This entry is a request for support to carry out a systematic and substantial review and testing of the entrant’s personal experience of working in a particular location in local government on conflicted, disputed and controversial issues.

It would thus ‘capture’ learning from front-line professional practice. The form of research will be a major writing project in which the entrant will collate, synthesise and develop reflections from working on race relations, community issues and local politics in Burnley; illustrate these with a detailed and unique account of social dynamics and issues covering a period of over twenty years in this specific location; use this material as a basis for wider critical considerations on themes relevant to the goals of the ISRF; and produce a publication-ready book as a vehicle for contributing to ongoing discussions and policy debates through inputs to conferences and meetings, writing short articles for publications etc.

The possibility of carrying out this project results from the entrant having been made redundant from local government in summer 2018, in the context of ‘austerity’ driven national funding cuts.

The entrant would spend three days each week researching, drafting and finalising a book-length text. This will involve reviewing, editing, collating and developing a mass of unorganised notes accumulated over the years; re-reading and reading a wide range of books, press cuttings and organisational papers; and conversations and interviews with a range of community activists, politicians, academics and members of research institutions, and others, both in Burnley and more widely.