Jack Layton

Research Title

Active Publics: Everyday sports and fitness practices in the urban environment, their spaces and their politics

More about Jack

Academic Background

2015-2016: MSc Urban Studies, University College London, distinction: Dissertation: ‘Southbank Centre and the Long Live Southbank Campaign: a study of public spaces, and democratic practices’
2011-2014: BA Geography, University of Cambridge, first class with distinction: Dissertation: ‘Running: Urban life and the ‘active’ use of public space’

Employment

2014 - 2015: Social Researcher, UK Government, Department of Communities and Local Government

Teaching

I teach on the following modules:

Public Space and the City (GEOG0139)
Urban Geography (GEOG0028)
The Practice of Geography (GEOG0016)
Global Geographies (GEOG1007)

Additionally, I have been a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant from 2016 - 2018

Publications

Writing

Layton, J. (forthcoming) Review of: Borden, I. (2019) Skateboarding and the city: A complete history. Urban Studies.
Latham, A. and Layton, J. (forthcoming) Kinaesthetic cities: Studying worlds of amateur sports and fitness in contemporary urban environments. Progress in Human Geography.
Latham, A. and Layton, J. (forthcoming) Social infrastructure and the public life of cities: Studying urban sociality and public spaces. Geography Compass.
Latham, A. and Layton, J. (forthcoming) Publics and their problems: Notes on the remaking of the South Bank, London. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Latham, A. and Layton, J. (2018) Editors' Introduction: The City — Post-Modernity. In: Latham, A. (ed.) The City: Post-Modernity. London: Sage.

Presentations

Social infrastructures and public facilities: Notes on Finsbury Park London, AAG 2019
Social infrastructures and the public life of cities: Materialities, institutions, and practices. Co-organised set of sessions, AAG 2019
Publics and their Problems - redeveloping the Southbank Centre in times of austerity, RGS-IBG 2018
Kinaesthetic Cities: making sense of exercise, sport and physical fitness in contemporary urban life, RGS-IBG 2018
Author meets critics panel discussion, Clive Barnett's (2017) The Priority of Injustice, RGS-IBG 2018
Researching urban public space through everyday sports and fitness practices, UCL Human Geography Seminar Series

Non-Academic Work

Layton, J. (2017) The Skate Escape. The Journal of The London Society, no. 471: 44-49.
Layton, J. (2017) My Achilles Heel. Like The Wind, no. 12: 66-67.
Layton, J. (2014) Living For The City. Like The Wind, no. 2: 88-89.

Research Interests

My research focus is everyday urban public spaces. My aim is to understand how public spaces are assembled, the kinds of social life that are facilitated by them, and their broader impact on the urban environment. My current project is on sports and fitness practices.

It focuses on three well-used public spaces in London, and explores how they are assembled and maintained, the ways of being together they facilitate, and the kinds of civic organisation that coalesce around them. This will mean thinking sports and fitness practices as public, and thinking public spaces as prosaic. The aim is to broaden the conceptual vocabulary for understanding what public spaces are, what happens in them, and what they can do.

Research Grants, Prizes and Awards

2016: Runner up in the UCL Research Images as Art competition
2015: Economic and Social Research Council 1+3 funded PhD studentship at UCL
2014: Downham Yeomans Scholarship, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge
2014: Dick Chorley Award, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge
2014: Nomination for the Royal Geographical Society and Transnational Institute of British Geographers Dissertation Prize