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Keynote address

‘I’m not f’ing doing that!’: Tears, Tantrums and Laughter in Arts-based Participatory Research (Dr Jo Deakin)

Innovative research in criminal justice has produced an ever-growing array of arts-based participatory methods. In this final keynote event, Jo Deakin provides a critical reflection of her own experiences of attempting arts-based and participatory methods over a 20 year research career as part of local, national and international projects. She draws on a variety of methods and tools for gathering and disseminating data including peer-research, drama-based workshops and audio-visual installations. Her reflection raises essential questions about the ethics of conducting this sort of research, rebalancing the power dynamic between actors, and the true nature of ‘participation’, as well as addressing the practical challenges facing researchers. By laying-bare the setbacks and disappointments in her own research as well as showcasing the successes of some of the tools she has used, Jo hopes to encourage a reflective and honest dialogue about the potential of participatory arts-based research as a methodologically and ethically sound research approach.

Bio: Dr Jo Deakin is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Manchester. Jo’s research is situated at the intersection between youth work, justice and social policy addressing young people’s responses to aspects of criminalisation, social control and stigma. Her recent project, (European Commission, Horizon 2020) combined traditional and arts-based methods to explore ‘youth in conflict with authority’ across Europe. Jo has a particular expertise in participatory research engaging unheard and hard-to-reach groups at all stages of her projects, including pioneering a peer-research method with young migrant men, and using arts-based methods and mixed-media to gather data and disseminate findings to varied audiences. Jo is an active member of the British Society of Criminology and a member of the Research Advisory Group at the Howard League for Penal Reform.

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Event Chair

Dr Mark Brown is Director of the Centre for Criminological Research in the School of Law at University of ºù«Ӱҵ. He has a background in research on prisons and punishment, risk and dangerous offenders, colonial penal history, postcolonial penalities and more recently in the nascent formation of southern criminology. He is currently an advisor to the UN on prisons and penal reform and has undertaken evaluations of the UN Office in Vienna and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.