This web site contains a selection of past and present writings, supported by picture galleries, videos and other material generated by my research. I am an urban ethnographer by trade and have worked mostly with young people and communities in East London, charting the impact of structural and demographic change on their everyday experience, and the stories they tell about the past, present and future of this area. My work draws on concepts and methods from a range of approaches in the human sciences, including anthropology, actor-network theory, psychoanalysis, narratology and cultural geography. I have always been concerned to relate my
research to educational and political issues, and to create a dialogic framework for the research process.
Please feel free to contact me using this link or the Contact Phil link above.
Phil now has a Wikipedia entry! Click here to view it.
My New Book!
Studies in the Grey Zone: Waypoints Volume 2
This new book brings together recent writing and spans the period from the Covid 19 pandemic to the ongoing wars in the Ukraine and Gaza. Like the pieces in the companion Waypoints volume, these essays are occasional in that they were prompted by particular contingencies, both personal and political. Yet in selecting and bringing these texts together, the book traces an emergent set of connections between what have come to be known as the ‘grey zones’ of social, cultural and geo-political conflict.
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My Previous Book
Things Ain’t What They Used to Be
Three years in the making, this book is an experiment in close collaboration between a writer and four visual artists who together take a stab at capturing the zeitgeist from Left Field. This is no prophecy of Doom or New Dawn but a groundling’s view of the theatre of cruelty which currently passes for everyday life, and some pointers to what might lead us into a better social dance, for the enjoyment of the many, not the precious few. The book takes the form of three notebooks which explore different aspects of our once and future time, with the text being visually notated in full colour double page spreads.
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The book is available from Eyeglass Books.
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| Available from EYEGLASS BOOKS | Available from Rowman & Littlefield Publishers | Available from EYEGLASS BOOKS | Available from Compass | Available from Compass |
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| Available from EYEGLASS BOOKS | Available from EYEGLASS BOOKS |  | | |
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I would like to acknowledge those who have been essential to the creation of this website: Norman Dallura (Dallura Web Design), Donald Nicholson Smith (editorial consultant) and Jane Mullins (copy editing).