Dr Alistair Fraser
- Senior Lecturer (Sociology)
Biography
Alistair Fraser is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology at the University of Glasgow, where he teaches and researches issues of youth violence, street culture, and urban ethnography, with a particular focus on the global gang phenomenon. His work seeks to make theoretically ambitious, empirically grounded, policy relevant contributions to academic and public debate.
His first book, Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City (OUP, 2015) was shortlisted for the BBC/BSA Ethnography Award and co-awarded the British Society of Criminology Book Prize. Reviews have been published in Global Crime, Scottish Justice Matters the British Journal of Criminology and Crime Media Culture, as well as media reporting of the work in the Daily Record, Sunday Herald and Evening Times. His new book, Gangs and Crime: Critical Alternatives was published by Sage in 2017. Most recently Alistair was joint lead investigator on a major new study on the community impact of organised crime in Scotland, funded by the Scottish Government.
Alistair is a regular contributor to public debate on issues of crime and justice and has written for the Wall Street Journal, Herald, Scotsman and Conversation as well as making contributions to BBC Scotland, BBC’s ‘Timeline’, STV's 'Scotland Tonight', and BBC Radio Four's 'Thinking Allowed.' In 2017-18, Alistair was selected as a BBC/AHRC ‘New Generation Thinker’ and collaborated with BBC Radio 3 on a series of broadcasts on themes of gangs, street culture, gentrification, and boredom. In addition Alistair works hard to engage with different audiences, most recently in a collaboration with the People's Palace Museum, Glasgow, to create a 'digital alternative' guide to the displays for secondary school students.
Alistair has a longstanding interest in global and comparative criminology, and is currently Associate Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, with a remit for international mobility. Prior to joining Glasgow spent four years as Assistant Professor in Criminology in the Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong,where he was awarded the Faculty of Social Sciences 'Outstanding Teaching Award' for 2013-14. He continues to work and collaborate with colleagues at the University of Hong Kong, mostly recently co-editing a special issue of the Crime Media Culture on the theme of Asian criminology. In 2018 he was awarded an 'Outstanding Paper' award by the Hong Kong Studies Association for a paper from the same issue.
Alistair welcomes prospective PhD applicants in the areas of gangs, crime and justice; youth studies; urban sociology; and global and comparative criminology. He is particularly interested in studies using comparative, qualitative, ethnographic, digital or visual methodologies.
Research interests
Youth crime and justice
Gangs and subcultures
Global and comparative criminology
Urban sociology
Place and space
Ethnography and qualitative methods
Oral history
Asian criminology
Grants
2017 – 2018 Reimagining Crime and Justice: An Alternative Guide. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Impact Acceleration): €9,500 - PI.
2016 – 2018 Community Experiences of Serious and Organised Crime. Funded by the Scottish Government: €162,000 - co-PI.
2014 – 2015 (Re)Imagining Gangs: A Study of Gang Identity in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Funded by the University of Hong Kong: €10,000 – PI.
2013 – 2015 (Re)Imagining Youth: A Comparative Sociology of Youth Leisure in Scotland and Hong Kong. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and Research Grants Council (HK): €150,000 – co-PI.
2013 – 2015 Reducing Hong Kong's Youth Crime Through Community Intervention: An Evaluation of Operation Breakthrough. Funded by Operation Breakthrough: €22,000 – co-PI.
2012 – 2015 How Young People Obtain Psychoactive Drugs in Hong Kong. Research Grants Council (HK): €51,000 – co-I.
2012 – 2014 Excavating the Walled City: Youth and Order in Hong Kong’s Forbidden Enclave. Funded by University of Hong Kong: €13,000 – PI.
Supervision
Previous
Jankowski, K. (2017) 'Finding Place in the Liquid City: mobility and identity in Lan Kwai Fong' (MPhil, University of Hong Kong)
Alnasser, F. (2018) 'Youth transitions and social change in Kuwait: tensions between tradition and modernity' (PhD, University of Glasgow)
Current
Smith, E. (2015-) 'Illicit Markets in the Global City: The Cultural Property Trade in Hong Kong' (PhD, University of Glasgow)
Casey, R. (2017-) 'The lived experience of penal electronic monitoring' (PhD, University of Glasgow)
Teaching
2015 – 2017 Course Coordinator: The Global Criminal Economy; Youth, Gangs & Globalization; Sociology of the City; Research Methods in Criminology – University of Glasgow, UK.
2011 – 2015 Course Coordinator: Social Problems; Youth & Delinquency; Youth Crime in the Global City; Methods of Research in Criminology – University of Hong Kong, HKSAR.
Room 210, Sccjr, Ivy Lodge, 63 Gibson Street,
