Research interests
My current research interests can be divided into the following areas:
- Public geographies and pedagogy: thinking through how to get volunteering into the undergraduate curriculum as part of a larger working group on public geographies
- Urban communities and urban social issues
- Geographies of race, ethnicity and religion: religious communities and welfare, mixed-ethnic communities, multiracial communities; identity politics and policy implications; building cohesive communities; especially relating to Britain and America
- Statistical and census geographies; the social use/misuse of statistics; the racial, ethnic and religious map of Britain and America and its implications; the importance of being counted and its links to identity
Current and recent research
New Formations of Religion and Welfare: ‘Charitable Choice’ in Richmond, Virginia
Funded by British Academy Small Research Grants
Joint with Dr Chris Haylett, the University of Manchester
The project focused on Charity Family Life, an after school program run by Charity Mission, a small African American church in the heart of a government housing project area in Richmond, Virginia. The aim was to look at the issue of faith communities providing welfare services to local communities. In an initiative begun under the Clinton administration, and developed further by President George W. Bush, the federal government has been aiming to open up funding opportunities to faith-based communities. This project looked firstly at how this supposed ‘levelling of the playing field’ as regards funding was working in practice, and second at how this particular community was delivering welfare, and the potential success or otherwise of this.