Deborah Sporton
Biographic Data
| ID | 265981 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Deborah Sporton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Deborah |
| FAMILY NAME | Sporton |
| SIGNATURE | SPORTON D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 257 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The role of social enterprise in student employability
Within Geography, as in other disciplines, the neoliberalisation of Higher Education has led to an increasing curriculum focus on graduate attributes with student employability as an outcome. The multiple and competing discourses of employability that shape pedagogies can at times ignore social enterprise and enterprising skills that are too often neglected within geography curricula. In this contribution we draw on our experience working with SI…
They Control My Life’
This paper examines the role of local recruitment agencies in facilitating post‐accession east European migration to the UK. Although it is widely acknowledged that transnational labour market intermediaries are contributing to all three stages of labour migration involving the recruitment of workers, their movement across borders and their placement in employment, less attention has focused on the role of local or national agencies that, it is a…
Paying for interviews? Negotiating ethics, power and expectation
The ethical dilemma of payment or compensation for participation in research remains a core concern for many scholars. Field class teaching is not exempt from these dilemmas and can provide subtly different challenges than those faced by the lone researcher, not least for work within the global South. Through reflections on two field class visits to Kenya, this paper explores issues of reciprocity, communication, trust, power and precedent in the…
How Other People See You, It's Like Nothing That's Inside
In this article we draw on research with young (aged 11 to 18 years old) Somali refugees and asylum seekers currently living in the UK, to explore their narratives of identity in the context of complex histories of mobility. We focus on how processes of disidentification or disavowal impact on young people's subjectivities and are lived out in particular spaces. Specifically, we examine the young people's experiences of having their claims to be …
Identities and Belonging
Drawing on empirical research with young refugees and asylum seekers (aged 11-18) now living in Sheffield, UK, and Aarhus, Denmark, respectively, this paper explores some of the relationships between identity, belonging, and place. We begin by reflecting on the young people's sense of identity as Somali in the context of periods of forced and voluntary mobility. We then consider what it means to be Muslim in the context of the different communiti…
Language use on the move
The role of language in relation to identity formation has received relatively little attention from geographers. Here, drawing on empirical research with Somali young people (aged 11–18) now living in the UK, we explore the role that choice and use of language play in how young people make sense of their identities and affiliations within the specific situated context of everyday encounters at home, and school. In doing so, we explore the role o…
Post conflict identities
Following the 2005 terrorist attacks on London it emerged that two of the terrorists charged with the failed 21st July bombings had arrived in the UK as child asylum seekers from East Africa. In the ensuing debate the bombers were represented as children that turned to hate. In this discussion paper we draw on empirical work conducted in Sheffield, UK to explore the identities, affiliations and practices of Somali asylum seeker children, aged 11–…
Where is the life in farming?’
Sustainable Livelihoods in Kalahari Environments
This edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of the dynamics of contemporary natural resource based livelihoods and implications for their sustainability in the context of the Kalahari environment of southern Africa, a region subject to marked spatial and temporal natural variability. Each chapter is written by an active Kalahari researcher and addresses, from an environmental or a social perspective, the implications of different pol…
Sustainable Livelihoods in Kalahari Environments
Soil degradation assessment in mixed farming systems of southern Africa
Soil degradation assessments for mixed farming systems of the Molopo Basin (North West Province, South Africa and Southern District, Botswana) are provided from farmer-based research, designed to quantify nutrient fluxes across the farming system and to analyze the social, economic, political and environmental factors affecting nutrient management practices. This paper discusses the practical difficulties of how to use participatory farmer-led st…
Community fencing in open rangelands
This article examines the cross‐cutting debates of empowerment, vulnerability, sustainability and livelihoods within the local and global contexts relevant to the people of Okonyoka, a settlement of less than 150 people situated in the heart of Eastern Namibia's southern communal lands. Here, people are adapting their livelihoods flexibly in response to both environmental natural resource variability and to changes in social institutions and land…
The final fifth
This paper addresses concerns about the complexities of cross‐cultural field‐ work, and the importance of the positionality of researchers and translators in the research process. These concerns build upon debates within the social sciences about autobiography, reflexivity and the research process, as well as notions of validity, reliability and ‘truth’. The paper re‐examines these debates in the context of cross‐cultural research by focusing on …
Outcomes of Social and Environmental Change in the Kalahari of Botswana
Migration now features prominently both in poverty-reduction discourses, as a ‘tool’ for reconciling rural populations with available resources, and in sustainable livelihoods debates, as a ‘coping strategy’ employed in times of livelihood stress. This paper assesses the contemporary significance of migration as populations are affected by the dual impacts of natural environmental variability and structural land-use change in the Kalahari of Bots…
The Future of Low-Birthrate Populations
The evolution of the Goutte d'Or as an ethnic minority district of Paris
For some years the Goutte d'Or district of central Paris has been generally acknowledged as one of the main areas of ethnic minority concentration in France. However the characteristics of the district remain largely unknown to outsiders, despite recent press coverage which, in the UK, has drawn comparisons with certain districts of London. Although residential concentrations of minority groups are very high, the general image of the Goutte d'Or …
Identities and Belonging
Drawing on empirical research with young refugees and asylum seekers (aged 11-18) now living in Sheffield, UK, and Aarhus, Denmark, respectively, this paper explores some of the relationships between identity, belonging, and place. We begin by reflecting on the young people's sense of identity as Somali in the context of periods of forced and voluntary mobility. We then consider what it means to be Muslim in the context of the different communiti…
Language use on the move
The role of language in relation to identity formation has received relatively little attention from geographers. Here, drawing on empirical research with Somali young people (aged 11–18) now living in the UK, we explore the role that choice and use of language play in how young people make sense of their identities and affiliations within the specific situated context of everyday encounters at home, and school. In doing so, we explore the role o…
They Control My Life’
This paper examines the role of local recruitment agencies in facilitating post‐accession east European migration to the UK. Although it is widely acknowledged that transnational labour market intermediaries are contributing to all three stages of labour migration involving the recruitment of workers, their movement across borders and their placement in employment, less attention has focused on the role of local or national agencies that, it is a…
How Other People See You, It's Like Nothing That's Inside
In this article we draw on research with young (aged 11 to 18 years old) Somali refugees and asylum seekers currently living in the UK, to explore their narratives of identity in the context of complex histories of mobility. We focus on how processes of disidentification or disavowal impact on young people's subjectivities and are lived out in particular spaces. Specifically, we examine the young people's experiences of having their claims to be …
Post conflict identities
Following the 2005 terrorist attacks on London it emerged that two of the terrorists charged with the failed 21st July bombings had arrived in the UK as child asylum seekers from East Africa. In the ensuing debate the bombers were represented as children that turned to hate. In this discussion paper we draw on empirical work conducted in Sheffield, UK to explore the identities, affiliations and practices of Somali asylum seeker children, aged 11–…
The final fifth
This paper addresses concerns about the complexities of cross‐cultural field‐ work, and the importance of the positionality of researchers and translators in the research process. These concerns build upon debates within the social sciences about autobiography, reflexivity and the research process, as well as notions of validity, reliability and ‘truth’. The paper re‐examines these debates in the context of cross‐cultural research by focusing on …
Paying for interviews? Negotiating ethics, power and expectation
The ethical dilemma of payment or compensation for participation in research remains a core concern for many scholars. Field class teaching is not exempt from these dilemmas and can provide subtly different challenges than those faced by the lone researcher, not least for work within the global South. Through reflections on two field class visits to Kenya, this paper explores issues of reciprocity, communication, trust, power and precedent in the…
Where is the life in farming?’
Community fencing in open rangelands
This article examines the cross‐cutting debates of empowerment, vulnerability, sustainability and livelihoods within the local and global contexts relevant to the people of Okonyoka, a settlement of less than 150 people situated in the heart of Eastern Namibia's southern communal lands. Here, people are adapting their livelihoods flexibly in response to both environmental natural resource variability and to changes in social institutions and land…
Soil degradation assessment in mixed farming systems of southern Africa
Soil degradation assessments for mixed farming systems of the Molopo Basin (North West Province, South Africa and Southern District, Botswana) are provided from farmer-based research, designed to quantify nutrient fluxes across the farming system and to analyze the social, economic, political and environmental factors affecting nutrient management practices. This paper discusses the practical difficulties of how to use participatory farmer-led st…
The Future of Low-Birthrate Populations
The evolution of the Goutte d'Or as an ethnic minority district of Paris
For some years the Goutte d'Or district of central Paris has been generally acknowledged as one of the main areas of ethnic minority concentration in France. However the characteristics of the district remain largely unknown to outsiders, despite recent press coverage which, in the UK, has drawn comparisons with certain districts of London. Although residential concentrations of minority groups are very high, the general image of the Goutte d'Or …
The evolution of the Goutte d'Or as an ethnic minority district of Paris
For some years the Goutte d'Or district of central Paris has been generally acknowledged as one of the main areas of ethnic minority concentration in France. However the characteristics of the district remain largely unknown to outsiders, despite recent press coverage which, in the UK, has drawn comparisons with certain districts of London. Although residential concentrations of minority groups are very high, the general image of the Goutte d'Or …
The Future of Low-Birthrate Populations
The final fifth
This paper addresses concerns about the complexities of cross‐cultural field‐ work, and the importance of the positionality of researchers and translators in the research process. These concerns build upon debates within the social sciences about autobiography, reflexivity and the research process, as well as notions of validity, reliability and ‘truth’. The paper re‐examines these debates in the context of cross‐cultural research by focusing on …
Outcomes of Social and Environmental Change in the Kalahari of Botswana
Migration now features prominently both in poverty-reduction discourses, as a ‘tool’ for reconciling rural populations with available resources, and in sustainable livelihoods debates, as a ‘coping strategy’ employed in times of livelihood stress. This paper assesses the contemporary significance of migration as populations are affected by the dual impacts of natural environmental variability and structural land-use change in the Kalahari of Bots…
Community fencing in open rangelands
This article examines the cross‐cutting debates of empowerment, vulnerability, sustainability and livelihoods within the local and global contexts relevant to the people of Okonyoka, a settlement of less than 150 people situated in the heart of Eastern Namibia's southern communal lands. Here, people are adapting their livelihoods flexibly in response to both environmental natural resource variability and to changes in social institutions and land…
Sustainable Livelihoods in Kalahari Environments
This edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of the dynamics of contemporary natural resource based livelihoods and implications for their sustainability in the context of the Kalahari environment of southern Africa, a region subject to marked spatial and temporal natural variability. Each chapter is written by an active Kalahari researcher and addresses, from an environmental or a social perspective, the implications of different pol…
Sustainable Livelihoods in Kalahari Environments
Soil degradation assessment in mixed farming systems of southern Africa
Soil degradation assessments for mixed farming systems of the Molopo Basin (North West Province, South Africa and Southern District, Botswana) are provided from farmer-based research, designed to quantify nutrient fluxes across the farming system and to analyze the social, economic, political and environmental factors affecting nutrient management practices. This paper discusses the practical difficulties of how to use participatory farmer-led st…
Where is the life in farming?’
Post conflict identities
Following the 2005 terrorist attacks on London it emerged that two of the terrorists charged with the failed 21st July bombings had arrived in the UK as child asylum seekers from East Africa. In the ensuing debate the bombers were represented as children that turned to hate. In this discussion paper we draw on empirical work conducted in Sheffield, UK to explore the identities, affiliations and practices of Somali asylum seeker children, aged 11–…
Language use on the move
The role of language in relation to identity formation has received relatively little attention from geographers. Here, drawing on empirical research with Somali young people (aged 11–18) now living in the UK, we explore the role that choice and use of language play in how young people make sense of their identities and affiliations within the specific situated context of everyday encounters at home, and school. In doing so, we explore the role o…
How Other People See You, It's Like Nothing That's Inside
In this article we draw on research with young (aged 11 to 18 years old) Somali refugees and asylum seekers currently living in the UK, to explore their narratives of identity in the context of complex histories of mobility. We focus on how processes of disidentification or disavowal impact on young people's subjectivities and are lived out in particular spaces. Specifically, we examine the young people's experiences of having their claims to be …
Identities and Belonging
Drawing on empirical research with young refugees and asylum seekers (aged 11-18) now living in Sheffield, UK, and Aarhus, Denmark, respectively, this paper explores some of the relationships between identity, belonging, and place. We begin by reflecting on the young people's sense of identity as Somali in the context of periods of forced and voluntary mobility. We then consider what it means to be Muslim in the context of the different communiti…
They Control My Life’
This paper examines the role of local recruitment agencies in facilitating post‐accession east European migration to the UK. Although it is widely acknowledged that transnational labour market intermediaries are contributing to all three stages of labour migration involving the recruitment of workers, their movement across borders and their placement in employment, less attention has focused on the role of local or national agencies that, it is a…
Paying for interviews? Negotiating ethics, power and expectation
The ethical dilemma of payment or compensation for participation in research remains a core concern for many scholars. Field class teaching is not exempt from these dilemmas and can provide subtly different challenges than those faced by the lone researcher, not least for work within the global South. Through reflections on two field class visits to Kenya, this paper explores issues of reciprocity, communication, trust, power and precedent in the…
The role of social enterprise in student employability
Within Geography, as in other disciplines, the neoliberalisation of Higher Education has led to an increasing curriculum focus on graduate attributes with student employability as an outcome. The multiple and competing discourses of employability that shape pedagogies can at times ignore social enterprise and enterprising skills that are too often neglected within geography curricula. In this contribution we draw on our experience working with SI…
Sociology (13 works) · Geography (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Economics (6 works) · Agriculture (5 works) · Context (archaeology (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Gender Studies (4 works) · Gender Studies (4 works) · Identity (music (4 works)