuit Judge, Deputy High Court Judge and Co-Chair of the Temple Women’s Forum; Dana Denis-Smith, Founder of Obelisk Support and the First 100 Hundred Years/Next 100 Years campaigns; and Laurie-Anne Power, barrister at Bedford Row Chambers and Chair of the Women in Criminal in Law’s Racial Equality Committee.

Questions we explored were:

Why is it important for women to share and record our life stories and to create a legacy of our lives?

How can women’s networks and campaigns help to support and empower women, professionally and personally?

What is most meaningful and helpful to pass on to younger women who are starting out in their legal careers or aspiring to become lawyers?

Our conversation was part of a special online event which was co-hosted by the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies University of Oxford and the Next 100 Years campaign. It was the culmination of an oral history research project on Inspiring Women Lawyers I carried out with Oxford’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies Director Professor Linda Mulcahy, in collaboration with National Life Stories British Library.

As part of the research study, I conducted life story interviews with Her Honour Judge Khatun Sapnara, Dana Denis-Smith, Laurie-Anne Power, as well as Professor Rosemary Hunter, legal academic and co-founder of the Feminist Judgements Project UK; and Catherine Flint, barrister at Queen Square Chambers and Committee Member of the Western Circuit Women’s Forum.

The full audio interview recordings will soon be available to listen to at the British Library Sound Archive.

Women, Legacy and the Law: Co-hosted by Oxford's Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and Next 100 Years

2/23/2021

Online event- Thursday 11 March 2021, 6:30 - 7:45pm

In Celebration of International Women's Day, we're delighted to invite you to join us for this special online event. We'll be honouring the lives of pioneering women in the legal profession and reflecting on the legacies we want to create for future generations of women lawyers.

The event will explore why it is important for us, as women, to share our personal experiences and record our testimonies for posterity. The panelists and audience will be asked to consider the role and value of women's groups and networks in fostering women's empowerment and professional advancement. We will be joined by three excellent speakers who are actively supporting and promoting women lawyers in their careers.

All three women have recently recorded their life stories for the Inspiring Women Lawyers Oral History Project, which has been conducted by the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in collaboration with National Life Stories British Library supported by the John Fell Fund. Our speakers are: Her Honour Judge Khatun Sapnara, Deputy High Court Judge and Co-Chair of the Temple Women’s Forum; Dana Denis-Smith, Founder of Obelisk Support and the First 100 Hundred Years/Next 100 Years campaign; and Laurie-Anne Power, barrister at Bedford Row Chambers and Chair of the Women in Criminal in Law’s Racial Equality Committee. They will be interviewed by Dr Dvora Liberman, researcher and interviewer for the Inspiring Women Lawyer’s Project; and the event will be chaired by Professor Linda Mulcahy, Director of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford.

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Sv8ob_JPT4OHZvJia7QGXg?mc_cid=70c83c6d68&mc_eid=7bf66a784c

More about who we are:

Her Honour Judge Khatun Sapnara

Judge Khatun Sapnara is a Deputy High Court Judge, Bencher of the Middle Temple and Co-Chair of the Temple Women's Women. She is the first person of Bangladeshi origin to join the ranks of the senior judiciary. Judge Sapnara played a key role in the creation of the forced Marriage (Civil Protection Act 2007) and was appointed by the Lord Chief Justice as a Diversity Community Relations Judge and a Judiciary Role Model.

Dana Denis-Smith

Dana Denis-Smith is the founder and CEO of Obelisk Support, a legal supplier which champions flexible-working and counts over 1000 legal consultants in its network. She is also the founder of the First 100 Years and Next 100 Years campaigns. The First 100 Years campaign ran the national celebrations of the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal Act) 1919 while the Next 100 Years continues this work with a focus on creating a more equal and diverse legal profession for the next generation.

Laurie-Anne Power

Laurie-Anne is leading criminal barrister, media consultant and mentor. She has appeared before the Court of Appeal, Courts Martial and worked on the international Criminal Trials in Sierra Leone. Laurie-Anne is also the treasurer of the Criminal Bar Association, a member of the Bar Council's working group on race, chair of Women in Criminal Law (Race Equality Committee) and Chair of Pupillage at 25 Bedford Row. She was the Winner of the 2019 UK Diversity Legal Awards "Lawyer of the Year" and in 2020 she was nominated "Barrister of the Year" at the Women in Law Awards.

Dr Dvora Liberman

Dr Dvora Liberman joined the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in 2019 as a Postdoctoral Researcher before becoming a Programme Associate in December 2020. Dvora is an oral historian, storyteller and teacher, and has developed numerous oral history projects with government departments, charities and cultural institutions in the UK, India, Australia, Bosnia, Israel and Palestine. She has shared the life stories of marginalised and unheard communities with a wide variety of audiences through theatre, film, books and exhibitions.

Professor Linda Mulcahy

Linda Mulcahy is the Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at Oxford Law Faculty and the Director of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. Trained in both law and the social sciences, Linda's work focuses on how the disadvantaged and marginalised experience law and the legal system. Most recently she has received funding to undertake an oral history of the Law Centres movement in the UK. Gender has long been a central theme in her work and she was a contributor to the Feminist Judgements and the Women's Legal Landmarks projects.

Oral History Journal Autumn 2020 Issue

10/31/2020

Last week, it was a lovely surprise to find out that the Oral History Reader Group (@hypirohrg) selected my latest article as the focal point for their discussion.

The article was published in this Autumn’s 2020 issue of the Oral History Journal (@oralhistoryjour). It inquires into how we can understand and find meaning in the inconsistencies and contradictions in interviewees’ first-hand accounts of their life experiences and memories. The analysis is grounded in an archival collection of in-depth life story interviews I created with 21 former Crown Court clerks, in partnership with National Life Stories British Library (www.bl.uk/projects/national-life-stories) and the London School of Economics Legal Biography Project (www.lse.ac.uk/law/legal-biography-project). The interviews are available at the British Library Sound Archive.

The Oral History Reader Group meets monthly (often online) to discuss the use of oral history in research and writing. Everyone is welcome!

New British Library web resource - ‘If Homes Had Ears’

10/31/2020

I am so pleased an in-depth life story interview I conducted with former magistrate and Crown Court clerk, Irene Elliott, has been included in the British Library’s fantastic new web resource - ‘If Homes Had Ears’. The interview extract highlights Irene’s vivid and detailed description of her childhood in the 1950s in Preston and the many tasks her mother performed in the home.

To listen to the interview extract follow this link: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/irene-elliot-on-her-mothers-hard-work

A written summary of the full interview can be word searched on the Sound and Moving Image Catalogue (www.sami.bl.uk). The full interview audio recording is publicly accessible and available at the British Library. It sits alongside 20 further life story interviews I conducted with former Crown Court Clerks, primarily to glean their first-hand accounts about critical changes to the criminal justice system in England and Wales between the 1970s to 2017. The interview collection was created as a core part of my doctoral research project in collaboration with National Life Stories at the British Library (www.bl.uk/projects/national-life-stories) and the London School of Economics Legal Biography Project (www.lse.ac.uk/law/legal-biography-project).

The new British Library web resource, If Homes Had Ears mined the treasures of the Library’s Sound Archive to explore the sonic landscape of the home. Key to this resource are the voices and memories of people speaking about home life over the last 140 years. If Homes Had Ears is grouped into five areas found in most homes: the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room and the garden. There are three discursive and thought-provoking articles for each space, and the web resource features over 70 fascinating audio clips to intrigue the listener.

To find out more about the creation of the resource, read British Library curator, Mary Stewart's blog: (https://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2020/10/what-if-your-home-had-ears-.html).

You can follow this link and explore the richness of the entire web resource yourself: www.bl.uk/if-homes-had-ears

Inspiring Women: Challenging the Democratic Deficit in the Legal Professions

1/17/2020

I have started working as a Research Fellow with Professor Linda Mulcahy at the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies on an exciting new oral history research study.

This project aims to create an oral history of pioneering women lawyers which will be lodged in the sound archive of the British Library as a national resource. It aims to open up debate about the sort of work that qualifies as pioneering and to raise the profile of women whose contribution has been marginalized in public debate. We are particularly interested in the experiences of women from black, Asian and minority ethnic; and lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) groups; as well as from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The project will also focus on women lawyers who work outside of the commercial sector such as those engaged in advice work and poverty law where the celebration of achievements has been more muted than elsewhere. The research will be conducted in three stages: a survey of lawyers; life history interviews (lasting up to twelve hours) with up to 50 women in partnership with National Life Stories at the British Library, and the development of a project website. The initial stages of this project are being funded by the University of Oxford John Fell fund.

Oral History Journal 50th Anniversary celebration

11/5/2019

I am thrilled and honoured to be invited to be part of a panel in celebration of the Oral History Journal's 50th anniversary celebration at the British Library on November 22.

Women’s Ordination Oral History Project, LSE Women’s Library

7/6/2019

I am very excited to be starting a new oral history project on women’s ordination in the Church of England, commissioned by LSE Women’s Library. The project is timely, as this July marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW). I will be conducting in-depth life story interviews with women who were the first to be ordained as priests in the Church of England in 1994, and those involved in the campaign for the ordination of women. Through the collection of a wide range of first-hand accounts of women who lived through the campaign for the women’s ordination as deacons, priests and bishops, this project aims to capture an important historical period, and will celebrate and promote women’s ministry and the diverse perspectives and gifts that women bring to the Church.

Oral History Research: Illuminating the past LSE Law Event

4/12/2019

Oral history research creates and interprets interviews about past experiences and events. A major contribution of oral history scholarship has been to redress neglected areas of knowledge; to record untold stories which would otherwise be lost to history; and to offer alternative historical accounts.

Join us for a discussion on the use of oral history in a range of research projects conducted by National Life Stories at the British Library; Eminent Scholars Archive, Cambridge University; and the LSE’s Legal Biography Project.

Lesley Dingle is the Foreign & International Law Librarian and Founder of the Eminent Scholars Archive at the Squire Law Library, University of Cambridge. Her interests in the recent history of the Law Faculty are focussed on preserving an oral, written and photographic archive of eminent scholars reminiscing on Faculty and college life, and discussing their published works. She has written several papers based on these interviews and associated research. She is a Senior Member of Wolfson College.

Dr Dvora Liberman joined the LSE Law Department in 2018 as an LSE Fellow. She previously completed her PhD in partnership with LSE’S Legal Biography Project and National Life Stories, British Library; and MA in Oral History and Documentary Filmmaking, University of Sussex. She has worked as a teacher, arts practitioner and oral historian, and developed numerous oral history and participatory arts projects with government departments, charities and cultural institutions in the UK, India, Australia, Bosnia, Israel and Palestine. She has shared the stories of marginalised and unheard communities with a wide variety of audiences through theatre, films, books and exhibitions.

As Curator of Oral History and Deputy Director of the oral history fieldwork charity National Life Stories, Mary Stewart works across a diverse range of projects at the British Library and liaises with external partners depositing their interviews into the Library collections. She is also a Trustee of the Oral History Society, a member of both the Oral History Society Archives Sub-committee and the British Library/Oral History Society Training Liaison Group.

Michael Lobban is Professor of Legal History, having joined the Department of Law in 2013. After finishing his doctorate at Cambridge University, he held a Junior Research Fellowship at St. John’s College, Oxford. From 1991 to 1996, he taught in
the department of law at the University of Durham, before moving first to Brunel University (1997-2000) and then to Queen Mary, University of London.

For further information: http://www.lse.ac.uk/law/events/oral-history-research-illuminating-the-past/oral-history-research-illuminating-the-past

The Other Voice exhibition: British Library and Royal College of Art

4/10/2019

Irene Elliott exploring the interactive sonic quilt which played extracts from her life story interview, made by Karthika Sakthivel.

(L-R): Artsist Karthika Sakthivel; interviewer Dvora Liberman; interviewee Irene Elliott.

It was a great pleasure to visit the exhibition, ‘The Other Voice’ , a joint project between the British Library and the Royal College of Art (RCA).

Students on the MA Digital Direction course at the Royal College of Art created a series of extremely imaginative, evocative and sensitive installations based on life history interview recordings from the British Library Sound Archive.

An audio text that inspired two marvellous installations was an interview I conducted with Irene Elliott who spoke at length about her memories of her mother and the world of her childhood. Giulia Brancati’s piece, ‘On the way Back’, and Karthika Sakthivel’s ‘Memory Foam’ used a combination of textiles and high-technology to bring Irene's recollections to life in the visual and physical space. It was a joy to literally step into their works of art and experience Irene’s stories in a visceral and full-bodied way.

For more information about The Other Voice exhibition, have a look at the attached brochure below.

theothervoice—2019.pdf
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