Hilary Pilkington is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on youth, inclusion and exclusion, political participation, activism and extremism. She has coordinated a number of projects working on young people’s jengagement and disengagement from politics and its connection to support for radical agendas (FP7 MYPLACE project - https://myplaceresearch.wordpress.com/; H2020 DARE - https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/dare/). She has also participated in European projects working to break down barriers to the social involvement of stigmatised groups of young people (H2020 PROMISE - http://www.promise.manchester.ac.uk/en/home-page/) and to enhance attention to intersectionality in youth participatory bodies (Horizon SINCRoNY). Her research is ethnographic, engaging with young people to understand complex life situations and barriers to participation. She has worked with policymakers and practitioners including on dialogue intervention tools designed to bring young people from polarised positions into meaningful engagement with one another.

Recent publications include: (ed.) (2024) Resisting Radicalisation? Understanding Young People’s Journeys Through Radicalising Milieus, Berghahn; (2022) ‘Why should we care what extremists think? The contribution of emic perspectives to understanding the ‘right-wing extremist’ mind-set’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 51(3): 318–346; (with Acik, N.) (2020) ‘Not entitled to talk: (Mis)recognition, inequality and social activism of young Muslims’, Sociology, 54 (1): 181-198.