Wednesday 10 April 2013

Missing people

When someone goes missing, what is the emotional experience of those experiencing their absence?
Hester Parr’s forthcoming seminar, part of CRFR’s Emotions Seminar series,  will explore interviews with 23 family members of missing people in order to understand something of the emotions involved in the missing experience

Families’ experiences are shaped by the ways in which they understand the character and identity of their missing family member and the ways in which police investigations collect and register information about the character of missing people.

Parr’s research suggests that both police and public understandings of missing loss need to be improved. The seminar suggests that creating ways to share and acknowledge the lives and characters of missing people may help families better reconcile the significance of missing people in their on-going lives, as well as help create socially acceptable ways of creatively express ambiguous loss.

The seminar will draw on material collected in interviews with families of missing people, as part of a larger ESRC project which investigates the geographies of missing people.

No news today: the use of ambiguous emotion and the absent presence of missing people, 17 April, 12.00-14.00, University of Edinburgh, http://www.crfr.ac.uk/eventsandtraining/training/crfr-informal-seminars/

Hester Parr, Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow: http://www.ges.gla.ac.uk:443/staff/hparr

Geographies of Missing People research is featured in 'Making the Case for Social Sciences -Scotland' a booklet about the impact of social science produced by the Academy of Social Science:

“This study is the first ever UK study  to directly interview returned missing people. The research team has worked with Grampian Police, the Metropolitan Police Service, and the UK charity Missing People. They interviewed police, families and returned missing adults to establish why people go missing and ask: Why did they leave; where did they go; how did police and other agencies respond; what types of search were carried out; how did the family cope; and what happens when and if the missing person comes back?“

Missing persons in a European context: research, practitioner and policy perspectives
Hester Parr will be speaking alongside Olivia Stevenson, University of Glasgow; Penny Woolnough, Police Scotland; Nick Fyfe, SIPR / University of Dundee  in Brussels on 17 May 2013 http://www.sipr.ac.uk/events/Missing_People_170513.php

The aims of the seminar are to share findings from recent and current research on missing persons, to understand the challenges faced by practitioners and policy makers with responsibilities for missing persons, and to help build an inter-disciplinary and inter-professional European network of those working in this field.

Further reading
H Parr and N Fyfe (2012) 'Missing Geographies' in Human Geography 
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