Dr Paul Gilchrist is a Research Fellow at Chelsea School, University of Brighton

My research explores the multiple dimensions of cultural politics, in particular people-environment relationships. My research interests are informed by political studies, public policy analysis, history, cultural geography, historical geography, leisure studies and sociology. I work inbetween, through and with these disciplines and fields. I am probably best known for my work on heroes and mountaineering, which emerged from a recently completed PhD thesis which explored British cultures of adventure and heroic masculinities. However, my work has also dealt with the development of the creative industries, culture-led coastal regeneration, lifestyle sport, parkour, canoeing and kayaking, subcultural protest, netnographic method, paternalism, working-class sport, the sporting hero, piracy and property rights, and dogging.

I have been based at the University of Brighton since 2003 and have undertaken research and consultancy projects - with my colleagues Prof Neil Ravenscroft and Prof Andrew Church - for a range of government agencies, including Defra, Sport England, SEEDA, Culture South East, Sussex Learning and Skills Council, Sussex Skills for Productivity Alliance, the Countryside Agency and the Environment Agency. These projects have contributed to national policy development in the areas of recreational access, water sport, and workforce development in the creative and cultural sectors.

Research findings and thoughts have appeared in a range of peer-reviewed journals, including: Leisure Studies; Journal of Leisure Research; Media, Culture & Society; Sport in History; Society & Natural Resources, as well as specialist magazines and edited monographs. I was joint editor (with Dr Belinda Wheaton) of Whatever Happened to the Leisure Society? (LSA, 2008) and co-editor of a special issue of Sport in Society entitled 'The politics of sport: community, mobility, identity' (forthcoming, 2009). And, as mentioned above, I was recently awarded a PhD for a thesis entitled, 'The cultural politics of heroism in British mountaineering, 1921-1995'.

I'm pretty active in organising academic events. I've organised or co-organised eight conferences, including the Leisure Studies Association annual conference (2007) and the British Society of Sport History annual conference (2008). I was also seminar convenor for the Sport and Leisure Cultures research area at the University of Brighton for six years. I'm commited to bringing people together to share ideas and to have good heated discussion. So, in 2005 I co-founded the UK Political Studies Association's Sport and Politics Specialist Study Group, to enable this within a sub-field ripe for expansion and further critical engagement. The group has gone from strength to strength, recently hosting its fourth annual conference, and now carries a membership of 120 from across the academic community.

At the University of Brighton I teach politics, sociology and social theory, and research methods to undergraduates and postgraduates, as well as supervising research projects at these levels. I have also been a visiting lecturer at King's College and Pembroke College, Cambridge University, on a course entitled 'The British and their sports', which is run as part of a programme for visiting American students.

Education

  • PhD - The cultural politics of heroism in British mountaineering, 1921-1995       University of Brighton, 2009
  • MA Sport, Politics and Society (with distinction)                                                            University of Warwick, 2002
  • BA(Hons) Politics (1st class)                                                                                            University of Warwick, 2001

Academic roles and networks 

Joint convenor and secretary, Political Studies Association Sport and Politics Specialist Study Group

Member, AHRC Sport in Modern Europe research network

Peer reviewer - British Journal of Sociology; International Review for the Sociology of Sport; Sport in Society; Leisure Studies; French Politics; Manchester University Press; Palgrave Macmillan.

Member - Political Studies Association; Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association; British Society of Sport History

Associate Researcher, Coastal Regeneration Research Centre, University Centre Hastings