Research team

The research team is:

• Susan Batchelor, University of Glasgow (Principal Investigator, UK)
• Alistair Fraser, University of Hong Kong (Principal Investigator, HK)
• Leona LI Ngai Ling, University of Hong Kong (Research Assistant, HK)
• Lisa Whittaker, University of Glasgow (Research Assistant, UK)

Susan Batchelor is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, based in the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. She is an experienced youth researcher and research manager, with previous projects including: young people’s attitudes towards sexual violence (Zero Tolerance), girls’ views and experiences of violence (ESRC), teenage sexuality and the media (HEBS), young women sentenced to custody for violent offending (ESRC), risk assessment and risk management of children and young people involved in offending behaviour (RMA), alcohol and domestic abuse (RCA), youth gangs and knife carrying (Scottish Government), youth violence in Scotland (Scottish Government) and an evaluation of the Time for Change young women’s project (Up-to-us). The majority of Susan’s academic publications are on young women and youth justice. The current project relates to another strand of her work that looks at youth, culture and risk.

Alistair Fraser is currently Assistant Professor of Criminology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests revolve around the intersecting issues of youth, crime, globalisation and social change, drawing on methodological traditions rooted in ethnography, participatory-methods and oral history. His work on youth gangs and ethnography has been published in Theoretical Criminology and the Journal of Youth Studies, and he is currently developing an agenda for comparative research that employs innovative conceptual and methodological tools to explore young people’s im/mobilities in the context of global social change.

Leona LI Ngai Ling graduated with a Mphil in Sociology from the University of Hong Kong in 2005. Her thesis, ‘Youth Gangs in Hong Kong: The Convergence of Conventions and Deviations’ is an ethnographic exploration of the dynamics involved in youth gangs. Leona is currently working as a Senior Research Assistant at the Department of Sociology, HKU and has been participating in various research projects on gender, youth, violence, and marginalized populations e.g. drug users, trans-gender population and sex workers. As an ethnographic field worker, Leona is particularly interested in listening to people from different walks of life and representing their untold stories in the academia.

Lisa Whittaker completed her PhD at the University of Stirling in 2011. Her thesis ‘Young and Unemployed: Giving and Getting Recognition in Peer Groups and Online’ explored the experiences of young people taking part in Get Ready for Work training programmes and how these experiences shaped their identities. While writing her thesis Lisa joined The Prince’s Trust and ran The Enterprise Programme which enabled young people to explore self-employment. Last year she joined a smaller youth charity, Columba 1400, where she is responsible for research and evaluation and delivering leadership programmes for young people from ‘tough realities’. Lisa will continue this role on a part-time basis allowing her to balance her love of working directly with young people in their communities and conducting qualitative research.