Research & Outputs

My work is focused on grassroots efforts to Prevent/Counter Violent Extremism (P/CVE). Situated in decentered security governance, my research looks at the interplay between policy design and grassroots implementation, with a particular focus on how youth workers interpret, challenge, enact and adapt P/CVE policies to meet their pre-existing safeguarding practices. 

Key words: Youth work, Prevent, Violent Extremism, Security, Governance

 PhD Thesis

This research looks at grassroots implementations of P/CVE efforts in the UK. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with youth workers and practitioners I analyse the differences between goverment-funded, hybrid and independent organisations conducting P/CVE work to understand the relationship between policy design, its implementation and its effects on pre-existing grassroots practices such as safeguarding. This research is situated within the framework of Bevir's decentered security governance, which provides the analytical tools to discuss how P/CVE policy is reinterpreted, contested and enacted at grassroots level. A key contribution of this research to the P/CVE field is providing empirical data on grassroots work, providing a nuanced account of everyday practices of youth workers and practitioners as they incorporate security P/CVE premises into their pre-existing practices. 

Supervision: Prof. Tariq Modood & Prof. Therese O'Toole

Publications

Osorno, F. (2019) 'The local groups fighting violent extremism in the UK', Open Democracy - Global Extremes, online access at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/global-extremes/local-groups-fighting-violent-extremism-uk/

Book review: Tania Saeed (2018) Islamophobia and Securitization: Religion, Ethnicity and the Female Voice, Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series

Visiting Scholar: with Prof. Michael Kenney, University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, USA

Conferences papers

 

“Seeking Voices: Youth work countering violent extremism in the UK” (invited), (2018) Resilience 

Conference organized by EYST, Bristol, UK

 

“The unplanned effects of securitised counter-radicalisation policy on youth in the UK” (2018) ISA 

World Conference of Sociology in Toronto, Canada

 

“The unbearable lightness of radicalisation: the conflation of youth services and P/CVE programmes” 

(2017), ESA Conference in Athens, Greece

 “Radicalisation and the troubled youth” (invited), (2017) West Africa Peace and Security Network (WAPSN), University of Portsmouth, UK