Alice Lemkes

Profile

I am a second year ESRC funded PhD student conducting a studentship alongside the West Yorkshire Finding Independence project (a Big Lottery funded project seeking to support people in Leeds and West Yorkshire experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage). Before beginning my PhD I have worked as a researcher for a systems-change organisation, and research assistant at UCL and in between have worked within social housing, refugee aid, and as a cycle courier. My passion for this doctoral research stems from the meeting of my academic and service provision work experience and the chasm between those in the academy/policy making and those with the wisdom of lived experience. There is good practice out there that I wish to learn from and apply to my research and address some of the knowledge, power and voice inequalities within social research.

Research interests

My research interests revolve around people experiencing social harm, but I am interested from the perspective of how systems (knowledge, government, legal, administrative) collude to create and regulate people in certain ways. My research interests are often methodological and theoretical. I am keen to explore and deepen my understanding of participatory research methodologies, decolonising methodologies, creative and artistic methods and post-structural analytical frameworks.