Dr Holly White | University of Chester

Head of Social and Political Sciences

Dr White is Head of the Social and Political Sciences.

Holly’s primary areas of interest and expertise include: challenging social harm and injustice with a particular focus on poverty, public social science and universities making positive contributions to local communities and region. Holly is a member of the University’s Social Justice Chester Research group and the University’s Institute of Culture and Society.

Holly is a trustee of Cheshire West Voluntary Action with responsibilities for research and strategic partnerships. Holly is a member of Cheshire West and Chester Local Authority Poverty Truth Advisory Board. Holly has previously volunteered as a Board Member of the Trussell Trust Changing Minds on Poverty Board, utilising her research and voluntary experience to inform the organisation’s national strategy on public sense-making of poverty.

Holly holds a PhD in Social Science and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Holly is currently undertaking a Senior Leaders Master’s Degree Apprenticeship and Master’s of Business Administration.

Dr Holly White is module leader for Undergraduate Dissertations in SPS. Holly also supervises PhD students.

Dr Holly White’s areas of research and teaching expertise include:

Crimes and harms of the powerful
Narratives of Crisis, Harm and Injustice
Resistance to Harm and Injustice
Neoliberalism
Poverty and Food Insecurity
Social Justice and Community Action
Public Social Science and University Civic Engagement

She is also a member of the Social Justice Research Team at the University. We are currently collaborating with local community partners using co-productive methodology to explore lived experiences of poverty. Updates are available on our Twitter: @SocJustice_UoC.

White, H. and Ross, K. (2023). Local Voices Framework Co-production Definition and Principles. Cheshire West Community Action and University of Chester. Available here

Davis, H. and White, H. (2022) For a Zemiology of Politics. Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime.

White, H. (2021) The Meeting Place Project: Learning and Guidance for Community Groups London: Feeding Britain (externally funded evaluation).

Fernandez, R. Dunne, S. and White, H. (2020) ‘Impact Assessment of Holiday Activity and Food Provision in Cheshire West and Chester, Halton and Wirral in Summer 2020: Provision and Coordination under COVID-19’ Cheshire: Essential CIC and Partners (externally funded evaluation).

White, H. and Herbert, A. (2020). ‘Academic Considers the Impact of COVID-19 on the West Cheshire Foodbank’ University of Chester.

Barton, A. Davis, H. and White, H. (2018) ‘Agnotology and the Criminological Imagination’ In Barton, A. and Davis, H (Eds) Ignorance, Power and Harm: Agnotology and the Criminological Imagination (Critical Criminological Perspectives) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fletcher, S. and White, H. (eds) (2017) Emerging Voices: Critical Social Research by European Group Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers Preface by Tombs, S. Bristol: European Group Press.

White, H. (2017) ‘Westminster’s Narration of the Neoliberal Crisis: Rationalising the Irrational?’ In: Fletcher, S. and White, H. (eds) Emerging Voices: Critical Social Research by European Group Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers Preface by Tombs, S. Bristol: European Group Press.

White, H. Ryan, L. Wadsworth, C. and Williams, P. (2014) ‘Review of ‘The Prison and the Public’ Conference, Edge Hill University 2013’ Prison Service Journal No 214.

White, H. (2014) ‘Policing the Neoliberal Crisis: An Introduction to my PhD Research’ European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control: Summer Newsletter II.

Papers

White, H. Evans, N. and Ross-Houle, K. (2022). ‘Ignorance-production in Contemporary Crisis’ SPIN Colloquium 2022, University of Bristol, December 2022.

White, H. (2021). ‘Community Webinar - The Meeting Place Project: Learning and Guidance for Community Groups’ Feeding Britain and The Welcome Network Project, March 2021.

White, H. (2020) ‘For a Public Zemiology of Party Politics’ American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting 2020, Crime and Justice Theory and Research: Thinking Outside the Box, Washington, November 2020 (cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic).

White, H. and Crellin, M. (2020). ‘Working Over the Walls: Building Community Collaboration with the University’ The University as a Social and Public ‘Good’: Creating an Anchor out of Community Engaged Research, The University of Birmingham, March 2020 (cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic).

Reeves, A. and White, H. (2020). ‘The Social Value of Research-Informed practice in the Voluntary Sector’ University of Chester and Cheshire West Voluntary Action Conference 2020 on Partnerships and Collaboration, February 2020.

White, H. (2019) ‘For a Zemiology of Politics: A Critical Analysis of Political Narratives of Socially Harmful Issues’ British Society of Criminology Postgraduate Research Seminar: Thinking Differently about Harm, July 2019.

White, H. and Greenwood, E. (2018) ‘Alternative Approaches to Food Poverty in the UK: A Narrative Analysis of a Pilot Study’ Feeding Britain and Leicester City Council Round Table Event.

White, H. (2018) ‘Community Approaches to Food Poverty: Exploring and Alternatives’ Independent Food Aid Network Annual Conference September 2018.

White, H. (2016) ‘Westminster and The Politics of Ignorance: Discursive Countering of an Anti-Austerity Opposition’ European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control 44th Annual Conference, University of Minho in Braga, September 2016.

White, H. (2016) ‘A Critical Analysis of Better Together Definers’ Narration of the Scottish Independence Referendum’ Department of Law and Criminology Research Seminar, Edge Hill University, June 2016.

White, H. (2015) ‘Resisting the Hegemonic: Countering Elite Manufactured Knowledge and Ignorance’ European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control 43rd Annual Conference, University of Tartu in Tallinn, September 2015.

White, H. (2015) ‘The Ignorance Factory: Manufacturing Ignorance to Police an Ideology in Crisis’, Cutting Edge: Answers to the Great Questions of Life, the Universe and Everything, Edge Hill University, April 2015.

White, H. (2015) ‘Policing the Neoliberal Crisis: An Overview of my PhD’, Department of Law and Criminology Research Seminar, Edge Hill University, March 2015.

White, H. (2014) ‘On the Road to Genocide? A Critical Analysis of the Neoliberal Narration of Crisis’, European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control 42nd Annual Conference, Liverpool John Moores University, September 2014.

White, H. (2014) ‘Policing the Neoliberal Crisis: An Introduction’, Postgraduate Stream of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control Undergraduate Conference, Liverpool John Moores University, April 2014.

White, H. (2014) ‘Poverty Porn: A Critical Analysis of Popular Media Representations of Benefit Claimants in a Culture of Blame’, Cutting Edge: Culture, Identity, Representation, Edge Hill University, March 2014.

PhD Criminology ‘Westminster’s Narration of Neoliberal Crisis: Rationalising the Irrational?’, Edge Hill University, 2017
Post-graduate Certificate in Higher Education (Distinction) and Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, Edge Hill University, 2015
BA (Hons) Criminology and Criminal Justice (1st class), Edge Hill University, 2013