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Purpose – This chapter reflects upon my experiences as a PhD researcher examining the portrayal of multiculturalism in contemporary Welsh- and English-language fiction about Wales. It discusses my emotions regarding my identities as a second-language Welsh speaker and as an early career researcher, and how they affected my participation in this field.

Methodology/Approach – The chapter draws on my PhD research, which examined how different cultural groups were portrayed in fiction as ‘others’ due to Wales’s complex linguistic and cultural position. This involved analysing contextual research about multiculturalism in Wales to explore discourses of belonging and alienation. This chapter reflects upon my emotional responses to the field as a Welsh speaker and new academic, and how this in turn affected my research.

Findings – Embracing my changing relationship with my Welsh-speaking identity, I reflect on how my research touched upon contradictory feelings I had about the Welsh language and Welshness. I discuss the effects my changing feelings over time about linguistic hybridity, and my growing confidence as a young academic, had on my engagement with different texts and writers. This is discussed in light of the relationships I was able to form with some creative authors and academics in Wales’s close-knit literary and scholarly society.

Originality/Value – This chapter argues that confronting their own emotional engagements with their research topics enables researchers to better understand why certain subjects are so contested. It can also prepare researchers to communicate their ideas effectively in the difficult debates that arise around such subjects.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of Welsh‐language provision on the web sites of political parties contesting the 2007 Welsh Assembly elections.

Expert inspection was carried out on the web sites of 18 of the 19 parties contesting the election. Goal‐directed walkthroughs were conducted on four web sites judged to be making a bilingual provision.

Overall, the Welsh language was highly marginalised. While Welsh‐language elements were identified on ten of the 18 web sites, only four web sites attempted to make a bilingual provision. On three of these, a user intending to interact with the web site through the medium of Welsh would still encounter English language content and/or navigation. Only one web site offered a fully Welsh‐language experience.

This paper only considers the web sites of political parties and presents only a high level analysis. It does not consider the impact of Welsh‐language provision on the electorate.

This is the first paper to systematically examine Welsh‐language provision on party web sites during elections for the National Assembly for Wales. In contrast to many studies of election‐related internet activity in the UK, it considers a regional election rather than a UK general election.

This paper reports on a study into the market for electronic publishing in the Welsh language which was undertaken for the Welsh Books Council. The scope of the potential market is estimated including both home computer users, educational institutes and libraries. The current Welsh multimedia industry is described and topics are considered that might be possible for electronic publication. Financial details are given of the amount of sponsorship needed.

A bilingual Welsh‐English full text database is planned for Inspection Reports of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools for Wales. Special requirements for free text retrieval in the Welsh language are identified, and practical solutions are proposed for problems arising from the use of standard text database products, some of which may also apply to other lesser‐used languages.

Drawing on the approach of Bourdieu (1977, 1986), and using language as an exemplar, the purpose of this paper is to engage in a “dangerous conversation” to explore how and why issues of diversity were mobilised, ignored and leveraged in one particular service context.

Qualitative research exploring the language choices of 25 service users who had been processed through the criminal Justice System in Wales in the last five years.

The argument is made that in some service contexts, a habitus obtains that renders reflexivity about diversity issues problematic and predicates against the critical reflection necessary to promote anti-oppressive practice.

Small sample size, not generalisable.

The authors intend the paper to encourage greater reflection on instances when diversity issues are raised and to render simplistic any attempt to invalidate claims of discrimination.

Encourage dialogue about claims of discrimination and greater reflection by service providers about the legitimacy of such claims.

Anti-oppressive theorising has, for the most part, constructed minority group members as passive victims within hierarchical power relationships. While acknowledging how power is unequally distributed, the paper challenges hierarchical models which designate minority group members as bereft of power.

Reports on the first, large Celtic studies database, available over the Internet, which is being produced at the Salisbury Library, in the University of Wales, Cardiff. The history of the Salisbury Library shows it to be a first rate university research collection, and a conspectus assessment of its collections indicates that it has very strong research collections in its core fields of Welsh language, literature, history, and religion, and a very good Celtic studies collection. A financial grant has enabled the whole collection to be recatalogued onto the Libertas online catalogue database. Once completed, the online catalogue will offer scholars of Welsh and Celtic studies worldwide access for the first time, via the Internet, to a massive collection of rare, historical, and current sources of information, and enable subject access to such information for the first time.

This paper aims to disrupt assumptions about leadership by arguing those who are ostensibly “followers” may be utterly insouciant towards the existence of people categorised as “leaders”. It contributes to anti-leadership theories.

This article uses an immersive, highly reflexive methodology to explore subjective meanings of leadership at community levels ostensibly governed by local government leaders. It uses a case study of the South Wales Valleys, one of the hubs of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century but now economically deprived.

Through drawing on their rich and complex history, the author shows how in these communities there is a culture of neo-communitarianism that is anti-leadership and suspicious of attempts to establish hierarchies of superior over inferior. The author explores the complex webs of meaning through which ancient experiences reverberate like dead metaphors, informing contemporary understandings without conscious awareness of such a heritage. This is a history in which “leaders” betrayed or oppressed and exploited the population, which in response turned against hierarchies and evolved practices of self-government that continue today, invisible and unrepresentable within the wider culture.

The study draws on contemporary feminist research methods that emphasise subjectivity, flux and change. These are often not understood by readers not accustomed to stepping out of a positivist onto-epistemological frame.

The paper challenges the universalising tendencies of leadership theories that assume a shapeless mass; “followers” await the advent of a leader before they can become agentive.

The paper offers insights into a day-to-day world that is rarely explored.

The article demonstrates how emerging forms of qualitative research give insights into communities that undermine dominant, universalising theories of leadership, followership and government more generally.

Describes the origin and development of a new training programme for subtitling in translation, launched in September 1990, as a collaborative scheme between University of Wales, Lampeter and the Welsh‐Medium Broadcasting Authority Sianel Pedwar Cymru, Cardiff, in response to a shortage of trained subtitlers in TV Production Companies. Traces the programme from first recognition of training need through collaborative development of the programme and reports on an extension to other European Linguistic contexts.