pathway: Area Development Studies Alumni

My PhD research explores youth volunteering during the Ebola response in Sierra Leone, looking at how experiences of volunteering have shaped young people’s understandings of citizenship through the navigation of the socio-economic context in which they live. I use narrative methods to place young people’s stories at the heart of research, combining interviews and focus-groups with young volunteers with context level data gathered through expert interviews and policy analysis. My research seeks to understand what times of crisis can reveal about young people’s sense of identity and belonging in the hope of informing youth development policy and the improved inclusion of young people within responses to crisis contexts.

My research is focused on the Pax Britannica that Britain developed in the Gulf as a result of the British Persian Gulf Residency, between 1763 and 1971, the state building processes, dependency, and rentierism that was left behind post-independence. I am particularly interested in assessing how Britain’s position in the Gulf emerged as a tool of trade and defence in 1763, evolving into an entrenchment of the British position through the residencies, and then re-emerging again as a system of trade and defence after 1971. My research will contextualise contemporary Anglo-Gulf relations into Britain’s historic legacy in the region.