DrJoshua Blamire

I joined the Institute for Community Research and Development (ICRD) in November 2021. Prior to that, I was Lecturer in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at Liverpool Hope University and then Research Fellow at the University of Exeter.

My background is in Human Geography. My PhD examined anti-austerity activism and alternatives to austerity in Liverpool during 2014-17. I explored how austerity was being experienced, managed, and contested by different groups including grassroots ‘anti-austerity’ campaigns, communities, third sector organisations, and the city council.

My work explores how individuals and communities in different places respond to social and political processes and transformation. I am interested in how people experience those issues in relation to their own everyday lives and diverse identities and senses of belonging, and with respect to their broader attitudes towards social and political polarisation and inequality, working alongside media and government narratives. Some recent topics of study are austerity; Brexit; COVID-19; heritage; community-led housing retrofit; health, wellbeing and place; food inequalities.

I work with a wide range of stakeholders including neighbourhood, community and voluntary organisations, charities, political parties, third sector organisations and local authorities. I have recently been working with Walsall Council, City of Wolverhampton Council, Bolton Council, Historic England, Geese Theatre Company, Homebaked Community Land Trust, Arts Connect, and several local authority-based virtual schools and cultural organisations in the West Midlands.

I have expertise in participatory community research, and have trained and supported a number of organisations to develop their own research capacity. Please get in touch if you’d like to learn more!

I also lead the ICRD theme 'Tackling Inequalities through Heritage and the Arts':
https://www.wlv.ac.uk/research/research-centres/icrd/our-themes/tackling-inequalities-through-heritage-and-the-arts/