Publications

The paper reviews public discourses and research on the safeguarding of other people’s children by adults at the neighbourhood level. There is much empirical evidence pointing to the existence of thriving informal communities of support and informal childcare for parents across the social classes. There appears to be less empirical evidence related to intervening with…

During the course of this article we examine data gathered from two research meetings in which coding issues and data organization are being discussed in relation to the use of the software package Atlas.ti. The meetings were concerned with the organization and coding of semi-structured interviews carried out by three different groups as part of…

In writing the article ‘Applied policy research and critical human geography’ (Woods and Gardner, 2011), Graham Gardner and I aimed to nudge discussion of policy research in human geography along from debates about the value of such research, to engagement with the actual practicalities of conducting contract research and the challenges that arise. Through an…

This paper discusses the relationship between applied policy research commissioned by the state and the development and maintenance of critical human geographies. In contrast with recent debates, which have centred on the relative status of human geography within policy circles, we focus on the often mundane and messy realities of undertaking policy research. The paper…

Sociologia Ruralis 51(3) pp 219-237 This article explores the significance of researchers positionality for the interpretation of local cultures of rurality. Drawing on personal experience of studying the apparent emergence of a new squirearchy in an English village, it argues that backyard ethnographies, in which researchers study worlds with which they are already familiar if…

We study implications of persistence of shocks in total factor productivity (TFP) growth under Bayesian framework for a set of African countries over the period 1970-2003. Contrary to convention, we find that stochastic unit root is present for most of the African countries and that there is time-varying dependence structure in the underlying processes. The…

Most analyses of the role of the media in shaping and reproducing popular discourses of rurality have focused on film, television drama and literature. Comparatively little attention has been directed towards the role of the news media in framing perceptions of contemporary rural issues through reportage and commentary. This paper examines the engagement of the…

If there was ever a book that could be described as `timely’ then Alex Singleton’s Educational Opportunity: The Geography of Access to Higher Education would be one of them. With UK higher education (HE) under the political and public spotlights due to spending cuts and the introduction of higher variable fees in HE institutions in…

Rapid industrialization and urbanization in China has produced a unique phenomenon of ‘village-hollowing’, shaped by the dual-track structure of socio-economic development. This paper analyzes the phenomenon of ‘village-hollowing’, identifying the processes and influences that have driven their evolution, and highlighting the challenge that the locking-up of unused rural housing land in ‘hollowed villages’ presents for…

The field of youth development, long given over to discussions of youth as a time of storm and stress, raging hormones and problem behavior, has increasingly turned to look at the ‘sunny side’ of youth – at their agency, insights, capabilities and contributions. Youth, we are now regularly told, are not problems but resources and…