Dr Chris Devany

Profile

Academic Biography 

My research explores the lived experiences of vulnerable and typically marginalised in their interactions with the state. Recently my research has become increasingly focused on peoples’ interactions with policing authorities, specifically around anti-social behaviour, homelessness, drug use and drug dealing. I have particular interest in the use of qualitative and visual methods to explore ones chronological interactions with trauma and the state as well as topographical methods to understand how people experience our towns and cities.

I joined the University of York from Sheffield Hallam University in June 2022. At my previous employer I was a lecturer in Sociology where I specialised in youth studies, drug use and social theory. Most recently, I was the Research Fellow on a two-year funded project on the use of anti-social behaviour powers on street sleeping homeless people in England and Wales. In September 2021 I was awarded a PhD for a qualitative project that explored the lives of young male ‘hidden NEETs’ (not in education, employment or training and not accessing the benefits system). 

Research

The ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre explores how vulnerabilities produced, compounded and mitigated by policing and how the police and other services can be harnessed to prevent and reduce vulnerabilities. My role at the centre is to conduct research on subjects including (but not limited to); the conceptualisation of ‘vulnerability’, County Lines drug networks, Homelessness and Mental Health.

Publications

Heap, V., Black, A., & Devany, C. (forthcoming). Understanding how Community Protection Notices are used to manage anti-social behaviour attributed to street sleeping homeless people. People Place and Policy.

Devany, C., Formby, A., Hoolachan, J & McKee, K. (2020). PPP Special Issue–Contemporary Youth: Precarity, Resistance and (Re) Imagined Futures. People Place and Policy.

Batty, E. Bennett, E., Devany, C., Harris, C., Pearson, S. & Woodward, A. (2020). Friends and purpose: evaluation of Camerados public living rooms. Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University.

Bennett, E., Batty, E., Woodward, A. & Devany, C. (2020). Camerados public living rooms in Hospitals: Learning Summary. Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University.

Devany, C. (2020). The Changing Pattern of Homeless Drug Use in Edinburgh and Sheffield. Oak Foundation.