Supporting research on parliaments in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Myanmar

Set up as part of the Global Research Network on Parliaments and People (GRNPP), this grant-making initiative created interdisciplinary research opportunities and supported research capacity development in Ethiopia and Myanmar by funding a range of local projects. Between 2017-2021 the network awarded over £800,000 in 46 grants to scholars, artists and activists in Myanmar, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and the UK (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Global Challenges Research Fund).

In their innovative and multidisciplinary projects, half led by women and half by men, they inquired into the relationships between parliaments, politicians and people.  By combining the social sciences, arts and humanities they have revealed new perspectives and amplified the impacts of research findings in ways that are imaginative, creative and inclusive.

You can find the results on the Global Research Network on Parliaments and People website. 

One of these grants was awarded to a team led by Olisarali Olibui, a Mursi (known as Mun to their group) farmer, innovator and film-maker experimenting with strategies to draw people’s attention to the marginalisation of his community. What might fuller political representation mean for a group of agro-pastoralists that is so unknown to the Ethiopian public?

He made the film Shooting with Mursi with Ben Young and wrote a play with Tesfahun Hailu, as explained in a GRNPP-funded documentary. With further funding from the Global Research Network on Parliaments and People (SOAS), Arts and Humanities Research Council and Global Challenges Research Fund, Olisarali and and colleagues at the South Omo Theatre Company, put on a play at the National Theatre on 31 July 2022. The Mursi actors were trained by theatre directors from Wolkite University.

It was shown on national TV and he and Ben Young are now making a film about the whole process. The next step is to use theatre, film and music to create better encounters between different indigenous groups in South Omo as well as with the government and other outsiders.

Details of this partnership can be found on the Global Research Network on Parliaments and People website.