Dr Rachael Dobson

Overview

Biography

My research is informed by the central principle to work across theory, policy and practice, for the purposes of social and racial justice. This is reflected in my experiences across academic, teaching and practice fields.

As an academic I have held lectureships at the University of Leeds, Kingston University and now Birkbeck, University of London, and Visiting Fellowships at the University of New South Wales and University of Sydney. I have recently been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for 'Where Is The Power? Policy Ontologies In Theory and Practice'.

I have over a decade’s experience of editorial, referee and learned society activity. I am member of the editorial collective for Critical Social Policy, a highly ranked, peer reviewed journal that provides an international forum for debate on social policy and welfare issues from socialist, feminist, anti-racist and radical perspectives. I have been twice elected to the Social Policy Association, most recently as Honorary Secretary. 

Prior to academic life I worked as a local government homelessness practitioner. I still work as a consultant, facilitator and trainer with practitioners implementing homelessness and adult social care policy.

Qualifications

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, HEA, 2019

Web profiles

• The Policy Ontologies Project
• Twitter

Visiting posts

• ESRC Visiting Fellowship, University of New South Wales, 04-2009 to 07-2009
• WUN Visiting Fellowship, University of Sydney, 04-2011 to 06-2011

Professional activities

Editorial Collective, Critical Social Policy

Professional memberships

• Social Policy Association

• White Spaces Network.

• BSA Psychoanalysis & Psychosocial Study Group

• Women, Crime & Criminal Justice Network

• Homeless Link

ORCID

0000-0003-4716-745X

Research

Research interests

• Policy-making
• Social welfare institutions
• Homelessness
• Public service cultures
• Reflexive Methodologies

Research overview

My research contributes to critical and cultural approaches to policy-making, with a focus on process and implementation. I theorise the role of policy actors in the making-of welfare state practices like policy, legislation and institutions. I am especially interested in public service cultures, identities and practices in lower status, under-professionalised, materially fragmented and ‘dirty work’ sectors, across social welfare and criminal justice fields.

Empirically, my research explores interventions with vulnerable adults with ‘complex needs’, encompassing policy, legislation, models of support and everyday practices. I think about relationships between these phenomena, and human agency, to understand potential for resistance and social change through everyday, conscious and unconscious, social practices and actions.

Research Centres and Institutes

• Member, White Spaces Network

Research clusters and groups

• Member, Policy, Practice and Activism Cluster (Law School)

Research projects

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

2

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest.

Current doctoral researchers

• ABIGAIL JACKSON

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Feb 2021 onwards

  Title of thesis:

  Lost Property: Examining Dispossession in East London

• BECKA SEGLOW HUDSON

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Jan 2020 onwards

  Title of thesis:

  Pathology and penal risk prediction: investigating the construction of personality disorder and decisions on captivity in British prisons.

  Description:

  This project looks at the construction of the mental disorder, 'personality disorder', widely considered to be the most overrepresented mental disorder in British prisons. The research looks at how this diagnosis is constructed and assessed, particularly through psychometric and risk assessments. It also considers how these tests factor into decision making about people's sentences, management and release. Becka has a background in anthropology and uses ethnographic methods in her research, alongside other tools. The project is historically informed, looking at the development of British prisons and psychometric tools used to assess those held in prison in British history, including in the British Empire. 

Teaching

My teaching is driven by the imperative to work across theory, policy and practice. It is research-led and interdisciplinary, cutting across policy, criminology, sociology, socio-legal, psychosocial, housing and urban studies. I have developed teaching programmes for policy-makers, practitioners and students at access, undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

I convene two modules: Influencing Public Policy (PGT) and The Criminalisation of Welfare (UG). Influencing Public Policy introduces students to critical approaches to policy-making. The Criminalisation of Welfare examines the construction and regulation of social problems and ‘problem people’ through policy and legislative interventions.

I deliver guest lectures on three postgraduate modules: Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice (Department of Criminology), Research Methods (Law School) and Independent Research (Department of Psychosocial Studies).

 

Teaching modules

• Policy, Power and Social Change (Level 5) (LACN029H5)

Publications

Business and community

Outreach

Over the past three years I have facilitated 'Communities of Practice' (CoPs) with homelessness and adult social care organisations. CoPs bring together local statutory and non statutory welfare organisations to meet a shared vision to improve outcomes for homeless and vulnerable adults. 

This activity reflects my long-standing engagement with institutional barriers to policy and legislation implementation; in this instance, the Care Act 2014 and Homelessness Reduction Act 2018 (Dobson, 2019). CoPs surface these issues and develop proposals to achieve practical change through training, knowledge building and the sharing of everyday practices.