Research

Current Projects

Navigating Urban Space

Exploring mobility, possibilities and conflicts in diverse, rapidly changing cities in India and the UK. The objectives of this research include:

  • examining the dynamics of change in globalising cities;
  • analysing urban space as a contested site of meaning and power constructed in human interactions;
  • understanding how these interactions are patterned by the built environment and affective responses to wider cultural change generated in the transformation of cities;
  • and documenting how everyday mobility and encounter is enabled by skills such as empathy and imagination, deployed to navigate diverse urban spaces, to manage positions of difference and possibility, and to resist change.

The research comprises several studies including:

SINGLE (HERA funded, 2013-2016)

This interdisciplinary research project analyses the new cultural geographies of gendered urban space in Delhi and Shanghai, focusing on ‘single’ women across the life-course.

Creating Hackney as Home: Young People as Participatory Researchers and Publics (2013-2015)

A two year ESRC funded project working with a group of young people in the London Borough of Hackney. Using participatory video research methods, the project aims to understand the experience of space and space use in the formation of ‘home’ and belonging, and the impact of affective responses to change and difference in that process.

Navigating ‘New’ Delhi (2009)

Funded by the Pavis Foundation, this research explored how urban redevelopment in Delhi was impacting on the mobility and interactions of people from different parts of the city. The research focused in particular on the movement of young people and their use of public space.

 

Previous Projects

Managing Cultural Change: Transnational Mobility and the New Global Workplace (2002-2006)

Exploring the impact of culture and mobility in the global workplace, the objectives of the research include:

  • contributing to the understanding of global mobility and migration, and the impact of transnational corporations;
  • and highlighting best practice inter-cultural management programmes.

Project funded by the Australian Research Council and the University of Sydney.

GENERATE: Youth Culture and Migration Heritage in Sydney (2001-2002)

Everyday, young people from second generation migrant backgrounds are recreating Australian culture in their backyards, in their dress, in their language, in their relationships and in their values and beliefs. This project was designed to document this changing face of Australia and the positive contribution that young people from migrant backgrounds make to Sydney life and Australian culture. Funded by the Migration Heritage Centre, NSW Government.

Transnational Television, Cultural Identity and Change in India (1996-2000)

The process of economic liberalisation in India in the 1990s brought in its wake a rapid influx of transnational satellite television channels. It wasn’t long before concerns were articulated about this ‘invasion from the skies’ and fears voiced that Indian culture was being transformed by western television. In examining these developments, this project explores television’s impact on the mechanisms of cultural change, from the history of TV and the reconstruction of tradition, to the remoulding of cultural boundaries in contemporary popular culture. Focusing on young people, the research is based on extensive fieldwork in India.