Sylvia Chant, Professor of Development Geography in the Department of Geography and Environment, has been awarded the popular prize for photography at the 2015 LSE Research Festival.
A skilled photographer, Sylvia’s work documents the lives of people she meets in the course of her research, and has been featured at the Research Festival exhibition a number of times in previous years. Her photograph All Day Every Day, was selected as the favourite by exhibition attendees.
All Day Every Day. ©Sylvia Chant
The main reason for the widely-observed increase in informal employment in urban areas of The Gambia is poverty and lack of opportunities in ‘formal’ employment, especially for young people whose schooling is minimal. With an estimated 40% of the youth population being out of work, having any kind of business can make a difference and earn the respect, support and a roof over their heads from families or friends. This young man can afford no fixed premises, so uses his body to trade car accessories at busy traffic junctions and areas outside supermarkets where drivers pull up. His hours of work are often in excess of ten hours a day under a beating sun, and he frequently faces harassment, bribery and intimidation from the police and other informal workers selling the same goods in the the same spaces in the city. He has no choice, he maintains, but he is not idle, and this constitutes a start.
The LSE Research festival culminates each year with a multimedia exhibition featuring the work of researchers from LSE and elsewhere. Now in its fifth year, the exhibition forms part of a week-long programme of events designed to celebrate the creativity that lies at the heart of all research.
This year’s exhibition featured photographs, posters and short films entered by PhD students, academic and research staff.