I am a senior lecturer in Sociology and Criminology and Social Sciences Postgraduate Course Lead at York St John University.
I study space, how we use it, how we make our lives in it, and how we position and debate power, identity and representation through it. Much of my research is on graffiti, graffiti culture, and public aesthetics. Specifically, how individuals who produce graffiti construct their identity within their subculture, how their interaction with public space produces a type of political discourse, and how it affects spaces and those who use those spaces. I examine how graffiti's presence affects the way spaces are ideologically constructed, and how producing graffiti affects the individual from a subjective and cultural perspective.
My other research interests include craft beer and its producers. I look at how those producers work to find space within a crowded marketplace that is dominated by large-scale brewers, and how they create and maintain their identity and 'authenticity' while they find their position within that market.
Additional research interests include memes, subculture studies, visual culture, deviance, politics of resistance, theories of democracy, access to political voice and agency, and morality.
Courses taught on:
- Sociology
- Criminology
- MRes in Social Science
- MSc Criminology
Modules taught:
- Introduction to Sociological Theory
- Terrorism, State Crime and Political Violence
- Critical Criminology
- Spatial Sociology
- Crime and Deviance in the Contemporary World
- Sociology of Everyday Life
- Advanced Research Methods 2
- Exploring Society
- Crime and Media
- Spacial Sociology
- Advanced Research Methods
- Criminological Theory and Practice
Grants
- November 2023-Present, £37,305 Historic England. Primary Investigator, Ghost Signs of York: Preserving faded history and public memory, York St John University, York, UK.
- December 2022-August 2023, QR Funding Bid. Primary Investigator, Ghost Signs of York Project: Preserving public memory and curating public space. York St John University, York, UK.
- April 2019-September 2020, QR Funding Grant. Primary Investigator, To Build A Better Beer: An examination of the reciprocal relationship between production and consumption in the northern England craft beer market. York St John University, York, UK.
- January 2007-June 2007, Research Assistant (PI, Robert D’Ovidio, PhD), Adult-Child Sex Advocacy Websites as Social Learning Environments: A Content Analysis, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pa. USA.
Editorial boards served on
- Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
- Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour
Journals and publishers reviewed for
- Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour
- Visual Anthropology Review
- The Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology
- Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
- Berghahn Books
Grant and fellowship review boards served on
- Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF): Seventh Independent Scholars Research Fellowship Competition
- The Leverhulme Trust
Invited talks
- Georgia State University - Graffiti as Crime (CRJU 4900): Discussion of The Art of Defiance: Graffiti Culture in Philadelphia. (25/01/23).
- University of York - The Built Environment, Economics, and Ecology Seminar Research Group: Discussion of Ghost Signs as cultural artefacts (30/11/23).
Awards
- York St John Inspirational Teaching Award Nominee, 2018
- Outstanding Dissertation Award for the College of Arts and Sciences, 2016
Scholarly works in progress
- Open Museums Project: Reframing Public Space as Curated Sites of Public Memory.
- Morality and Roleplaying Games, Does roleplaying complex moral characters help individuals might think more critically and creatively about morality?
