Gemma Carney gemma.carney@nuigalway.ie Location: Room 311, Cairnes Building, NUI Galway

Gemma Carney is a post-doctoral researcher in social entrepreneurship. Before joining the ICSG, Gemma was Policy Analyst at the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, a national representative organization for older people. Previously she was a lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin, where she was awarded a PhD in July 2005. Her PhD project was supported by scholarships from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the broad curriculum initiative at Trinity College Dublin, and a Luker Cobbe bursary from Girton College Cambridge.

Her PhD thesis provided a theoretically robust account of how international norms of gender equality translated into national level policy in the 2000-2006 National Development Plan. Since then, Gemma has worked on a number of collaborative projects in the public, private and third sectors. She has taught International Studies at the Open University and Women and Politics at Dublin City University. She currently offers supervisory support on the diploma in social gerontology at ICSG, and has designed and co-ordinated fourth level courses via the ISSP structured PhD programme.

Previous research projects include health sector reform, socio-economic and spatial mapping, pensions, long-term care funding and policy-making for older people. As Policy Analyst at the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, her research was
used by older people in negotiations with government, the HSE and the social partners. Gemma’s current research spans three elements of a broad programme of research examining ageing, participation and public policy. The first element looks at ageing and political participation. Recently published work under this theme examines the implications of policy design for senior political action (Ageing and Society 2010). Allied to political action is the social capital of older people. Gemma’s main current research project examines the role and potential of older people as social entrepreneurs. She is particularly interested in how social entrepreneurs might raise the political profile and salience of policy design for older people. The final theme concerns the use of participatory methodologies when researching civic engagement. Current projects include a participatory analysis of consultative forums for older people.

In December 2008, Gemma was awarded funding from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences to examine decision-making and instituional design across the lifecycle. Focused on the lifecycle as means of modernising social policy in the context of demographic ageing, the project is a participatory policy analysis of civil society organisations in the Republic of Ireland. Gemma is principal investigator, working with Aine Ni Leime and Camille Loftus at the ICSG and colleagues from the Child and Family Research Centre, the Centre for Innovation and Structural Change and the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at NUI Galway. The project is part of a broader development of a lifecycle research programme at NUI Galway. Arising from this project, Dr. Carney has convened a panel entitled ‘Multi-disciplinary explorations of deliberative democracy on the island of Ireland’ to be held at a conference of the Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist group of the Political Studies Association, Glasgow, June 2010.

Selected Publications

2010. Citizenship and Structured Dependency: the implications of policy design for senior political action’ Ageing and Society, 30, 2, February 2010.

2008. ‘Data, Anecdote and Metaphor in Gender Equality Policy-Making: Merging ‘Intellectual and Real World Mainstreaming’ in Carver, T. and Pikalo, J. (eds.) Politics, Language and Metaphor  London: Routledge.

2005. ‘Researching gender mainstreaming: data, ideology and the challenge of the Irish Context’ Administration  Summer, 2005

2003. (Spring 2003) ‘Communicating or Just Talking? Gender Mainstreaming as the Language of Global Feminism’ Women and Language Special Issue.   Global issues in Feminism: Challenges, Opportunities, Insights.

2002. ‘Feminism, the Women’s Movement and the Internationalisation of Gender Equality Policy: the Case of Gender Mainstreaming’ Irish Political Studies Vol 17. No. 2.

1999. (With Yvonne Galligan and Michael Laver) 'The Effect of Candidate Gender on Voting in Ireland, 1997' Irish Political Studies Vol. 14.  

Book Review

2006. ‘Can We Bridge the Theoretical Gap or Merely Generalise?’ Review of Kacowicz, A. (2005) ‘The Impact of Norms in International Society: the Latin American Experience, 1881-2001’ International Studies Review 8, 104-106.

Reports and Position Papers

2008. (with ISCP pensions sub-committee) ‘The Green Paper on Pensions: a submission from the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament’ Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, April 2008.

2007. ‘Home Care in the Republic of Ireland: a research paper’ Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, October 2007.

2007. ‘Taking a Position on the Fair Deal in the Context of Health Reform’ Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, August 2007.

2007. ‘Long-term care funding in the context of a health policy for older people’ Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, July 2007.

2007. ‘A Discussion Paper on A Fair Deal: the Nursing Home Care Support Scheme, 2008’ for Irish Senior Citizens Parliament, March 2007.

2006. (with Carmel Duggan) ‘A Profile of the Proposed New Catchment Area of Northside Partnership’ WRC Social and Economic Consultants, December 2006.

2004. ‘From Women’s Rights to gender mainstreaming: an examination of international gender norms in the Republic of Ireland’ Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics, Queen’s University Belfast, Occasional Paper #8. March 2004.

2000. (With team led by Yvonne Galligan) 'The Development of Mechanisms to Monitor Progress in Achieving Gender Equality in Ireland' Dublin: Department of Justice Equality and Law Reform. 

 

 

 

Irish Social Sciences Platform ISSP (Funded under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, administered by the HEA and co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)