Participants

The Principal Investigator, Professor Mihaela Kelemen, from Keele University has substantial expertise on methodological issues, having published two books on the topic (Routledge 2008; Sage 2008) and numerous articles on pragmatist theory, morality and reflexivity in organisational research.  Her research takes a multi-disciplinary approach and holds the view that communities of practice are central to processes of knowledge production and consumption.  Her current AHRC Connected Communities project explores the place of volunteering in the formation of personal communities and is underpinned by a Pragmatist methodology in which day to day experience is the starting point of theorising.

Dr Anita Mangan (co-investigator), Keele University, completed a PhD about volunteer identities in non-profit financial co-operatives (The Irish League of Credit Unions). Her work investigates critical perspectives on identity and subjectivity, power and control, discourse analysis and critical management studies. Since completing her PhD, her fieldwork has continued to focus on volunteers and volunteering processes, non-profit modes of organising and community engagement.  She is co-investigator with Mihaela Kelemen on an AHRC grant and also volunteers in her local community.

Dr Martin Phillips (co-investigator), University of Leicester has over twenty years’ experience of conducting community research, in both rural and urban areas. His recent work on the AHRC's Connected Communities programme has included examination of affective relations and made use of a range of research methods, including participatory art, focus groups and walking and psycho-social interviewing. He has also undertaken research using community film-making and addressing issues of audience response and cultural policy. He has extensive research experience of working in multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research projects. His publications include discussion of critical philosophy, legislative and interpretative epistemologies and research methodologies.

Véronique Jochum is Research Manager at NCVO and leads their qualitative research programme. Véronique has managed numerous research projects about the voluntary and community sector that have informed NCVO’s policy work, including research on values in voluntary and community organisations and the contribution of voluntary and community organisations in generating social capital. Véronique specialises in the areas of participation, voluntary action and charitable giving. She was the project manager for the Pathways through Participation project, a 2.5 year project funded by the Big Lottery Fund, that explored people’s experience of participation over the course of their lives. She is the lead author for the recent publication Participation: trends, facts and figures and co-authored the report UK Giving 2011. Véronique sits on the advisory group of the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR), and volunteers for two local charities in Waltham Forest.

Sue Moffat is Director of New Vic Borderlines.  Under its current director, New Vic Borderlines has adopted an increasingly outward-looking and collaborative approach to the communities it serves, seeking to re-define the ways a theatre can contribute to the cultural, educational, social, recreational and economic lives of the communities it serves.  Their work is inspired by the social agenda and the belief that communities can create dynamic and positive relationships, imaginative and generous solutions and take on roles and responsibilities.  New Vic Borderlines has received many national awards including two Global Ethics Awards, a prestigious Clarion Award and a national British Crime Concern award for reducing offending behaviour. Their recent work with the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, brought about a touring play with workshops called All Our Daughters? about Forced Marriage which has reached more than 8000 beneficiaries and has been described by the Chief Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal as ‘Saving Lives’.

Through New Vic Borderline, we will access local volunteers and voluntolds.  We also have good links with VE@keele, which represents the student volunteers at Keele University.  We will also access other groups of volunteers with the help of NCVO, the largest umbrella body for the voluntary and community sector in England with a membership of over 8,500 organisations.