Ornette D Clennon

MaCTRI (MEaP Academy Community Training & Research Institute) · Research

This book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of UK African Diaspora health seekers and their sustained health inequalities in the health market. It translates their often-silenced voices into a decolonial praxis, where their experiences illuminate the hidden factors that have blighted change in health outcomes for these communities. The book ex...

In this chapter, we will look at “traditional health knowledges” in UK African Diaspora grassroots communities. We will also discuss whether a Eurocentric view of health is compatible with a more Afrocentric framework of holistic health (i.e. the integration between mind, body and spirit). Using Ubuntu’s (see an African Philosophy to Education c.f....

In this chapter, using quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) as a case example, we will take a closer look at the disparities identified in Chap. 1 by examining the role of whiteness in Public Health and its impacts on African Diaspora health seekers. Using whiteness and its historical patterns of behaviour in forming “race”, as an unethical framewor...

In this chapter, we will introduce our decolonial reading of whiteness as a lens through which to present the current landscape of Public Health for African Diaspora communities in the UK. The chapter will also identify the hidden factors for systemic failure for the African Diaspora health seeker and locate them within a “coloniality of whiteness”...

In this chapter, we will track the early development of whiteness to its imperial stages. Using a conversation between the authors and commentaries with contributions from community partners, we will uncover the impact that whiteness’ historical patterns of behaviour has had on their lives. We believe that this needs to be fully acknowledged in ord...

In this chapter, we will present an in-depth case study of an African Diaspora-led health advocacy organisation in Greater Manchester, called Caribbean & African Health Network (CAHN). We will explore how in advocating for better health outcomes by dialoguing with regional and national stakeholders within the health market, they are assuming the ro...

Our report challenges the youth and play sector and funders to revisit the idea of a person-centred approach to youth work that is closely aligned to social activism for intersectional racial justice. The report gives a detailed snap shot of the work being carried out on the ground by a variety of African Diaspora-led community youth service provid...

This chapter aims to present two projects involving art in the city of Manaus, capital of the State of Amazonas, comparing the potential impact of both on vulnerable young people. We examined impact and their effects by exploring the young participants' impressions of the role (or benefits) of art in their lives, but we also evaluated the structure...

In this chapter, the authors explore the boundaries of Liberal Nationalism and whether its conceptual limitations lend themselves to a populist form of ethnonationalism in a contemporary Brazilian context. Based on the principle that migration is a human right as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Brazil is a signatory, t...

This article makes a reading and reflection of a psychosocial intervention taken at Sunrise Community (SRC), a multi-ethnic indigenous settlement (12 indigenous groups and non-indigenous) located in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. Through Community Social Psychology approach and Participatory Action Research, weekly visits were made for five months. Inte...

Can academy-led research ever be used as a liberatory intervention in communities especially when they have already decided upon their own interventions? This paper attempts to explore this question with a case study about a piece of grassroots community activism that combined knowledge and expertise from both the academy and the grassroots to save...

Though community businesses exist within the black community, and black community organisations who owned their own premises have been in operation over the past 50 years, it took research by The Ubele Initiative to highlight the degree to which some of these black organisations have lost or been dispossessed of these buildings and community facili...

In this chapter, Ornette D. Clennon examines the possibilities of grassroots education as being a site for a Black Radicalism (as envisioned by Kehinde Andrews and Cedric J. Robinson) that operates outside of the confines of whiteness. Clennon also explores the potentially challenging relationship between Black Radicalism, (as a vehicle for social...

In asking about the intrinsic purpose of both formal and informal education, Ornette D. Clennon discusses the need to challenge Eurocentric epistemologies by discussing Gurminder Bhambra’s concept of “connected histories” that challenges the field of historical sociology to take a less Eurocentric approach to espistemology and historiography. Clenn...

In this chapter, Ornette D. Clennon uncovers the invisibility of whiteness in urban popular music, especially in the UK export of Grime. Clennon also demonstrates how the focused use of Liberation Psychology and a creative application of Freirean critical pedagogy can enable the subject to treat their personal histories as sites of liberation once...

Ornette D. Clennon reflects on the presence of ‘whiteness’ in his childhood. Clennon also recollects how, within the wider context of his family, the invisibility of ‘whiteness’ shaped his formative years as a child and young adult. Clennon then uses these experiences to trace his development into a scholar activist in so doing explaining the impor...

In this chapter, Ornette D. Clennon traces the colonial origins of ‘post-truth’ politics. Clennon also ponders whether we are witnessing the final iteration of neoliberalism where colonial racial templates of social ordering have been liminally deracialised and adopted by the profit-obsessed market in order to subject an ever-widening demographic t...

Using Peisander’s Heracles and his twelve labours as a metaphor for achieving social justice, Ornette D. Clennon sets out the terrain for the social battle against an invisible Lernaean ‘whiteness’. Clennon also introduces us to the material effects of ‘whiteness’ and its origins in structural (institutional) racism by using the Windrush debacle as...

'This is a timely and important book that expertly combines personal narrative with nuanced theoretical analysis. Black Scholarly Activism between the Academy and Grassroots is a deeply engaging work that urges the reader to consider the possibilities and challenges facing academics who work towards social justice. Once picked up, this is a difficu...

Supplementary schools are volunteer-led spaces, offering educational, cultural and language provision for mainly black and minority ethnic (BME) children and young people. Research has consistently shown that they offer an invaluable resource for many pupils, but are often overlooked by mainstream schools and education funders. (Nwulu, 2015, p. 7)....

In this article, five Black researchers bring their insights into conversation about meanings of blackness in contemporary Australia, Jamaica, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. We critically interrogate blackness transnationally and also within the historical contexts of our work and lived experiences. Situated wit...

Presenting the case for the international recognition of grassroots education in facilitating social justice.

Presenting the case for the international recognition of grassroots education in facilitating social justice.

The information contained in this report represents a snapshot of the health, well-being and advisory services currently available across a range of faith organisations in Greater Manchester. The audit team proposes a continued effort to address gaps in the survey and as such, the survey remains open for an extended period of time to allow for furt...

Using C.L.R. James’ 1941 commentary From Jobs to the Struggle for Socialism, Ornette D. Clennon will unpick the role of organised labour (trades unions) in the facilitation of a long-awaited socialist democracy. Working with James’ belief in the power of organised labour to effect democratic change, Clennon examines the history and processes by whi...

Ornette D. Clennon gives an overview of C.L.R. James’ polemical contributions and their contemporary relevance for black community activism. Clennon outlines his personal developmental process of engaging with James’ theoretical frameworks and, using a version of the Socratic method, creatively frames his scholar-activism in South Manchester with J...

Using C.L.R. James’ 1950 essay Capitalism and the Welfare State as a starting point, Ornette D. Clennon examines the role of education in grass-roots community black activism. Clennon situates the emancipatory role of education for the ‘Negro’, as advocated by Leon Trotsky in his 1967 volume Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism and Self-determination,...

Underpinned by George Modelski’s model of World Leadership, Ornette D. Clennon will trace how war and conflict played a central role in creating ‘social unity’ within Britain as documented by C.L.R. James in his 1943 essay Greatest Empire in History Is Collapsing. Clennon will also tease out the nature of the deception of ‘social unity’ that was id...

Using C.L.R. James’ 1941 commentary Negroes, We Can Depend Only on Ourselves! and his his 1939 essay The Negro Question: Negroes and the War, Ornette D. Clennon traces James’ implicit use of racial contract theory to develop his conceptual framework of ‘racial capitalism’. Viewing class as a ‘structural’ function of race, as James does, usefully co...

Ornette D. Clennon explores C.L.R. James’ reading of Hegelian dialectism, as found in his 1947 essay Dialectical Materialism and the Fate of Humanity. Clennon distils James’ theoretical challenges with Hegel into a conceptual framework for examining the rise of contemporary neoliberalism. Using the dialectics found in Hegel’s Science of Logic and T...

The Critical Race and Ethnicity Research Cluster, a research group at Manchester Metropolitan University, is developing a community reporting matrix for its grassroots research projects. The Research Cluster's programme of research focuses on the sustainability and resilience of UK African Diaspora communities in the areas of health, education and...

What can be done to improve BAME asset security and service provision in Manchester? Using four case studies, this short report examines some of the challenges raised by this question, within a national context mapped out by the 2015 report, Project Mali: A Place to Call Home.

The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) have done much to raise awareness on the adverse effects of enslavement and colonialism and to put reparatory justice on the political agenda. This is in line with the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) which states that “colonialism has led to racism, racial discr...

The aim of this paper is to examine the role that university research can play in sustainable development at the level of community. The methodological approach is action research undertaken in collaboration with voluntary and community organisations, addressing their needs and including high levels of participation. An outline of the nature of sus...

This book draws on case examples of contemporary black activism in South Manchester and contrasts them with events that surrounded C.L.R. James and his activism between 1935 and 1950. In doing so, the author considers what Brexit, the Labour Party and Theresa May’s audit on racism in the UK have in common with the wartime decline of the British Emp...

The role of the artist is crucial to the success of arts for health initiatives yet remains under-explored in the research literature. This article examines the practice of arts facilitation through the lens of self-determination theory (SDT). Fourteen interviews with artists leading projects for older adults across three settings were subject to a...

The paper examines the hidden processes of community relationship building in the preparation for a research project.

As part of a round table discussion, my concept paper maps out my position that the market disrupts the process of the embodiment of ‘blackness’ via its capacity to reorientate the psychic interior of ‘blackness’.

With often tragic consequences, why does the Global North appear to be having a crisis of political will when it comes to welcoming refugees and migrants in to their countries? Is this connected to a global rise of xenophobia? Yet, amongst these international crises of conscience, we are witnessing a quiet humanitarian crisis that is one of cultura...

With often tragic consequences, why does the Global North appear to be having a crisis of political will when it comes to welcoming refugees and migrants in to their countries? Is this connected to a global rise of xenophobia? Yet, amongst these international crises of conscience, we are witnessing a quiet humanitarian crisis that is one of cultura...

In this chapter, Ornette D Clennon examines the relationship between two forms of UK multiculturalism; namely, ideological and political. He also traces how these two inter-related forms of multiculturalism originate from the concept of a national cultural memory. Whilst broadly critiquing David Miller’s Liberal Nationalism, which dismisses the not...

In this chapter, using Frantz Fanon and Jacques Lacan, Ornette D Clennon attempts to trace the hidden psychopathological structures of globalisation. Clennon refutes the idea of the heterogeneous effects of globalisation as he traces how it uses ‘whiteness’ as both a homogenising and hegemonising tool of market conformity. Clennon also argues that...

Sonic Db’s Music Technology programme offered an exciting opportunity for both the Artist and Shadow Artist to embark on a musical, technical and self-reflective journey of discovery, as they worked closely with each other and the trainees.

Inspired by the online phenomenon ‘rapper tag’, this chapter includes the voices of young people Taiwo and Ornette have worked with. A ‘rapper tag’ is a non-interrupted, responsive and consecutive battle rap, in which one rapper performs a rap (spits a verse), then tags another, who spits a verse in response, and so on. It starts with an excerpt fr...

I am an Afro-Caribbean academic composer and musician (male) who has worked across virtually all sectors of the community for over twenty years. My main vehicle for exploring community issues is music. I have been drawn to working with young people because of their extraordinary capacity for invention and creativity. As a community researcher base...

Making Education a Priority (MEaP) has been cited in this national report from RSA as influencing policy recommendations for the supplementary school sector.

This is a year 1 programme evaluation of Sonic Db Music Technology in Prisons Project. The report outlines the challenges of designing and delivering a music technology programme in a young offenders' institution and also traces how the trainees reflected on their offending behaviour with the use of creative music making and writing.

An experiential workshop looking at Black masculinities through the 'male gaze'. For more details see http://ornettedclennon.me/2014/10/21/black-men-and-racial-patriarchy-october-20th-soas/

It is important to debate issues around Race and Sex because we need to highlight the contested nature of these factors which affect all areas of our lives. Race and Sex, as concepts are only really problematized when they are used to view and explore minority positions (of whatever cultural/sexual/gender identification). For more details see http:...

Two case examples of contrasting action research projects exploring the use of creative participatory methods to encourage the building of 'communities of practice' towards 'collaborative governance'.

Examining how education can contribute to tackling social inequality through the use of education-led community grassroots initiatives such as supplementary schools.

Using the Making Education a Priority initiative as a case study, this talk examines the subversive nature of education via the application of a critical pedagogy in the supplementary school sector. For ppt go to data: 'What is Education for? 3.7.15'

Using arts-based processes to generate data whose origin lies outside of the artistic process of creation; i.e. relating to areas around social research and policy making, is a challenge for performative social research. Often performative social research uses art forms to represent its findings but can have difficulties using the dynamic process o...

We worked with year 5 and year 6 children (aged 8-10 yrs) from Pebble Brook and Hungerford Primary schools (N=94) and elderly residents from Hardwick Court and Belong in Crewe, in the UK. We conducted quasi experimental mixed mode research on an intergenerational Widening Participation project that used creative music sessions to explore and commem...

Reading Peggy McIntosh’s important (McIntosh, 1990) essay, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack, I was struck by her brutal honesty about what she perceived as her privilege that was based solely on the colour of her skin. I enjoyed her notion of an invisible back pack full of important goodies, designed to make life easier but made av...

In this paper, we critically reflect, through the lens of liberation psychology, on our experiences of using participative community arts in work with young people and intergenerational groups in inner-city Manchester, UK. We used mixed methods to examine the impact of and engagement with community arts in two projects. One study was quasi experime...

When the police shoot or choke civilians in supposed fear and dread of the people they are meant to be protecting and as a consequence deny them the full due process of the law, powerful ‘fears and beliefs’ are in many cases being fatally enacted and are rendering the law impotent. Where do these ‘fears and beliefs’ come from? How do they become in...

The academically housed Contemporary Arts Centre “Axis Arts Centre” http://www.axisartscentre.org.uk/home/ in the Department of Contemporary Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University, has been running for more than 30 years and is known to foreground contemporary arts in the northwest of England and is co--‐funded by the University and Arts Council...

This paper examines the intrinsic potential for well-being outcomes in a heritage-related music project. We look at how creative activities that are embedded in a community can serve to enhance the cohesion and well-being of communities through the work of its youth groups. The paper also examines the important roles of partnership working and peer...

On 30th June 2014, Public Health England ran an evaluation learning workshop in partnership with Coventry City Council. The workshop was designed for integration pioneers, system leadership areas and other interested colleagues to come together, share challenges and learning. Each area has reached a different stage in the development of their inte...

Clennon introduces the concept of critical pedagogy and asks whether education can be used as a tool for social liberation.

Clennon provides an overview of some of the issues BAME communities can face in the UK education sector. He explores the concepts of ‘Culture of Low Expectations’ and ‘Changing the Ideological landscapes in our Schools and Classrooms’. Clennon looks at how these concepts can be used to counter institutional stereotyping and racism in education. The...

Clennon cites examples of supplementary schools that use education as a means of improving self-esteem and cultural self-awareness, as they work towards the improvement of academic attainment.

Clennon outlines an innovative approach to community grass roots-led education that is based on ‘Multi-agency partnership working’ and ‘Education-led Community Enterprise’. Using the Making Education a Priority initiative, led by Manchester Metropolitan University as a case study, the chapter seeks to describe how communities on the ground are atte...

Clennon explores the role the Arts play in determining the quality of educational provision. Using the Plowden, Hadow and All Our Futures reports as landmark assessments, the chapter traces the turbulent history of the ‘creative curriculum’ in schools. Clennon outlines how even the idea of entertaining a creative curriculum engenders the tensions b...

Clennon uses Callaghan’s 1976 Ruskin College Speech, which initiated ‘The Great Debate’ in education, as a framework for exploring some of the ethical and philosophical implications of the Free School, Studio School and Co-operative School models. The chapter traces the inception and development of these models and their educational and social impa...

Foreword by Diane Abbott, MP What is wrong with our mainstream education system in the UK and what can we do about it? Alternative Education and Community Engagement explores some of the ethical and philosophical issues behind the provision of market-led alternative education, namely: Free Schools, Studio Schools, Supplementary Schools and Co-oper...

Clennon cites examples of Supplementary Schools that use education as a means of improving self-esteem and cultural self awareness, as they work towards the improvement of academic attainment.

Clennon explores the role the Arts play in determining the quality of educational provision. Using the Plowden, Hadow and All Our Futures reports as landmark assessments, the chapter traces the turbulent history of the “creative curriculum” in schools. Clennon outlines how even the idea of entertaining a creative curriculum engenders the tensions b...

Clennon outlines an innovative approach to community grassroots-led education that is based on “Multi-agency partnership working” and “Education-led Community Enterprise”. Using the Making Education a Priority initiative, led by Manchester Metropolitan University as a case study, the chapter seeks to describe how communities on the ground are attem...

Lee Higgins’ contention that community musicians are ‘boundary-walkers’ (6) is an excellent premise for exploring the role of both community music and its practitioners. Higgins attempts to explore this concept of ‘boundary-walkers’ by presenting a history of community music, its emergence as a practice, examples of community music projects and a t...

This event was a great opportunity for different sectors who do not always work together to meet and get to know each other. The morning session set the scene for how partnerships between the various sectors that were represented could be shaped. Case studies around: collaboration, co-development and sustainability were presented. We were presented...

President Obama’s first presidential win in 2008 on the surface looked like the US had turned a corner in making peace with its African American history. As Coates (2012) writes, for the first time, African American parents could tell their children that it was possible for them to become President one day – an achievement that up until Obama’s ele...

Community music offers organic opportunities for both Authentic and Situation Learning, as well as Process-directed education. It is evident that in many community music projects participants are empowered to discover their own learning paths through the creative process of music-making. However, the participatory nature of community music making a...

In this practice report we explore the application of community music in a drop-in community mental health setting. This report will map out how our practice of community music that was 'therapy-aware', used music as a personal metaphor and analogy for the service users' mental health issues. Two brief case examples showing the application of metap...

This project is about using the medium music - and specifically music technology - to allow young adults to creatively explore their own heritage, focusing on the Crewe Railway Age.

In November 2009, Open Eye Gallery launched their year-long Young Creative Collaborators’ programme, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. This innovative action research programme was designed to create a foundation for the ambitious development of future learning and participation provision at Open Eye. Initially involving a group of 50 young peo...

The following evaluation report examines the process of how teachers and visiting creative practitioners (artists) attempted to integrate technology into the school curriculum as a whole. The report will show the serious questions asked of the teaching partnerships that were developed between the teachers and the visiting artists as well as looking...

Despite national initiatives in the UK such as Creative Partnerships, an organization formed in 2002 for exploring creative approaches to learning in the classroom, there is still a gap between aspiration and practice. This is especially evident in the teaching of musical composition in primary schools, partly because there seems to be a profound f...

This programme supported schools in responding to the requirement to promote community cohesion, which used to be an element of OFSTED inspections between 2008 - 2010. The central focus was on arts, creativity and culture as a means for children and young people, and those who work with them, to understand self, others, their own society and societ...

Make Some Noise is the Youth Music Action Zone for Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent; funded by Youth Music and managed by a consortium of partners led by Staffordshire County Council. They deliver music projects for young people from 0 – 18 yrs. The SoundProof Plus project delivered 8-session modules of creative music technology provision with you...

The purpose of this two day training programme was to introduce artists to working in the youth justice sector. It was intended that artists would gain an insight into how to adapt their skills to working within this quite specific sector. In order to assist artists, practitioners already working in this field were invited to share their experience...

Defining creative practitioner and agent competence to work in educational settings is a complex business. The full range of tasks involved in establishing effective partnerships with schools is at times daunting and helping to bring about change requires a broad knowledge and skills base. This competency framework is therefore a long and complex...

Creative Partnerships (CP) Lancashire (formerly East Lancashire) found a need for its Creative Agents and Practitioners to have a universal set of skills and knowledge that would enable all of its practitioners to delivery high quality change school programmes across its region, as standards of delivery varied hugely across its pool of practitioner...