Alison Urie

Head of Division (Education, Community and Social Work) in Youth And Community Work

Education and Society, School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law

Alison Urie

Contact

Email

[email protected]

Biography

I am a Lecturer in Community Development and Associate Dean for Enterprise and Economic Transformation (SHSL) at the University of Dundee, and Director of the external arts and community organisation Vox Liminis. 

With over two decades of experience in community and youth work, the arts, and criminal justice, I have expertise in setting up community organisations from initiation and leading them through to sustainability (Vox Liminis and Hot Chocolate Trust).

Having developed Knowledge Exchange projects with colleagues at the University of Glasgow, I co-designed and was a Co-Investigator on the Distant Voices: Coming Home research project (ESRC award no. ES/P002536/1) exploring integration after punishment through collaborative songwriting. 

My practice and research interests intersect community development, arts-based methodologies, change within criminal justice practices, and collaborative community processes. 

Research

Research publications

  • The Unbound Community with Pádraig Ó Tuama (2023) ‘A Casual Kindness’, in Cree, E., McCulloch, T. (ed.) Social Work: A Reader, Oxon: Routledge, p233-256
  • The Unbound Community with Pádraig Ó Tuama (2022) A Casual Kindness. Tapsalteerie: Tarland
  • McNeill, F., Thomas, P.C., Frödén, L.C., Scott, J.C., Escobar, O., Urie, A. (2022). Time After Time: Imprisonment, Re-entry and Enduring Temporariness. In: Carr, N., Robinson, G. (eds) Time and Punishment. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12108-1_7
  • Crockett Thomas, P., McNeill, F., Cathcart Frödén, L., Collinson Scott, J., Escobar, O., & Urie, A. (2021). Re-writing punishment? Songs and narrative problem-solving. Incarceration, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/26326663211000239
  • Crockett Thomas, Phil; Collinson Scott, Jo; McNeill, Fergus; Escobar, Oliver; Cathcart Froden, Lucy; and Urie, Alison, Mediating Punishment? Prisoners’ Songs as Relational ‘Problem-Solving’ Devices, Law Text Culture, 24, 2020, 138-162. https://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol24/iss1/7
  • McNeill F and Urie A (2020) Collaboration before collaborative research: The development of ‘Distant Voices’. Methodological Innovations 13(2). SAGE Publications Ltd: 1–11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799120937270
  • Urie A et al. (2019) ‘Reintegration, Hospitality and Hostility: Song-writing and Song-sharing in Criminal Justice’ Journal of Extreme Anthropology 3/1: 77–101. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.6914
  • Scottish Justice Matters (November 2017) article ‘Escaping the Fog’ on issues related to women’s justice
  • Scottish Justice Matters (March 2013) article ‘Justice With or Justice For?’, asking questions of the arts in justice from the perspective of Hot Chocolate Trust learning

Creative Outputs from Community Work and Research

Selection of creative collaborative outputs made with many others, from projects I have led and/or initiated:

 

Teaching

Teaching Undergraduate and Postgraduate Community Development and Youth Work students, covering topics such as:

  • ‘re-seeing and re-naming’ the world
  • interrogating what’s normal
  • partnerships
  • leading change
  • creative arts in community development

Modules I lead on