Publications

This paper draws from a qualitative PhD study in Central Scotland to focus on research participants’ interpretations of my (the researcher’s) body. The research investigated the embodied experiences of health among girls aged 10-14 (P6-S4)1, through discursive spaces of schoolbased physical activity. In three Scottish secondary schools, participant observation and semi-structured interviews were conducted with…

Chapter in a collection of essays that explore the government’s shift away from regionalism to local economic development. The chapters examine issues around governance structures, planning, housing and competition between places as well as specific looks at Wales, Scotland and London. The consensus amongst the expert authors is that without proper resources the new system…

Set against the established political mantra of partnership working, this paper considers the conceptual framings of the local authority partnership agenda in academic debates and concurrent empirical research. We compare and contrast the changing formal territorial remits of political intervention with the spatial constructs understood and employed by those stakeholders responsible for delivering childrens services….

Older age is one stage of the lifecourse where dignity maybe threatened due to the vulnerability created by increased incapacity, frailty and cognitive decline in combination with a lack of social and economic resources. Evidence suggests that it is in contact with health and welfare services where dignity is most threatened. This study explored the…

Drawing on ethnographies of three areas of hospital life in the United Kingdom, this article explores the different logics played out through moments of access to hospital services. The authors make explicit the character of the hospital as heterotopia where different social actors are required to “fit” in with the organizational requirements of the hospital….

The argument for access to sensitive unit-level data produced within government is usually framed in terms of risk, and the legal responsibility to maintain confidentiality, even where the government has a duty to provide data. This paper argues that the way the question is framed may be restricting the set of possibilities; and that the…

Globalization has a pervasive influence across rural Europe. From the forests of Scandinavia to the orange groves of the Mediterranean, from remote Irish farmsteads to German commuter villages, the economic, social, cultural and political lives of rural localities are being continually refashioned by globalization processes that stretch, intensity, multiply and create new relations, ties and…

Conspiracy narratives and ways of knowing are a highly visible, accessible and increasingly commonplace part of contemporary global life, permeating across spheres of politics, science and popular culture. Catalyzed by rapid developments in networked media and a political climate of enhanced government secrecy following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, thinking conspiratorially about power forms part of…

Using an analytical framework based on European Commission directives and United Nations resolutions calling for a mainstreamed and intersectional approach to age equality, this paper examines the UK’s devolved administrations’ governance practices and territorially specific public policy on older people. The findings reveal mixed progress. Whilst a number of mainstreaming prerequisites have been secured and…

Recent statistics indicate increases in the number of people presenting and being accepted as homeless by Welsh local authorities and there is major concern that this trend is likely to accelerate given the wider economic context, including the austerity measures. Therefore it is timely that the Welsh Government has commissioned a review of homelessness legislation…