Rowntree Revisited: 125 years on Karen Rowlingson and Victoria Hughes (chair)
Event details
125 years on from Seebohm Rowntree’s landmark study of poverty in York, a new question is coming into focus: how do we study wealth in the city today and what might it reveal?
In revisiting Rowntree's study, our expert panel will discuss new research to explore wealth, looking at who owns land, housing and assets, and how that shapes everyday life.
Poverty remains a pressing concern, but it cannot be understood - or addressed - without also examining wealth. As ownership becomes more concentrated and often disconnected from place, join us for a conversation about what we can learn from studying wealth, and how it might reshape how we understand inequality in York today.
This event is part of the Festival Focus series ‘Mapping Wealth, Ownership and Place in York’ presented in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. You may also be interested in ‘The York Model: Community wealth’ on Friday 12 June from 1pm to 2.30pm.
About the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) is an independent social change organisation whose mission is to speed up and support the transition to a future free from poverty, in which people and planet can flourish.
Image credit: Poverty map by Seebohm Rowntree, 1901. The Rowntree Society.
About the speakers
Karen Rowlingson is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Professor of Social Policy at the University of York and a leading expert on how wealth and assets shape our social fabric. Prior to York, she spent 15 years at the University of Birmingham where she held a number of senior leadership roles including Deputy Head of the College of Social Sciences and Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Engagement and Impact. Karen was Founding Director of CHASM (the Research Centre on Household Assets and Savings Management) in 2010 and is now an Honorary Professor at the Centre. Karen has also held broader leadership roles in her field as Chair of the Social Policy Association (from 2019-2022), Member of REF 2021 sub-panel for Social Work and Social Policy (UoA 20), Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Financial Exclusion (2016-17) and Vice Chair of the ESRC's Research Committee and Chair of its Grants Delivery Group (2010-2012). Karen has been a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences since 2013.
Victoria Hughes is Associate Director in Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Emerging Futures Team. She leads their place-based work in York and the wider North-East region, imagining and growing radical new approaches to tackling poverty and inequality. Previously, she worked as a Senior Civil Servant in Whitehall for a number of departments, including the Treasury, in a range of roles spanning Policy and analysis, Ministers’ offices and managing financial strategy and commercial contracts. She started life as a social researcher, working with communities in the North East with local universities. She is a Trustee at Redhills in Durham, otherwise known as the ‘Pitmen’s Parliament’. She specialises in strategic analysis, public policy, financial strategy, place-based work, research design, management and research practice alongside communities.
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