editorial Darcy Leigh ISRF Editorial Assistant
W
elcome to the fifth issue of the ISRF Bulletin. This issue is my first as its Editor. I joined the ISRF in June as one of this year’s Editorial Assistants and have taken over editing the ISRF Bulletin from Fraser Joyce. The second Editorial Assistant, Rachael Kiddey, joined at the same time. Rachael and I have spent many hours - along with ISRF Administrator Stuart Wilson and Director of Research Louise Braddock – working out how best to showcase the ISRF to the world. This Bulletin is just one part of that ongoing task. In addition, Rachael is developing the ISRF’s online presence and, as she describes in her note at the end of the Bulletin, is translating Fellows’ research into new arenas and formats. Rachael, Louise, Stuart and I are all working towards the annual ISRF workshop next year in Edinburgh which will be on ‘Social Science as Communication’. None of this would be possible, of course, without the ISRF Fellows. The Fellows work across a vast array of different topics, fields and methodologies. It has been an exciting challenge to grapple with such a diverse body of work during my first months with the ISRF. My task has been to put Fellows in conversation with each other through the Bulletin. In this issue that conversation is facilitated by the theme freedom and is framed by ISRF Academic Advisor Marilyn Strathern’s preface. The issue captures a shared commitment of ISRF Fellows: to engage real world social problems in original ways. Freedom has long been a central concern of social scientists. In recent years, however, the words ‘resistance’, ‘critique’ and ‘agency’ have often replaced ‘freedom’ in academic discourse. Perhaps this is in part
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