Richard Crisp
Research Associate
Email: r.crisp@manchester.gov.uk
CCSR
School of Social Sciences
Humanities Bridgeford Street
University of Manchester
MANCHESTER
M13 9PL
I joined CCSR in Sep 2006 as part of an innovative collaboration between CCSR and New East Manchester which is the urban regeneration company charged with delivering neighbourhood renewal in East Manchester. This joint venture is intended to bring academic expertise to the research and evaluation outputs of New East Manchester while at the same time facilitating academic debate in this policy area. Current research projects include:
- Measuring the impact of community engagement initiatives within regeneration programmes
- Exploring methodological approaches for monitoring population change at the small area level in the inter-Census period
- Assessing the most effective ways of evaluating the impact of regeneration programmes
Before joining CCSR, I was a PhD student in the department of Sociology at the University of Manchester. My research concerned the nature of worklessness among older men living in a deprived urban neighbourhood. It examined the way in which older manual workers have attempted to find new, meaningful identities in view of the decline of the industries in which they were traditionally employed. The findings challenge the prevailing political consensus that work is the best form of welfare by suggesting that some workless individuals find fulfilment in unpaid activities such as caring for dependents or becoming involved in community groups. This contrasts with the prevailing perception among this cohort that the local labour market is increasingly unable to deliver what they would consider "good jobs".
Research interests
- Worklessness
- Regeneration
- Community Engagement
- Population Change
- Inequality
Conference papers
- Placing the jobless in new cultural frameworks at the CRESR conference held at the University of Manchester, July 2005.
- It becomes a way of life: discourses of worklessness among Jobcentre employees at the annual BSA conference in Harrogate, April 2006.