
Justice, Insecurity & Fair Decision Making
We anticipate the intensifying dynamics of communities, and develop strategies to promote fairness and social cohesion

About us
Using interdisciplinary insight, we look to understand the roots of insecurity and injustice and develop new solutions to drive positive change. Our exploration of this theme takes place across multiple scales and areas: from international courts to street corners, from prisons to work places, from private security to environmental security in health and social care and in the digitally driven disruptive fora of the future
Latest News
Browse our latest events, project highlights and blog posts below. If you would like to feature your work on our page, please email justice-irt@glasgow.ac.uk.
Call for new IRT leaders: Justice, Insecurity and Fair Decision Making
The Justice, Insecurity and Fair Decision Making theme is looking to recruit additional researchers to its leadership team...(read more)
EVENT I Secure and Resilient World: UKRI cross council theme networking
The aim of this session held in September 2023 was to identify potential collaborations around UKRI's strategic focus on Building a Secure and Resilient World...[read more]
EVENT I Justice IRT 'Open House' Networking Event
Our Justice IRT ‘open house’ networking event took place on 5 September 2023 to connect colleagues and establish collaborations at the start of the new semester...[read more]
EVENT I Interdisciplinary Writing Retreat: Language, Values and Rights
This two day interdisciplinary writing retreat held in August 2023 was built around the themes of language, values and human rights. The event was hosted by the Justice, Insecurity and Fair Decision Making IRT and was held at the School of Social and Environmental Sustainability, Crichton Campus, Dumfries...[read more]
PROJECT HIGHLIGHT | Teaching for Digital Justice, Fairness and Inclusion
This project responds to the challenges and opportunities young people face in a fast-paced digitally connected world. We are interested in the ways that digital citizenship is enacted in secondary schools across the UK, as well as in the day-to-day life of schools - from setting homework through virtual learning environments, to using biometric data to store students’ lunch money... [read more]
PROJECT HIGHLIGHT | Sites of Justice: Archive, Art and Street Protest
What form does justice take when juridical mechanisms such as courts are not available or tainted by proximity to political violence? In addition to legal justice-making, alternative sites of justice-making proliferate, from archives to street protests. This project uses an ethnographic approach to investigate such plural forms of justice-making... [read more]
What Justice, Insecurity & Fair Decision Making means to me
Our aim is to lead and facilitate social science research that explores justice and fair decision making - from formal criminal and civic justice systems and human rights frameworks, to people's understanding of these concepts. Research at Glasgow also explores how concepts of justice and fairness are situated in different contexts, for example global corporations, education, migration, political economy, and armed conflict.
Watch these short videos from our theme leaders and discover what the Justice, Insecurity and Fair Decision Making theme means to them and their research.
Justice, Insecurity & Fair Decision Making to me...
David Lundie
Religious and secular worldviews, value pluralism and moral education. Drawing on philosophical, anthropological and sociological perspectives to understand complex decision multi-agency decision-making, particularly for young people.
Justice, Insecurity & Fair Decision Making to me...
Marguerite Schinkel
Marguerite’s research focuses on criminal justice. In her PhD and post-doc research she explored how prison sentences are given meaning by those who undergo them. More recently, she has explored the impact of Covid-19 and lockdown on penal experiences in Scotland. Besides the lived experience of punishment, she is interested in how people escape cycles of harm, the places and spaces that help/hinder this, and alternatives to criminal justice.
Justice, Insecurity & Fair Decision Making to me...
Nicole Busby
Nicole is an expert in equality law with particular interests in gendered inequalities, particularly in relation to paid work and unpaid care, the use of social and economic rights to achieve social justice and access to justice more generally. She is interested in how lived experience can influence law and policymaking and the use of legal processes. She undertakes academic research with civil society organisations to critique law and policy from a user’s perspective and has recently been investigating the application of Fineman’s Vulnerability Theory in these contexts.
Justice, Insecurity & Fair Decision Making to me...
Yingru Li
关心社会正义和人权, Yingru is interested in research that could have policy significance and impacts on the practice of corporate accountability for human rights and sustainable economy. In translating the theoretical concerns to the practice, she is closely engaged in projects that explore human rights issues in the corporate world and how to mobilize businesses to be “better” and more responsible.