UCL DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY
Adefemi Adekunle
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Adefemi Adekunle
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Adefemi Adekunle

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Research Interests

My doctoral project explores how young people react both positively and negatively to the part of the city that they call home.  It seeks to find out why certain young people are happy to remain within their locale and actively resist others from coming into theirs.

I call this ‘youth territoriality’ and it presents itself as a complex and emotional issue for young people.  In developing a framework, I ask how this spatial identity is (re)constructed and (re)constituted in relation to not just itself but other prominent state and social discourses – specifically the drive to create ‘angels’ and ‘demons’ of young people (Valentine, 1996).

Since I am a CASE student at the Runnymede Trust, it was here that I was able to perceive both the policy provenance and significance of the issue and subsequently begin to ask policy relevant questions.

This project is, consequently, guided by three research questions

  1. How do young people understand and experience territory in their lives? (How does territory influence their sense of place and their understanding of their own identity both individually and collectively?
  2. How does territory influence young people's encounters with marginalisation fear and violence? (How do territory, postcode and place-based identities provide senses of resistance, belonging or membership that counter experiences of marginalisation, fear or conflict?)
  3. How can territory be refigured (by voluntary agencies, state interests and most importantly young people) as a resource for more inclusive, cohesive youth futures?

The premise of this work is that young people have a different conception of space enforced amongst themselves and the aim is to find out why.  As a corollary of this I intend to identify the extent to which conflict is used to construct identities and foster intra-group solidarity.  What are the limits of sociability in this respect? In short, I intend to look at the structuring dynamics of locality, class, gender, age and ethnicity in creating a plastic young adult identity within a specifically London context.


Qualifications

  • Bachelors in History and Social Science (Hons)
  • Postgraduate Diploma in Law and Legal Studies (PgDip)
  • Masters in Housing and Regeneration (MSc.)
  • Professional Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Housing (Dip MCIH)
  • Undergraduate Diploma in French (Ongoing) (Dip. French (Open))


Supervisors

Dr. Claire Dwyer and Dr. James Kneale


Research projects

Generation 3.0 is a project designed by Runnymede to explore changing attitudes to race equality and racism. The project focuses on creating spaces for older and younger people to come together to share their experiences and views on how we might end racism in a generation.

  • ‘This is where I live.’

A small community mapping project done under the auspices of Ordnance Survey and a comprehensive school in the Midlands

  • YICSB (Young Islington Community Safety Board)

Devising and compiling a survey for young people analyzing  their experience of crime and contact with authorities within Islington.


Publications

BOOK REVIEWS

Publications

  • Gangs Revisited: What’s a gang and what’s race got to do with it? Politics and policy into practice.  Runnymede Perspectives (ISBN: 978 -1-906798-82-0)


Conferences, Presentations and seminars (presented)

  • Horniman Museum Conference: Youth Inclusion Chair on conference –‘ Are Teenagers a  community’ Youth and Community Engagement Panel Member (November, 2010)
  • AAG 2011: Critical Geographies of Youth Association of Geographers: towards a critical geography of youth (April, 2011)
  • London South Bank University: The use of technology for the generation of data:  Youth Territoriality in Technological focus (June 2011)
  • ICEDC: 5th Annual conference: Citizenship, Society and Social Justice: Promoting social justice through effect pedagogy (July 2011)


Conferences, Presentations and seminars (organised/chaired)

  • Organizer of RGS Youth Study Group Workshop “Methodological Innovations in Youth Research” (February, 2011)
  • UCL Youth Geographies Research Group Youth in Motion: Spatializing Youth Movement(s) in the Social Sciences’  (June, 2011)
  • RC 21: the conference for the International Sociological Association Critical Urbanism conference in Amsterdam – Chair and Panel organizer – Critical Geographies of Youth (July,2011)

 

Work Experience

2009-2011         Facilitator/Demonstrator/Seminar tutor

Led/organised and taught various undergraduate Human Geography ancilliary courses including

  • An Introduction to London
  • Black Historical Geographies
  • Society and space

2009 – 2011         University College London: Teaching Assistant/tutor

Assisting in the University College London’s pastoral/academic support network for undergraduates