Young People, Identities and

Multi-ethnic SpacesFemi Adekunle, Lecturer working with Children, Young People and Families, Newman university

Past research history

•Theory and design: EPicollect

•Virtual ethnographies – develop an understanding through participation and observation (Hines, 2000)

•Digital mapping and participatory GIS (Walker et al. 2009)

•Mobility as a spatial means of communication (Sheller & Urry, 2004)

“We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us” (Marshall McLuhan)

Participatory techniques

Current Research interests •Working at Newman University

•Focus on working with vulnerable young people, children and families the key policies and practices relating to the social care and education of children, young people and families.

•A community of practice• Law and legal advocacy• Social work• Counselling and creative therapies (drama and art)

•Methods of participation•Youth work: dialogic methods of participation•Innovative/creative methods

•Institutional and social policy intersections of youth and policy•http://vulnerability360.wordpress.com/

My own research

Sport as a multi-cultural space

Basketball in LondonIf you avoid an area, you make that place bad. That’s why a lot of people don’t go to Hackney, but if every person did not care every time something happened, then trust me, there would be nothing there. I have lived in Brixton, there is nothing there. It is just what you hear. No one ever spoke a word to me. Why avoid a place just because you hear of something happening? 18 year old boy (Islington)

The democracy of the basketball court

Creating new publics