Professor Morag McDermont
B.A.(Oxon.), L.L.M.(Bristol), Ph.D.(W.England)
Expertise
Collaborative co-produced research that seeks to enable communities at the margins to become key knowledge producers in research and decision-making structures
Current positions
Professor of Socio-Legal Studies
University of Bristol Law School
Contact
Media contact
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Biography
Morag McDermont worked 16 years in the UK social housing sector, in both local government and the voluntary sector. IN 2004 she submitted a PhD thesis that examined the how the social housing sector had been regulated and was involved in its own regulation. She joined the University of Bristol LAw School in 2004 teaching pulic law and because part of the team which developed the MSc in Socio-Legal Research. Her experience in the public and voluntary sector led to an interest in finding ways in which diverse publics and communities could be more engaged in decision-making that affected their everyday lives. She developed a programme of reserach that examined the role voluntary sector advice agencies such as Citizens Advice supported citizens in engaging in the legal system. IN 2012 she led a partership of multi-disciplinary academics and community organisations in putting together a reserach programme that would examione how communities at the margins could be more involved in regulatory decison-making. This programme of reserach, Productive MArgins: REgyulating for Engagement, ran from 2013-2018. Following on from this, with Joanna Holmes, Cheif Executive of Wellspring Settlement, one of the partners in Productive MArgins, she set up the Social Justice Project and has been involved in developing the University of Bristol's microcampus at Barton Hill, both projects that develop ways collaborative working between the University of Bristol and the diverse communities of Bristol. In 2020 Morag and Dr Helen Manchester (Education) set up the Bristol City Fellows, a programme knowledge exchange aiming to ensure communities at the margins become key knowledge producers in the city.
Research interests
Social theory and its aplication to socio-legal studies, especially Foucault and governmentality and Actor Network Theory; regulatory systems and decidion-making; collaorative governance and the engagment of multiple publics in decsison-making; collaborative and co-produced research methods and theories of knowledge production
Positions
University of Bristol positions
Professor of Socio-Legal Studies
University of Bristol Law School
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Wellspring Settlement - Communities in Focus: harnessing the potential of community-generated data
Principal Investigator
Description
Wellspring Settlement (formerly Barton Hill Settlement and Wellspring Healthy Living Centre) is a community anchor and social enterprise based in the Barton Hill area of Bristol. The Settlement provides a…Managing organisational unit
University of Bristol Law SchoolDates
01/09/2020 to 30/09/2022
Co-creating a Citizens Advice Service within a District General Hospital
Principal Investigator
Description
Brigstow Ideas Exchange activity
Aim: To draw upon a wide range of expertise to develop an innovative Citizens Advice service within a District General Hospital.Managing organisational unit
University of Bristol Law SchoolDates
23/05/2018 to 31/07/2018
Productive Margins: Regulation for Engagement
Principal Investigator
Description
Community engagement needs radical re-design. All too often decision-making is top-down and decision makers do not adequately engage, deeming ‘community engagement’ a passive exercise. Communities are often only invited to…Managing organisational unit
University of Bristol Law SchoolDates
01/04/2013 to 30/06/2018
Advising in Austerity
Principal Investigator
Description
This project examines the role the advice sector plays in developing public understanding of law and legality, as well as the crisis facing advice services on a daily basis, an…Managing organisational unit
University of Bristol Law SchoolDates
01/05/2017 to 01/03/2018
Girls at Risk Dec 2013
Principal Investigator
Description
Girls Making History was a collaborative project between Knowle West Media Centre and The University of Bristol. Co-productive methodology brought young women with experience of teenage partner violence together with…Managing organisational unit
University of Bristol Law SchoolDates
01/04/2014 to 01/10/2014
Thesis supervisions
Becoming Special
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
29/01/2020Imagining regulation differently
Imagining regulation differently
Introduction
Imagining Regulation Differently
Conclusion: towards an organic model of regulating for engagement
Imagining Regulation Differently
Co-production as Experimentation
Imagining Regulation Differently
The Ethics of Co-Production in Practice: Reflections
Sage Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry
Teaching
Socio-legal research methods
Co-produced and collaorative research methods
Social theory: Foucualt and governmentality; Actor Network Theory
Public law; law and government