Data collection was in 2 phases of work.
1: 161 Interviews undertaken 2020 to 2022 across Ireland, Canada and Great Britain undertaken between 2020-2023. 942 online questionnaires were completed in this period. Participants were recruited through groups and organisations, direct contact, snowball sampling and facebook/social media advertising. They were promised a respectful engagement with the researchers to understand their experiences, with a focus on everyday spaces. The purpose was not to question their positions or seek to convince them otherwise, instead researchers listened with curiosity. This ethos is followed in all writing from the project. Alongside the risk of this work, COVID public health measures prevented face-to-face data collection and engagements, resulting in changes to recruitment possibilities and anticipated face-to-face interviews.
2: Bringing people together across divisions around gender, sexuality and/or abortion, three discussion groups and three creative artist-led workshops using visual art, sound and theatre) were carefully created in Dublin, Vancouver and Glasgow. These in-person events were very carefully handled. Those who had participated in interviews were invited to take part, and our own networks and social media adverts were used to ask people to participate. Each person who expressed an interest in taking part received an email, and then a set number of planned phone calls to talk through the research guidelines and explore their specific position on the issues, so that every activity would include people with a diversity of positions. These events brought people together to imagine new worlds in which to live and create across division, without changing minds or debating the issues.
Results:
Those who are opposed to or concerned about socio-legal changes to gender, sexuality and/or abortion are not all the same. Their everyday lives can be affected, particularly at work and home. Some participants were careful about where they went and what they said regarding their positions. They found support and developed their activisms because of their experiences, including confrontations. Negative experiences can embolden and entrench positions that oppose socio-legal changes on gender, sexuality and/or abortion.
It is possible to bring some, but not all, people together in workshops that include those who disagree on gender, sexuality and/or abortion, and there is a desire to engage beyond division around gender, sexuality and/or abortion. Art can be used in ways that work across division in gender, sexuality and/or abortion. Yet, the ideal worlds we want to live in are sometimes incompatible with diverging positions on gender, sexuality and/or abortion.
Through curating research via the imperfectutopias.eu virtual exhibition, the project seeks to spark conversations and experiences beyond reporting on findings.
These findings were developed through 9 academic publications, 3 forthcoming and 2 under review, 50 conferences, events and seminar presentations, 17 media publications, appearances and press releases, 11 formal meetings with international experts, on various aspects of the project, a regularly updated website, a virtual exhibition (www.imperfectutopias.eu) a CSO event and a final conference, all which ensured that a broad range of audiences were reached.
