Dr Paul Gilchrist

I am a scholar of cultural politics with research interests primarily in people-environment relationships. In a nutshell, I'm interested in questions of power that play through different cultural practices, spaces and histories.

My doctoral research explored British cultures of adventure and the heroic masculinities associated with mountaineering. However, I have also undertaken research into the multiple dimensions of people-environment relationships through projects that have 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 am currently a Research Fellow at the University of Brighton, based in the Chelsea School of Sport and the School of Environment and Technology, where I lecture in politics, social theory, human geography and research methods. I am on the supervision teams for three doctoral students on a diverse range of research projects: the commercialisation of mountaineering; the politics of music events as spectacle; and, European integration and recreational sailing.

I 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 am 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' (2011).

               

My most recent research publication addresses the social policy response to the development of parkour in the UK and emerged from a British Academy-funded project.

Details of my current research projects are available here.

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 

Co-founder, joint convenor and secretary, Political Studies Association Sport and Politics Specialist Study Group

Peer reviewer - British Journal of Sociology; International Review for the Sociology of Sport; Sport in Society; Leisure Studies; French Politics; American Journal of Play; Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise; European Physical Education Review; World Leisure Journal; Journal of Consumer Culture; Manchester University Press; Palgrave Macmillan.

Member, AHRC Sport in Modern Europe research network.

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

Associate Researcher, Coastal Regeneration Research Centre, University Centre Hastings.

Member, Senior Researchers' Group - Community University Partnership Programme.

Member, Faculty of Education and Sport Research Ethics and Governance Committee.

Convenor, Research Seminar Series, Centre for Sport Research.

Event Organisation

  • Panel organiser, ‘Sport and politics: national dimensions’, inaugural sport and politics study group panel, Political Studies Association annual conference, University of Reading, April 2006
  • Panel chair ‘Sport and politics: international dimensions’, inaugural sport and politics study group panel, Political Studies Association annual conference, University of Reading, April 2006
  • Organiser, Creative Industries in Sussex, Learning and Skills Council stakeholder symposium, University of Sussex, May 2006
  •  Co-organiser, ‘the new currency of sport’, First annual PSA ‘sport and politics’ study group conference, University of Wales, 2007
  • Member, Leisure Studies Association annual conference 2007 organising committee, 2005-2007 (and panel chair)
  • Co-organiser, British Society of Sport History annual conference, University of Brighton, 2008 (and panel chair)  
  • Organiser, ‘Tourism, Culture and Creativity’ conference, University Centre Hastings, 18th September 2007.
  • Co-organiser, 2nd PSA ‘sport and politics’ study group annual conference, Liverpool Hope University, 15th February 2008.
  • Co-organiser, 3rd PSA ‘sport and politics’ study group annual conference, Birkbeck College, University of London, 20th-21st February 2009.
  • Co-organiser, ‘Theorising the coast: international symposium’, Hastings/St Leonards on Sea, 4th-5th June 2009. 
  • Co-organiser, 4th PSA ‘sport and politics’ study group annual conference, Leeds Metropolitan University, 26 February 2010.
  • Co-organiser, 5th PSA ‘sport and politics’ study group annual conference, Birmingham University, 18 March 2011.
  • Organiser, Sport and the Big Society: Active Citizens and Post-Welfare Governmentalities one day colloquium, University of Brighton, 16 December 2011.
  •  Panel organiser – Climbing histories, British Society of Sport History annual conference, London Metropolitan University, 2-3 September 2011.