Social Relations of Neighbourhoods

It grapples with what might be seen as a perennial question of social relations: how individuals, families, and neighbours negotiate the practices and experiences of living together and the diverse ways social policies, local initiatives, welfare professionals and differing interests and perspectives intervene in those negotiations. It includes critical examination of national and local policy impacts on communities, the influence of third-sector and statutory organisations, and differing political approaches to managing particular social ‘problems’.

These themes and issues are explored through a variety of specific areas, such as: youth justice, community activism, community-based participatory initiatives, child poverty and the problem of social exclusion (e.g. the stigmatisation of certain populations such as young people, rough sleepers, so-called ‘troubled’ families and ex-prisoners). 

People involved in work in the social relations of neighbourhoods theme include: Deb Drake, Ross Fergusson, Janet Fink, Ellie Jupp, Helen Lomax and Dan McCulloch.  

Alongside and including individual research interests, there are the 4 following projects:

Community participation and social inclusion: The work of Community Mobilisers in Milton Keynes

Investigators: Deb Drake (Lecturer, OU Faculty of Social Sciences), Kate Smith (Curriculum Manager, OU Faculty of Social Sciences), Katy Simmons (OU Faculty of Education and Language Studies)

The MK Community Mobilisers service aims to prevent social exclusion through the development of local participation and through engagement with local communities. The emphasis of the service is on long term, sustainable change, owned by local people, rather than on ‘quick wins’. The basic premise of the CM service is that those who use the service are the experts on what they need and want.  Those responsible for the creation of this service and its continued management have engaged in an on-going research and consultative relationship with academics in the OU. 

From 2005-2008 Martin Woodhead, Katy Simmons and Anna Laerke in the OU Faculty of Education and Language Studies carried out an in-depth qualitative evaluation of the service, funded by the Children’s Fund, and produced four detailed reports which were in themselves influential in shaping the service. 

In 2011, Katy Simmons, Deb Drake and Kate Smith carried out a small-scale follow up study of the service, funded by MK Council, which is currently providing the spring board on which a further three-year study is being devised.

Young people and practitioners rethink Youth Justice

Investigators: Deb Drake (Lecturer, OU Faculty of Social Sciences), Ross Fergusson (Senior Lecturer, OU Faculty of Social Sciences), Allan Cochrane (Professor, OU Faculty of Social Sciences)

This project (currently under review by the ESRC) was collaboratively designed by academics, statutory youth justice practitioners and third-sector youth workers.  Informed by these multiple perspectives, the research aims to provide a means by which youth justice/services professionals and young people can reflect on current youth justice arrangements. It focuses specifically on capturing the voices and viewpoints of young people in local communities and the pressures that shape their everyday lives as they try to navigate the demands of an increasingly varied youth justice system. 

At the same time, the project provides practitioners and young people with an opportunity to re-envision youth justice by drawing on their own experiences, frames of reference and expertise.  The study builds on existing research and practice knowledge that suggests that relationships between young people and youth justice workers and/or youth service providers are crucial contributors to successful and effective interventions with young people. The collaborative approach of the research ensures that ‘user-groups’ are involved in every stage of the research process, including data analysis phases and dissemination plans, thus ensuring maximum relevance and impact of the research findings. 

Bringing the spaces and places of community life into view

Investigators: Helen Lomax (Senior Lecturer, OU Faculty of Health and Social Care) and Janet Fink (Senior Lecturer, OU Faculty of Social Sciences)

This research had its origins in the now completed ESRC Seminar Series, Visual Dialogues: New Agendas in Visual Research. It supported residents of local communities in Milton Keynes to create and exhibit their own visual data, enabling the series to explore the possibilities of the visual for providing insights into peoples’ lives from their own perspectives as well as its potential for dialogue with policy agendas.

The work has included participatory film-making with children and young people exploring their experiences of friendship and community, and a photography walking tour through which residents articulated their perceptions of personal and community well-being.  In this way the research was able to engage in important dialogues with research users, communities and welfare providers at a pivotal historical moment characterised by rising austerity, welfare reform and growing socio-economic inequalities in the UK.

For more information about the Seminar Series, please visit the Visual Dialogues website.

Everyday Encounters in Children’s Centres: placing women’s participation

Investigator: Ellie Jupp (OU Faculty of Social Sciences)

This on-going research has started in 2009 and examined interactions and identifications in Children’s Centres in Oxford, and seeks to understand how far they are framed by rationalities of parenting policy and how far by other dynamics of collective life including friendship, locality and community activism. 

It has explored the experiences of both staff and users in a range of settings with different relationships with policy agendas. The project also links with earlier PhD research on women’s activism in deprived neighbourhoods in Stoke-on-Trent, UK, which looked at the intersections between community organising and policy frameworks seeking to enable ‘participation’. Ellie is currently planning to update this research in the light of shifting policy context and welfare reform.