Kirsty Greenwood

Biography

Prior to commencing my PhD research at Keele, I completed an MRes in Critical Social Science and BA (Hons) Criminology at Liverpool John Moores University. My research interests include:

• Differential punishment of women both contemporaneously and historically
• Foucauldian feminist methods of archival research
• Sociology of deviance in relation to female offenders
• Michel Foucault’s discourses of credibility and processes of normalisation

I am an active member of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control having presented at both of their Liverpool conferences in 2014. I am also a student member of the Howard League for Penal Reform and ‘Our Criminal Past: Caring for the Future’.

In July 2013 I received the David McEvoy Prize for outstanding degree performance at LJMU and was also awarded the Merseyside Woman of the Year Bursary.

Research and scholarship

Research project

Working title

A Critical Analysis of local state responses to ‘deviant women’ via the utilisation and operationalisation of semi-penal institutions between 1809 and 1983 in the North West of England.

Project summary

This study will build upon my previous research on the semi-penal institutionalisation of ‘deviant’ women in nineteenth and early twentieth century Liverpool. I will provide the first comprehensive critical analysis of the wide interlocking carceral network of semi-penal institutions in the North West of England between 1809 and 1983 as well as contributing to and raising questions within contemporary debate.

At this early stage in my research I have identified four semi-penal institutions within Merseyside and Lancashire and will critically explore issues comprising religious reform efforts including methods of Christianisation, gendered labour regimes, strategies of infantilisation, instances of resistance and contestation, governance of female staff and rationales for admittance to the semi-penal arena.

My research employs the philosophical methodological approach of Collingwood with an underpinning Foucauldian feminist theoretical methodology.

Supervisors: Dr Anette Ballinger and Dr Mary Corcoran

Further information

I am currently undertaking sessional lecturing within the CRI-20022 Mental Health and Offending Module.

I worked as a Research Assistant for Age Concern UK in February 2014, conducting street interviews in Bootle to critically evaluate services for the over 50s in Sefton.