Dr Shona Hunter

RCUK Academic Fellow

Photo of Dr Shona Hunter

I joined the School in 2006 on a five year Research Councils UK Fellowship. My work is strongly interdisciplinary so although my disciplinary 'home' is social policy, I've worked in Women's Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology and Management.

Reflecting my commitment to critical and politicised approaches to social policy, I am the articles editor for the journal Critical Social Policy and run the White Spaces network with colleagues from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the USA and UK.

Research Interests

The core question driving my work is: why do racism, sexism and other unequal social relations persist, despite a myriad of policies designed to combat these inequalities? In thinking through these issues, I explore the discursive and material bodily and emotional intersections of ethnicity, gender - including white masculinities - and profession.

Teaching

I teach across a number of areas including critical approaches to policy analysis, qualitative methods, including feminist and postcolonial approaches to social research, race and ethnicity and white ethnicities in particular. My new third year module Governing Cultures Identities and Emotions runs from Semester 2 2010-2011. When working at Lancaster and Birmingham Universities I co-ordinated and taught on a range of post qualifying health and social care programmes to professionals and senior leaders across a range of public and private sector organisations.

PhD Supervision

Current students are working in the areas of migration and gendered identities, the social construction of mental health within the British Born Chinese communities and Muslim identification in the context of the ‘war on terror’ and the rise of the English Defence League. As well as supervising traditional doctorates I enjoy co-supervising on the Dclin Psychology in Health Sciences. I am happy to supervise PhD students in the following areas.

Critical approaches to policy analysis including feminist, postcolonial, queer, psychosocial
The development of equalities (and diversity) policies
Processes of governance and policy making in public services
Professional identities in health social care and education, in particular as these intersect with other social identities
The interface between research and policy making

Key Publications

Books

Hunter, S. (manuscript submission, September 2011) Power, Politics, Emotions: Impossible Governance, London: Routledge. (part of the Routledge Law Glass House Series: Social Justice edited by Davina Cooper and Kate Bedford)

Journal Articles

Hunter, S. (2003) A Critical Analysis of Approaches to the Concept of Social Identity in Social Policy. Critical Social Policy, 23(3), pp.322-344.

Hunter, S. (2005) Negotiating professional and social voices in research principles and practice. Journal of Social Work Practice, 19(2), pp.149-162.

Hunter, S. (2006) Working for Equality and Diversity in Adult and Community Learning: leadership, representation and racialised 'outsiders within'. Policy Futures in Education, 4(2), pp.114-127.

Hunter, S. (2009)‘Feminist psychosocial approaches to relationality, recognition and denial’ in Ozbilgin, M. F. (ed) Theory and Scholarship in Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Work: a research companion, pp 179-192 Edward Elgar.

Hunter, S. and Swan, E. (2007) The Politics of equality: professionals, states and activists. Equal Opportunities International, 26(5), pp.377-386.