Emily Rainsford

PhD student

University of Southampton
Highfield
2059
Southampton, SO17 1BJ

e.rainsford@soton.ac.uk

Emily Rainsford is part of the UK team, working with Dr. Clare Saunders (University of Southampton), Prof. Christopher Rootes (University of Kent) and Maria Grasso (University of Southampton).

Emily completed her BA (Hons) in Politics and Philosophy at University of Sheffield in 2009, and joined University of Southampton for an ESRC funded 1+3 PhD programme the same year. She joins the project as part of her thesis investigating whether there are any important differences in young people’s aims, objectives and motivations for political participation, and whether these differ between different countries, focusing on Sweden and UK. The thesis will compare three types of participation; (1) formal, such as political parties’ youth factions, (2) semi-formal, such as youth councils, and (3) informal, such as protests, NGOs and online groups.

Emily’s research interests are citizenship, democratic theory, political participation and social movements in general, and youth perspectives on these in particular. This includes alternative definitions and outlets of politics, and she has developed a particular interest in political expressions and mobilisation online.  

Country-team: United Kingdom