We are delighted to welcome Tiarnán McDonough, who has just joined as the newest Research Assistant on DANCING, a 5 year, European Research Council (ERC) funded project exploring the right to culture of persons with disabilities and cultural diversity in the European Union.
DANCING, which is based in the School of Law and Criminology and the ALL Institute, disrupts the conventional approach adopted by EU law scholarship by using a combination of legal, empirical, and arts-based research to pursue three complementary objectives, experiential, normative and theoretical respectively. After 30 months, DANCING is well underway. At present, empirical data collection across 27 Member States and the UK, under Work Package 1 (WP 1), is near completion. Data collected will allow to identify and categorize barriers and facilitators to cultural participation experienced by people with disabilities and to gauge an understanding of how they affect the wider cultural domain. A few publications have already been released and can be accessed here. The arts-based research has also been advanced significantly in collaboration with the inclusive dance company Stopgap (UK). See more on this collaboration here. As part of Work Package 2 (WP 2), two articles have been published by the PI Prof. Delia Ferri in European Law Journal and in European Law Review. The DANCING mid-term academic conference will be held on 8 September 2023.
Tiarnán has joined the team composed by Dr. Ann Leahy (post-doc), Eva Krolla (RA), Léa Urzel Francil (PhD student), Iryna Tekuchova (PhD student) and Hilary Hooks (project manager). He will be working under the mentorship of Professor Delia Ferri, the principal investigator on DANCING, to support completion of WP 1 as well as supporting and contributing to the qualitative research aspects of WP 2 of the project. Tiarnán will also contribute to the dissemination activities of the project and to deliver policy recommendations on how making cultural participation more inclusive for people with disabilities.
Tiarnán’s previous role was as a researcher at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in the UK, where he carried out qualitative research for a wide range of clients including government departments and charitable organisations. Tiarnán has an MSc in Social Policy and Social Research methods from University College London and an MA in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths University, London. Before becoming a researcher, he spent several years working in special education, supporting the needs of children with sensory and physical impairments.
