Gillian Evans
Some information about me
Profile
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Gillian studied social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies before completing her Master's and PhD degree in the Social Anthropology of Children and Child Development in the Centre for Child-Focused Anthropological Research (CFAR) at Brunel University. Gillian’s research focuses on social and cultural change in post-industrial London and especially the former Docklands. Her last major project focused on childhood and youth in the working class neighbourhoods of Bermondsey in Southeast London and led to the publication, in 2006, of a monograph entitled Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain. Published at a time when the on-going existence of the working class was something of a taboo subject in Britain under a New Labour government, the book caused controversy in the media and generated debate about the alienation of the white working classes. Gillian has become a regular contributor to these debates.
Gillian’s current research project, is focused on the planning and delivery of the Olympic Legacy in the post-industrial East End of London. It is funded by a Research Council Fellowship held at the University of Manchester from 2007-2012, in the Centre for the Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC).
Keywords: Post-industrial cities; Britain; social class; education and learning; children, childhood and youth; cultural politics; multiculturalism; neo-nationalism; race; place and personhood; embodiment and phenomenology.
2013 and Beyond: Olympic Park legacy in East London
This research project entitled 2013 and Beyond: Olympic Park Legacy in East London explores the processes in and through which an Olympic Park legacy is designed, planned and shaped in consultation with the public and a range of stakeholders. The research involves a focus on consultation and engagement practitioners, examining how their work is a reflection of transforming organisational goals set by OPLC (Olympic Park Legacy Company) commissioning specifications and the LMF (Legacy Masterplan Framework) design team, in relation to government stakeholder requirements. Particular emphasis is on the resolution of conflicting interests and ambitions and the necessity to produce a final product that is nevertheless coherent and dynamic whilst accommodating to an as yet not entirely certain Olympic legacy.
The second, medium-term phase of the research will be on charting how the flexible legacy-planning framework and its underlying principles and recommendations translate into the formation of delivery strategies. Again, a balance of emphasis will be maintained between exploring the work of practitioners and others involved in delivery-specific teams and how that leads to the on-going shaping of the new piece of a city in the Lea Valley. The focus of research will include the Special Purpose Vehicle - the Olympic Park Legacy Company – the Multi-Area Agreement and the Strategic Regeneration Framework. During this phase of the research funding will be sought for the final, more long-term, phase of the research investigating how the legacy begins to transform the Olympic Park from a suburban zone into an inner city hub of well-connected London activity, one built on principles of sustainability, designed to transform the East End of London.
The ambition is that, by exploring the complex question of how to embed and transform policy intentions into realised development outcomes of all kinds, the research will provide an invaluable additional resource to a range of academics studying processes of city change, a range of stakeholders affected by and involved in those change and regeneration/legacy managers attempting to plan and deliver transformation. From its first phase, the research will provide an in-depth and eventually long-term analysis of pre and post-Games transformation in East London.
Publications
Book Chapters
Refereed Journal Papers
Projects
Topologies of Social Change
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(2009-2013) A study of the development of the 2012 Olympic Park Legacy.
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Exploring the transforming boundaries and cultural politics of social classification in post-working class Britain.
Cultural Values and Politics: Social Cohesion and Expertise
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The project uses the archived qualitative sources of several post-war community studies to elaborate how community relations were historically conflictual but that this generated significant...
Events
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Wed, Mar 30th 2011
This event will explore how the sporting legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Gamesmight transform the East End of London.
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Thu, May 26th 2011
Part of our interdisciplinary conversation. Six sociologists and social historians will present brief papers on post-industrial and post-colonial politics in contemporary Britain, and three social anthropologists will act as discussants, inviting debate from a small audience.
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Wed, May 23rd 2012 - Thu, May 24th 2012
Comparing the city of Manchester, ten years after it hosted the Commonwealth Games, with London - host to the Olympic Games in 2012, this two day workshop invites critical inter-disciplinary discussion and evaluation of the legacies of sporting mega-events for post-industrial British cities.
