Morag Mcdermont
Biographic Data
| ID | 376501 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Morag Mcdermont |
| GIVEN NAMES | Morag |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcdermont |
| SIGNATURE | MCDERMONT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bristol |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 45 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Beyond resilience? State failure, mutual aid and local action
Resilience offers an important framing for analysing responses to crises. However it is a highly contested concept, roundly condemned by many because of its associations with neoliberal logics of rule and the shedding of responsibility from states to citizens and ‘third sector’ organisations. In this paper we draw on the work of Cindi Katz to explore resilience as multi-faceted, and linked to Katz’s notions of ‘resistance’ and ‘reworking’. We use…
How Co-Production Regulates
This article examines how and why regulatory influences tend to embed within the practices of co-production. Informed by empirical data derived from semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of experts in co-production, the analysis seeks to illuminate some of the ‘soft’ and ‘interactive’ forms of regulatory work that are performed. In so doing, the discussion provides a ‘lightly’ critical reading of co-production and draws in Erving Gof…
Alternative Imaginings of Regulation: An Experiment in Co‐production
Despite decades of regulatory scholarship that took responsive regulation and regulatory space as starting points, much regulatory practice still has little focus on the experiences of those at the ‘sharp end’ of regulation. This article develops some of the insights from a five‐year research programme that aimed to explore what regulatory systems might look like if they took seriously the idea of ‘regulating for engagement’, working with communi…
Assembling Advice
Voluntary sector advice agencies play, for many in the UK, a key role in accessing and understanding public services. As such, whilst fiercely ‘independent’, their relationship to the welfare state is a complex and conflicted one. Presenting data from participant observation, interviews and focus groups with advisers and managers within the Citizens Advice Service, this paper explores this relationship by focusing on two particular areas of the s…
Poverty, social exclusion and the denial of rights to a fair hearing: A case study of employment disputes
Drawing on data from a research study of workers who sought justice following a dispute at work, this paper examines exclusion from systems of justice as a crucial element in understandings of poverty and social exclusion. We focus on the stories of those who attempt to use the employment tribunal system, which illustrate the multiple barriers to justice experienced by these workers. Arguing that the employment tribunal system provides a crucial …
Participatory Research and the Medicalization of Research Ethics Processes
This article illustrates how medicalized epistemologies and methodologies significantly influence the institutional ethical review processes applied to sociolegal research in law schools. It argues this development has elevated particular renderings of mental distress and objectivity to universal definitions, potentially placing a straitjacket on methodological innovation. The authors use two case studies from their experiences as researchers in …
Imagining and practising citizenship in austere times: The work of Citizens Advice
This article explores the significance of citizenship for those working in Citizens Advice, a network of voluntary organisations in the UK that exists to provide peer-to-peer advice and support to those facing problems. Drawing on a recent research study, the article considers the ways in which the ‘citizen in citizens advice’ is imagined and translated into practice. Despite current political and policy moves to shrink citizenship (in terms of e…
Acts of translation: UK advice agencies and the creation of matters-of-public-concern
Voluntary sector advice agencies have performed an important function in providing free, accessible advice in the UK for many decades. As legal aid is slashed, and ‘austerity’ leaves everyday life for many ever more precarious, their role has never been more essential. Advice agencies provide a dynamic and increasingly significant transition point where the rights, responsibilities and grievances of the individual are brought into dialogue with f…
Nominations: An Actor-Network Approach
This paper offers an empirical assessment of the potential benefits to housing studies of actor-network theory (ANT). Gabriel & Jacobs' paper in this journal has suggested that certain ‘classic’ sites of housing studies are being re-imagined by studies within the post-social turn. This paper is an empirical study of the nominations process, through which registered social landlords are enrolled into allocating social housing to households priorit…
Structuring governance: A case study of the new organizational provision of public service delivery
Drawing on research findings concerning the new management structures and paradigms in the range of services formerly provided within the public sector, this paper reports on research conducted into the governing structures of a newly registered social landlord, formed to take over a local authority’s housing stock. Using a variety of ethnographic methods, the research looked at the ways in which the members of the governing body translated under…
Mixed Messages: Housing Associations and Corporate Governance
Housing associations have traditionally been bound together by notions of providing for those in housing need, non-profit making and a voluntary ethos. Since the mid- 1980s these understandings have altered when associations began to develop a private sector ethos leading to: increased priority given to the needs of private funders; the professionalization of boards of management, largely at the behest of the state regulator; and a reimaging of t…
Territorializing Regulation: A Case Study of “Social Housing” in England
This article shows that the legislative creation of new regulatory regimes can be approached as a process that carves out new territories of governance. Specifically, using the theoretical framework of social space, it explores the formation of a regulatory community arising out of the United Kingdom's Housing Act 1974, a community made up of the regulatees—not-for-profit housing associations—and the state regulator. The article demonstrates that…
Housing associations, the creation of communities and power relations
Drawing in particular on Nikolas Rose's writings on governmentality, this paper considers how housing associations' objective of creating and maintaining communities has structured both their own practices, and their relationships with local authorities. Using historical materials from the 1930s to the present, it argues that the discourse of community has now become a focus for asserting the independence of the housing association sector from co…
The Elusive Nature of the ‘Public Function’: Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association Ltd v Donoghue
Mixed Messages: Housing Associations and Corporate Governance
Housing associations have traditionally been bound together by notions of providing for those in housing need, non-profit making and a voluntary ethos. Since the mid- 1980s these understandings have altered when associations began to develop a private sector ethos leading to: increased priority given to the needs of private funders; the professionalization of boards of management, largely at the behest of the state regulator; and a reimaging of t…
Nominations: An Actor-Network Approach
This paper offers an empirical assessment of the potential benefits to housing studies of actor-network theory (ANT). Gabriel & Jacobs' paper in this journal has suggested that certain ‘classic’ sites of housing studies are being re-imagined by studies within the post-social turn. This paper is an empirical study of the nominations process, through which registered social landlords are enrolled into allocating social housing to households priorit…
Acts of translation: UK advice agencies and the creation of matters-of-public-concern
Voluntary sector advice agencies have performed an important function in providing free, accessible advice in the UK for many decades. As legal aid is slashed, and ‘austerity’ leaves everyday life for many ever more precarious, their role has never been more essential. Advice agencies provide a dynamic and increasingly significant transition point where the rights, responsibilities and grievances of the individual are brought into dialogue with f…
Housing associations, the creation of communities and power relations
Drawing in particular on Nikolas Rose's writings on governmentality, this paper considers how housing associations' objective of creating and maintaining communities has structured both their own practices, and their relationships with local authorities. Using historical materials from the 1930s to the present, it argues that the discourse of community has now become a focus for asserting the independence of the housing association sector from co…
How Co-Production Regulates
This article examines how and why regulatory influences tend to embed within the practices of co-production. Informed by empirical data derived from semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of experts in co-production, the analysis seeks to illuminate some of the ‘soft’ and ‘interactive’ forms of regulatory work that are performed. In so doing, the discussion provides a ‘lightly’ critical reading of co-production and draws in Erving Gof…
Participatory Research and the Medicalization of Research Ethics Processes
This article illustrates how medicalized epistemologies and methodologies significantly influence the institutional ethical review processes applied to sociolegal research in law schools. It argues this development has elevated particular renderings of mental distress and objectivity to universal definitions, potentially placing a straitjacket on methodological innovation. The authors use two case studies from their experiences as researchers in …
Imagining and practising citizenship in austere times: The work of Citizens Advice
This article explores the significance of citizenship for those working in Citizens Advice, a network of voluntary organisations in the UK that exists to provide peer-to-peer advice and support to those facing problems. Drawing on a recent research study, the article considers the ways in which the ‘citizen in citizens advice’ is imagined and translated into practice. Despite current political and policy moves to shrink citizenship (in terms of e…
Structuring governance: A case study of the new organizational provision of public service delivery
Drawing on research findings concerning the new management structures and paradigms in the range of services formerly provided within the public sector, this paper reports on research conducted into the governing structures of a newly registered social landlord, formed to take over a local authority’s housing stock. Using a variety of ethnographic methods, the research looked at the ways in which the members of the governing body translated under…
Assembling Advice
Voluntary sector advice agencies play, for many in the UK, a key role in accessing and understanding public services. As such, whilst fiercely ‘independent’, their relationship to the welfare state is a complex and conflicted one. Presenting data from participant observation, interviews and focus groups with advisers and managers within the Citizens Advice Service, this paper explores this relationship by focusing on two particular areas of the s…
The Elusive Nature of the ‘Public Function’: Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association Ltd v Donoghue
The Elusive Nature of the ‘Public Function’: Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association Ltd v Donoghue
Housing associations, the creation of communities and power relations
Drawing in particular on Nikolas Rose's writings on governmentality, this paper considers how housing associations' objective of creating and maintaining communities has structured both their own practices, and their relationships with local authorities. Using historical materials from the 1930s to the present, it argues that the discourse of community has now become a focus for asserting the independence of the housing association sector from co…
Mixed Messages: Housing Associations and Corporate Governance
Housing associations have traditionally been bound together by notions of providing for those in housing need, non-profit making and a voluntary ethos. Since the mid- 1980s these understandings have altered when associations began to develop a private sector ethos leading to: increased priority given to the needs of private funders; the professionalization of boards of management, largely at the behest of the state regulator; and a reimaging of t…
Territorializing Regulation: A Case Study of “Social Housing” in England
This article shows that the legislative creation of new regulatory regimes can be approached as a process that carves out new territories of governance. Specifically, using the theoretical framework of social space, it explores the formation of a regulatory community arising out of the United Kingdom's Housing Act 1974, a community made up of the regulatees—not-for-profit housing associations—and the state regulator. The article demonstrates that…
Nominations: An Actor-Network Approach
This paper offers an empirical assessment of the potential benefits to housing studies of actor-network theory (ANT). Gabriel & Jacobs' paper in this journal has suggested that certain ‘classic’ sites of housing studies are being re-imagined by studies within the post-social turn. This paper is an empirical study of the nominations process, through which registered social landlords are enrolled into allocating social housing to households priorit…
Structuring governance: A case study of the new organizational provision of public service delivery
Drawing on research findings concerning the new management structures and paradigms in the range of services formerly provided within the public sector, this paper reports on research conducted into the governing structures of a newly registered social landlord, formed to take over a local authority’s housing stock. Using a variety of ethnographic methods, the research looked at the ways in which the members of the governing body translated under…
Acts of translation: UK advice agencies and the creation of matters-of-public-concern
Voluntary sector advice agencies have performed an important function in providing free, accessible advice in the UK for many decades. As legal aid is slashed, and ‘austerity’ leaves everyday life for many ever more precarious, their role has never been more essential. Advice agencies provide a dynamic and increasingly significant transition point where the rights, responsibilities and grievances of the individual are brought into dialogue with f…
Poverty, social exclusion and the denial of rights to a fair hearing: A case study of employment disputes
Drawing on data from a research study of workers who sought justice following a dispute at work, this paper examines exclusion from systems of justice as a crucial element in understandings of poverty and social exclusion. We focus on the stories of those who attempt to use the employment tribunal system, which illustrate the multiple barriers to justice experienced by these workers. Arguing that the employment tribunal system provides a crucial …
Participatory Research and the Medicalization of Research Ethics Processes
This article illustrates how medicalized epistemologies and methodologies significantly influence the institutional ethical review processes applied to sociolegal research in law schools. It argues this development has elevated particular renderings of mental distress and objectivity to universal definitions, potentially placing a straitjacket on methodological innovation. The authors use two case studies from their experiences as researchers in …
Imagining and practising citizenship in austere times: The work of Citizens Advice
This article explores the significance of citizenship for those working in Citizens Advice, a network of voluntary organisations in the UK that exists to provide peer-to-peer advice and support to those facing problems. Drawing on a recent research study, the article considers the ways in which the ‘citizen in citizens advice’ is imagined and translated into practice. Despite current political and policy moves to shrink citizenship (in terms of e…
How Co-Production Regulates
This article examines how and why regulatory influences tend to embed within the practices of co-production. Informed by empirical data derived from semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample of experts in co-production, the analysis seeks to illuminate some of the ‘soft’ and ‘interactive’ forms of regulatory work that are performed. In so doing, the discussion provides a ‘lightly’ critical reading of co-production and draws in Erving Gof…
Alternative Imaginings of Regulation: An Experiment in Co‐production
Despite decades of regulatory scholarship that took responsive regulation and regulatory space as starting points, much regulatory practice still has little focus on the experiences of those at the ‘sharp end’ of regulation. This article develops some of the insights from a five‐year research programme that aimed to explore what regulatory systems might look like if they took seriously the idea of ‘regulating for engagement’, working with communi…
Assembling Advice
Voluntary sector advice agencies play, for many in the UK, a key role in accessing and understanding public services. As such, whilst fiercely ‘independent’, their relationship to the welfare state is a complex and conflicted one. Presenting data from participant observation, interviews and focus groups with advisers and managers within the Citizens Advice Service, this paper explores this relationship by focusing on two particular areas of the s…
Beyond resilience? State failure, mutual aid and local action
Resilience offers an important framing for analysing responses to crises. However it is a highly contested concept, roundly condemned by many because of its associations with neoliberal logics of rule and the shedding of responsibility from states to citizens and ‘third sector’ organisations. In this paper we draw on the work of Cindi Katz to explore resilience as multi-faceted, and linked to Katz’s notions of ‘resistance’ and ‘reworking’. We use…
Political science (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Law (8 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Public Administration (5 works) · Public Administration (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Corporate governance (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works)