Alice’s interdisciplinary research draws on feminist theory-praxis to explore the transformative possibilities of informal learning in public, community and activist settings for challenging the material-discursive structures that perpetuate social injustices.
Alice’s research is co-produced, bringing together participatory methods, with feminist theory and critical pedagogies, to research with children, young people, adults and intergenerational groups who live along multiple axes of inequality. Alice has worked as a researcher in both academic and public sector settings, and holds experience in knowledge translation, policy engagement, and partnership working with civil society organisations, schools, public sector bodies and policymakers.
Funded Research Projects
Reparative Futures of Education (REPAIR-ED)
Alice is a Research Fellow on the REPAIR-ED project. This is a five-year research programme (2023-2028) selected by the European Research Council and funded by UKRI Frontier Research. It involves collaborating with primary school-communities in the city of Bristol to conduct in-depth ethnographic and oral-history research on the features and mechanisms of structural inequities in education. The project uses its empirical findings to facilitate dialogues with schools, their communities, policy-actors and the broader public to explore how reparative justice in education might be conceptualised and enacted. It is motivated by the overarching question: what does reparation in education look like?
Publications
Willatt, A., Gray, S., Manchester, H., Foster, T. and Cater, K.(2024). An Intersectional Lifecourse Lens and Participatory Methods as the Foundations for Co-Designing with and for Minoritised Older Adults. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., 8, CSCW1, Article 18 (April 2024). https://doi.org/10.1145/3637295
Willatt, A., Brydon-Miller, M., Cumberland, D. & Li, Y., (2022) The View from Robinswood Hill: A Story of Asset- Based Community Development and A Community-Based Participatory Research Partnership in South Gloucestershire. Educational Action Research. 1-19.
Willatt A., Jones D.P., Kyle, R.G. & Davies, A.R. (2021) Emerging Drivers of Vulnerability to Health Inequity in the Context of COVID-19: Perspectives and response from the Voluntary and Community Sector in Wales. A peer- reviewed research report. Public Health Wales.
Willatt, A., Beadle, R. & Brydon-Miller, M. (2021) Reshaping the Food Aid Landscape. In Tam, H. (Ed.) Tomorrow’s Communities: key lessons for community-based transformation. Policy Press.
Phillips, M. & Willatt, A. (2020) Embodiment, care and practice in a community kitchen. Gender, Work & Organization. Vol. 25 (2): 198-217.
Beacham, J. D. & Willatt, A. (2020) New Foodscapes. In Parker, M. (Ed.) Life After Covid. University of Bristol Press.
Willatt, A. (2018) Re-envisaging research on alternatives through participatory inquiry: Co-generating knowledge on the social practice of care in a community kitchen. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization. Vol. 18 (4): 767-790.
Brydon-Miller, M., Gayá, P., Noone, P., Willatt, A., Book, C., Cohen, S., Nichols, A., Tetreault, L. & Williams, B. T. (2017) Pass the parcel: The ever expanding impact of Critical Utopian Action Research. In Gleerup, J., Egmose, J. Hansen, H. P. & Clausen, L. T. (Eds.) Change and Knowledge: Science for people and with people. Festschrift to Birger Steen Nielsen. Roskilde University.
