Edinburgh University lecturer Chloë Kennedy awarded funding for identity deception research

Edinburgh University lecturer Chloë Kennedy awarded funding for identity deception research

Dr Chloë Kennedy

An Edinburgh University lecturer has been awarded funding for her research into identity deception.

Dr Chloë Kennedy, senior lecturer in criminal law, has been awarded a research leader fellowship by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to investigate the phenomenon.

The AHRC’s Research Leadership Fellows scheme provides funding for researchers to “undertake focused individual research alongside collaborative activities which have the potential to generate a transformative impact on their subject area and beyond”.

Dr Kennedy’s project, entitled ‘Identity Deception: A Critical History’, asks when, if ever, it is appropriate to punish a person who engages in identity deception (pretending to be someone they are not).

Focusing on two areas of identity deception in particular - identity ‘theft’ and intimate deceptions - the project examines how the criminal law is increasingly being used to penalise this kind of conduct.

Although distinct in many ways, these two developments represent an expansion of the criminal law’s scope and a redrawing of the lines between law and morality, and between deceptions that will be tolerated and those that will not. They also suggest a growing concern with protecting ‘identity’ via the criminal law and an elision of legal categories.

By tracing how law has responded to identity deception across the modern period (i.e. the 18th century to the present), and identifying the factors that have shaped these responses, the project aims to understand how and why these changes have occurred and to identify what is at stake in the transformation.

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