What is the Scottish Gut Project?

The Scottish Gut Project is the first research project to examine the links between gut disorders and patient wellbeing from an arts and humanities perspective.

Gut disorders are much more common in Scotland than previously thought, and these disorders are often mis-communicated or misunderstood. This is what the project will improve: we will investigate problems of communication and language in explaining digestive diseases and their impact on wellbeing.

We will also investigate the cultural dimension of gut disorders in Scotland. Is there a specifically Scottish way of talking about these concerns and how can this help improve understanding?

The objective is to use arts approaches such as theatre and film to discover new ways of communicating these conditions and raise awareness amongst the public. It will involve a series of workshops and lead to a publicly available project film and a collection of open-access articles.

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Who are we?

Dr Manon Mathias (University of Glasgow) and Dr Elsa Richardson (University of Strathclyde) are running the Scottish Gut Project. It will bring together people with practical expertise in gut disorders (patients dealing with conditions such as Colitis); historians and cultural scholars; and researchers from medicine and nutrition. Manon and Elsa are researchers who work on the cultural history of health and wellbeing.

The Scottish Gut Project is funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.