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?

Research

Books
  • Willatt, A., Jones, D., Kyle, R., & Davies, A. (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. Public Health Wales.

  • Book chapters
  • Willatt, A., Beadle, R., & Brydon-Miller, M. (2021). Reshaping the food aid landscape. In Tomorrow’s Communities: Lessons for Community-based Transformation in the Age of Global Crises (pp. 197-213).
    https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1t4m1ss.17

  • Beacham, J., & Willatt, A. (2020). New foodscapes. In M. Parker (Ed.), Life After COVID-19 (pp. 73-82). University of Bristol Press.

  • Brydon-Miller, M., Gayá, P., Noone, P., Willatt, A., Book, C., Cohen, S., Nichols, A., Tetreault, L., & Williams, B. (2017). Pass the parcel: The ever expanding impact of Critical Utopian Action Research. In J. Gleerup, J. Egmose, H. Hansen, & L. Clausen (Eds.), Change and Knowledge: Science for people and with people. Festschrift to Birger Steen Nielsen. Roskilde University.

  • Journal articles
  • Willatt, A., Gray, S., Manchester, H., Foster, T., & Cater, K. (2024). An Intersectional Lifecourse Lens and Participatory Methods as the Foundations for Co-Designing with and for Minoritised Older Adults. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 8(CSCW1), 1-29.
    https://doi.org/10.1145/3637295

  • Phillips, M., & Willatt, A. (2020). Embodiment, care and practice in a community kitchen. Gender Work and Organization, 27(2), 198-217.
    https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12419

  • 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 & Politics in Organization, 18(4), 767-790.

  • Willatt, A., Brydon-Miller, M., Cumberland, D., & Li, Y. (n.d.). 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.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2022.2126379