Dr James Duggan

My profile

Biography

I am a Research Fellow in the School of Childhood, Youth and Education Studies, in the Faculty of Education. My research interests are in exploring the productive tensions between community-based and public sector ways of organising.

I am increasingly interested in exploring and developing theoretical and practical alternatives for public organising and appropriate creative and co-productive methodologies for researching and supporting these processes. My most recent project was Loneliness Connects Us (PI Batsleer, Co-I Duggan), a youth co-research project funded by the Co-op Foundation and developed in partnership with 42nd Street Manchester. The project supported a group of youth co-researchers to explore loneliness through a carousel of moving methods, which produced a series of research outputs including the immersive theatre performance ‘Missing’. Other projects include, Design Research Get Lost (PI Duggan, AHRC) a design-informed approach to self-organising processes amongst young people, and Sans Duty – Making Tax Visible, (PI Duggan, CCN+) which used a design fiction approach to imagining a fairer tax system in an everyday utopian community.

My other strand of work is researching public sector transformation, with an emphasis on collaboration, leadership and practices such as agile working. I completed my PhD in 2012: ‘A local authority initiative to foster a collaborative culture between organisations working with children and young persons’ at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Profs. Mel Ainscow and Alan Dyson. Since then, I was Co-PI for an Evaluation of Stockport Social Care Innovation Programme, subcontracted by TNS BRMB through funding secured from DfE. Using a theory of change approach, we explored the re-organisation of Health and Social Care across Stockport over a two-year period. The evaluation followed organisational change at a time of rapid reform in public services and, in particular, the adoption of restorative approaches and the impact upon vulnerable families.

Teaching

Supervision

Completed: 

  • Joanna Dennis Together we stand: an exploration of the cooperative movement in education as a catalyst for change and resistance
  • Adam Wood A School Building and its Social, Educational Context: Rethinking the possibilities of lived architecture

Research outputs