Network Spring 2020 v65 Layout 1 · Network Recording the working lives of sociologists for over 40 years Issue 134, Spring 2020 Also in this issue: n Researcher denied permanent

NetworkIssue 134, Spring 2020Recording the working lives of sociologists for over 40 years

Also in this issue:n Researcher denied permanent residency after time abroad n Durham’s Protest Singer in Residence hits a high noten Brexit ‘could make sociology’s work more difficult’n A sociology degree benefits women more than men

Warning signs: sociologiststalk about threats to society

5

11

14

9

6

7

15 Will the Irish continue to be

the UK’s reserve army of

labour? asks Louise Ryan

4 Durham’s new Protest

Singer in Residence gives

voice to key messages

30 Sarah Handyside tells us

about how researching her

PhD has inspired her

18 Sociology may become

more difficult after Brexit,

says Dennis Smith

OpinionNews

31 Would you like to

contribute to Network?

We detail how you can

16 We take our regular look at

the sociological world

beyond the shores of the UK

26 Our reviewers look at books

on sociology, citizenship

and black feminism

28 Professor Abby Day tells us

about the books that

inspired her career

Features

The BSA has cancelled its

three main conferences

this year amid the pandemic

Website about migrants’

contribution wins a

prestigious award

SRO journal editors plan to

launch a new current

issues section

Drug testing service at

festivals wins award for

Fiona Measham

Robert Dingwall, sociologist

of law, is given award for

his work

Researcher’s work helps

Instagram to protect

young people online

12 Rise in anti-vaccine

sentiment includes pet

owners, event hears

Contents 3

Spring 20204

Main feature:Our feature looks at the

immediate effects of thecoronavirus on the

discipline, and also atsociologists’ wider

hopes and fears about society today

See page 20

BSA Trustees:

Aminu Musa Audu

John Bone (Chair)

Sarah Cant

Mark Doidge

Stevi Jackson

Janice McLaughlin

Chrissie Rogers

Louise Ryan

Michael Savage

Richard Waller

Chris Yuill

Editorial Team:

Judith Mudd

Tony Trueman

Alison Danforth

Note: where not stated, copyright of photographs generally lies withthe researchers featured in the article, their institutions or the BSA

Production/Enquiries:

[email protected]

Tel: 07964 023392

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Spring

Summer

Autumn

Available online to members:

www.britsoc.co.uk

Longer versions of some Networkarticles can be seen at:

https://www.britsoc.co.uk/members-

area/network (login needed)

Please note that the views expressed in Network and any enclosures or advertisements are not necessarily those of BSA Publications Limited or the

British Sociological Association (BSA). While every care is taken to provide accurate information, neither the BSA, the Trustees, the Editors, nor the contributors undertake

any liability for any error or omission. BSA Publications Ltd is a subsidiary of the British Sociological Association, registered in England and Wales, Company Number:

01245771. The British Sociological Association was founded in 1951. It is a Registered Charity (no. 1080235) and a Company Limited by Guarantee (no. 3890729).

Disclaimer:

Network:

©2020 BSA Publications Ltd

ISSN: 1742-1616

Network Magazine of the British Sociological Association, Spring 2020

Durham University: The normally quietcorridors of the Sociology Department rangto an unusual sound during the winter – thatof protest songs, performed by an officially-appointed singer.

The department hired Nicky Rushton(pictured above right with her band), astalwart of the regional music scene over thepast 20 years, as Protest Singer in Residence,the first such post at a British university.

Professor Catherine Donovan, the Head ofDepartment, had the idea of hiring a protestsinger who would write four songs reflectingthemes from the four research areas of thedepartment: communities and social justice,health and social theory, higher educationand social inequalities, and violence and abuse.

Nicky played the songs at the department’sSociology Sings Back event at Durham on 20February, the first day of the latest round ofUCU university strikes and also the UnitedNations Day of Social Justice.

As part of the project, departmentsociologists played a song of their choiceduring lectures and seminars before theevent. Their choices have been put on aSpotify playlist, Now That’s What I Call …Sociology Sings Back 2020:https://tinyurl.com/r2he2fy

These include Anarchy in the UK by theSex Pistols, Strange Fruit by Nina Simone,

Police and Thieves by Junior Murvin, and, incontrast, Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto.

Professor Donovan said she thought of theidea of a protest singer in residence afterlistening to the feminist singer Grace Petrie.

“I thought we should be doing somethingmore with our research than just writing it upfor academic, policy and practitioneraudiences – we should be disseminating thekey messages, many of which promote socialchange and social justice, in different ways.

“Protest songs became the way we exploredthis idea this year. If the project is successfulthen next year we might look at differentways, such as poetry or photography.”

The department had 24 applicants for thepost, with six interviewees who each gave a 20-minute presentation, which includedplaying some of their songs to the interviewpanel, Professor Donovan, Dr Lisa Mckenzie,Rachael Barnwell and Dr Richard Bruce.

Professor Donovan said that deciding whoto appoint had been difficult because theapplicants were “extremely strong”.

“All of those shortlisted could have donethe job. What Nicky did differently was talkabout how she had felt intimidated byacademic work, but then realised that thisfeeling would be useful in order to get her tochallenge academics to speak about theirwork to a non-academic audience.”

Nicky Rushton was half of the duo And AllBecause The Lady Loves (named after the MilkTray ad of the 1970s) which played their sets ofbittersweet songs on the club circuit in the 1980sand ’90s and toured with Microdisney andMichelle Shocked.

She is currently a member of several bands,including Mush, a Newcastle‐based group whichhas released eight albums. Nicky also works forEqual Arts, a charity working with older peopleand people with dementia.

She was delighted to get the post of ProtestSinger. “It was the first interview I’ve ever had andthe first job I’ve ever applied for, so I was terrified.

“But for me I couldn’t pass the words ‘protest’and ‘singer’ by, they are such a good combination.I put a lot of preparation into the 20‐minutepresentation and at the interview I sang somesongs that I had written – called Flesh and Blood,You’ll Never Keep us Down, Ladybird, about dementia,and Peggy Paterson, who was arrested in 1901 forlarceny, who was featured in a museum exhibition.

“Probably 98 per cent of my songs have beenprotest songs in one form or another. I’ve writtenabout Thatcher and against inequality.”

To write her four songs, she drew on protestsingers such as Billy Bragg and Joni Mitchell forinspiration, but not on any formal sociologybackground. But as she says: “I haven’t studiedsociology – but I’ve studied life and it seems to bepretty similar.”

Key messages sung at Durham

4 General news

Magazine of the British Sociological Association, Spring 2020 Network

Sociologists once again played a prominentrole in the strike over pay and conditions,which saw academics, technicians andlibrarians at 74 universities walk out andpicket campuses on 14 days in February andMarch.

University and College Union memberstook strike action in two separate legaldisputes, one on pensions and one on payand working conditions. It affected around amillion students.

The UCU is demanding that universitiescover the costs of recent rises in pensioncontributions and wants bigger wageincreases to offset what it says is a fall of 20per cent over the past decade.

It also demands action to close the pay gapfor women, ethnic minorities and thedisabled, and reduce the number of jobs withshort term or zero-hours contracts.

The University of Portsmouth’s Sociologysection tweeted: “Uni staff across the UK are

currently striking for better workingconditions & equality. We are sure many ofour students feel passionate re socialinequalities & social justice & we will sharesome of the strike action here.”

Dr Jana Bacevic, of the University ofCambridge, tweeted: “Hello from the picketline! Just thinking how most people I see outare early career/precariously employedacademics, so here’s a call for our securelyemployed colleagues – come out, join us, it’syour working conditions and pensions too!”

It wasn’t just sociology staff who took action.Brighton UCU tweeted their appreciation ofone sociology student’s contribution ofpackets of biscuits for the picketers: “Thankyou to Abbie who does sociology! BiscuitsVERY appreciated. Student support fantastictoday as always.”See photo below of Abbie

The strike comes after the University andCollege Employers Association said thatfinancial pressures on higher education madeit difficult to increase salaries, withuncertainties about future levels of fundingand student numbers. • The BSA issued a statement saying it“supports our members and all sociologistswho are affected by the UCU strike action.To honour the digital picket line, the BSA willnot tweet, retweet or send promotionalemails for the full strike period...with theexception of urgent emails.”

Sociologists play strike role

General news 5

The BSA has cancelled its three mainconferences this year: the annual event inApril, and the Medsoc and Work, Employmentand Society conferences in September.

The annual conference was cancelled amidthe lockdown as the coronavirus began tospread, and the other events were abandonedwhen fewer researchers booked amid theuncertainty caused by the outbreak.

The BSA’s Chief Executive, Judith Mudd,said in a statement that the money it had lostby cancelling the events, and the reduction injournal income from the move to open accesspublishing meant that savings would need tobe made.

“We have been taking steps to do this,focusing on areas where we might makesavings while protecting our key functions,she said.

“For example, we may need to replacemore face-to-face meetings with virtual ones(perhaps not be a bad thing, thinking aboutenvironmental issues), and we may not beable to provide as much financial support foras many activities as we would like over theshort term. We might also need to move

more of our publications to online only, atleast on a temporary basis, including ourmembers’ magazine, Network.”(Note: thisissue is published online only, for the firsttime in Network’s 45-year history.)• For a feature on the effects of the coronavirus onthe discipline, see pages 20 and 21.

Coronavirus: the BSAcancels main events

Judith Mudd

Residencydenied due totime abroadA sociologist has been refused permanentresidency because she spent time abroad forher PhD 11 years ago.

Dr Nazia Hussein spent six monthsresearching class and gender identity inBangladesh for her doctorate in women andgender studies at the Department of Socio-logy at University of Warwick in 2009.

Dr Hussein, now a lecturer at theUniversity of Bristol, was “absolutelyshocked” when her application for indefiniteleave to remain was rejected recently, on thegrounds that she had spent too many daysout of the country during the 10-yearapplication period.

This was despite the fact she had submittedclear evidence that her PhD researchconstituted essential fieldwork and anunavoidable and legitimate absence.

“In their letter, the Home Office said I amvery qualified and could easily settle back inBangladesh. They are right that I am veryqualified, but I have chosen to be in thiscountry,” she told The Guardian.

“My qualifications are from this countryand I have spent the last 10 years teachingyoung people in this country.”

She has now been granted a two-yeardependent visa, which she applied for on theback of her husband’s residency.

At the end of that she will be able toreapply for permanent residency. In the lastyear the family has spent more than £11,000on immigration fees.

Dr Hussein’s husband had been grantedindefinite leave to remain, which has meanttheir three-year-old daughter could get aBritish passport.

Professor Therese O’Toole, Director ofResearch at the University of Bristol’s Schoolof Sociology, Politics and InternationalStudies, said: “This government says we areglobally open and receptive.

“But for really great researchers like Naziato build their lives here and then find allthese obstacles thrown in their way sends outentirely the wrong message.”

Dr Nazia Hussein

6 Departmental news


Robert Dingwall has been awarded the 2019Prize for Contributions to the Socio-LegalCommunity.

Professor Dingwall has had a long careerin socio-legal studies and the sociology oflaw, including positions at the universities ofOxford, Nottingham and NottinghamTrent.

The citation spoke of him as “anoutstanding scholar whose range oftheoretically driven insights over wide areashas been incredibly influential across ourdiscipline.

“He has, both personally and through hismethodological publications, beenresponsible for developing and maintainingtraining for interdisciplinary socio-legaldoctoral students.

“In particular, his work on power relationsin mediation...which catalysed heateddebate in the mediation community, hasweathered the storm caused by the findingsand has since become a seminal text in thefield.”

Professor Dingwall said later: “This isindeed a great honour, perhaps the mostmeaningful that has ever come my waybecause it is from a group where I have

found a true professional home. “Being a sociologist of law in the UK is an

increasingly lonely pursuit and I have alwaysbeen grateful for the collegial welcomefrom the socio-legal community. It isinvariably exciting to spend a few dayswhere I don’t have to smuggle an interest inlaw into some other field of study.”

Influential sociologistof law awarded prize

Two sociologists, Professor Jane Elliott andProfessor Lucinda Platt, were among thosereceiving awards in the New Year’s Honourslist.

Professor Elliott, of the University ofExeter, receives a CBE for services to thesocial sciences.

She was Chief Executive of the ESRCfrom 2014 -2017, and before that Head ofDirector of the Centre for LongitudinalStudies at UCL.

Professor Elliott has managed and ledanalysis for major longitudinal surveyswhich follow the lives of thousands ofpeople. Her book, Using Narrative in SocialResearch: Qualitative and QuantitativeApproaches, was published in 2005.

Lucinda Platt, Professor of Social Policyand Sociology at the LSE, receives an OBEfor services to the social sciences. She is aquantitative sociologist whose workaddresses inequalities relating to ethnicity,migration, gender and disability.

She also works on identity, child povertyand the methodology and history of socialsurveys.

Professor Platt previously worked at UCLInstitute of Education, where she wasDirector of the Millennium Cohort Study.

The Norbert Elias book prize has beenrevived, after being in abeyance for someyears.

The prize of €1,000 will be awarded everytwo years to a book that is an original andwell-written argument significantly inspiredby Elias’s work. It need not have a strictEliasian paradigm, however.

The Board of the Norbert Elias Found-ation, which runs the prize, says that nomin-ated books, which can include trans-lationsfrom other languages, must not be olderthan two years. So, for the 2020 prize, thiswill rule out books published before 2018.

Although priority will be given to lessexperienced scholars or newcomers, it willno longer be a strict requirement that onlya first book by an author may be considered.

The jury for the 2020 Prize will be:Professor Stephen Mennell, UniversityCollege Dublin, who is the Chair, ProfessorAnnette Treibel, University of EducationKarlsruhe, and Professor Stephen Vertigans,Robert Gordon University.

Nominations for the prize should be sentto Arjan Post, Secretary to the Norbert EliasFoundation, by 30 April, either by post toJ.J. Viottastraat 13, 1071 JM Amsterdam,The Netherlands, or by email [email protected]

Awards given Prize revived

BSA trusteesset out strategyfor 2020-22The BSA’s trustees have agreed theirstrategic priorities for the three years 2020-2022, setting out three main aims ofpromoting sociology, nurturing a strongand vibrant community of sociologists andsustaining the association.

Within each aim are a series of objectives,including enhancing the understanding ofsociology through wider public and mediaengagement and promoting examples ofwhere sociology is making a positivedifference.

It also promises to develop partnershipswith policymakers and non-governmentalorganisations and to build alliances withlike-minded organisations.

The strategy will promote BSAmembership as essential for UKsociologists, develop better ways formembers to connect with each other, andfoster positive interactions between the BSAand its members.

The strategy also promised to sustain thecharity through the responsible use ofresources, by protecting its current incomestreams and exploring new fundingopportunities, as well as investing in thecare and development of staff andvolunteers and making operational savingswhere feasible.

The strategy was agreed before thecoronavirus pandemic and may beconstrained by its effects.

Professor Robert Dingwall

Do you havenews to share?Network is looking for news,features, opinions and bookreviews.

If you’re interested in having yoursay, please contact Tony Trueman,at [email protected] on 07964 023392.

Departmental news 7


University of Sheffield: A researcher’s workhas led Instagram to restrict the access ofunder-18s to online content about dietproducts and cosmetic surgery.

Dr Ysabel Gerrard was part of a team ofexperts consulted by Instagram when itlooked at the best way to protect youngpeople.

From September the social media giant,used by a billion people each month, beganrolling out a new policy that prohibits under-18s from viewing posts relating to detox pills,diet pills and other weight loss and cosmeticprocedures.

Any content that makes a miraculous claimabout diet or weight loss products will bebanned from the site for violating the newcommunity guidelines.

Dr Gerrard, lecturer in Digital Media andSociety in the Department of SociologicalStudies, is a former intern at MicrosoftResearch New England, and a member ofFacebook’s Suicide and Self-Injury AdvisoryBoard.

She said of Instagram’s change: “It willcontribute to a bigger culture shift and be apositive force for the war on bodies –particularly female bodies.

“Young women have been targeted withproducts, creams and injectables and thesepolicies will ease and lessen the exposure ofthese products for people who are stillmentally developing.

“It’s hard to blame social media solely forinfluencing eating disorders, but the contentwe see on social media is a contributing factorto how we feel about our bodies.”

Expert helps protectyoung people online

Dr Ysabel Gerrard

University of York: Two Bills that wouldreform laws on pardons for homosexual actsand on inheritance tax will be voted on byparliament in the coming months. Both weredrafted by Professor Paul Johnson, Head ofthe Department of Sociology, based on hisresearch.

The Armed Forces (Posthumous Pardons)private members Bill passed its first reading, aprocedural formality, in January. A secondreading, the first opportunity for members ofthe Lords to debate the main principles ofthe Bill, is yet to be scheduled.

The aim of the Bill is to grant posthumouspardons to army and Royal Marinespersonnel convicted before 1881 of now-abolished homosexual offences. If passed, theBill will address omissions in the Policing andCrime Act 2017, which gave posthumouspardons to many convicted of such offences,but omitted some categories of people.

The Bill is sponsored by Lord Cashman, theformer EastEnders actor, founder ofStonewall and gay rights campaigner.

The second Bill, the Inheritance Tax Act1984 (Amendment) (Siblings) Bill, whichalso had its first reading in January, aims tomake the transfer of assets between siblingswho live together exempt from inheritancetax in some circumstances.

In other York news, Professor AndrewWebster was one of the organisers of lastyear’s AsSIST-UK conference, which focusedon science, technology and innovation.

AsSIST-UK – the Association for Studies inInnovation, Science and Technology – heldthe conference at the University ofManchester, attended by 80 delegates.

The plenary addresses looked at howarchitecture contributes to the changingnature of scientific practice, and at theexperiences of STS researchers in the field ofsynthetic biology.

A report is available on the AsSIST-UKwebsite: https://tinyurl.com/sgpgowy

Professor Paul Johnson

Gay pardon Bill goes to Lords

£1m projectlaunched tohelp migrantsUniversity of Edinburgh: Dr Gil Viry hassecured £1.1 million in funding for aproject to find out how teachers can besthelp migrant students to avoid under-achieving at school or being excluded.

The ‘Teaching that matters for migrantstudents: understanding levers ofintegration in Scotland, Finland andSweden’ employs social network analysisand ethnographic research in six schools inthe three countries.

The University of Edinburgh is workingwith three other universities, Stockholm,Jyvaskyla and Turku, on the project, fundedby the Joint Nordic-UK ResearchProgramme on Migration and Integration.

The expected outputs include fourarticles and one special issue in academicjournals, a project website, a short film andsix school exhibitions that show migrantstudents’ experiences through their ownartefacts, such as photos and videos.

In other Edinburgh news, a set ofresources for teaching the analysis of largevolumes of secondary qualitative data hasbeen made available.

The materials, which include podcasts,videos and handouts, are a follow-on fromwork by Dr Emma Davidson and ProfessorLynn Jamieson with the National Centre forResearch Methods.

They can be accessed at:https://tinyurl.com/vovjcst

Professor Nasar Meer took part in anevent at the Scottish Parliament to mark 20years since the publication of theMacpherson Report into the murder ofStephen Lawrence and the MetropolitanPolice’s response.

He also gave evidence to the Parliament’sEqualities and Human Rights Committeeon the progress of race equality inScotland.

Professor Meer is Editor in Chief of thejournal Identities: Global Studies in Cultureand Power, which this year held its annuallecture at St Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh on‘The subject of decolonisation’.

Dr Angus Bancroft recently spoke on thetopic of artificial intelligence and creativityat the Beyond Conference, the annualresearch and development conference forthe creative industries.

Four new lecturers are joining theSociology Department. Dr Katucha Bentoand Dr Shaira Vadasaria join as lecturers ofrace and decolonial studies, and Dr KevinRalston and Dr Roxanne Connelly joinEdinburgh’s Q-Step Centre and will play arole in the development of a new ResearchTraining Centre in the School of Social andPolitical Science.

8 Departmental news


University of Lincoln: Dr Anna Tarrant haswon a fellowship worth £1.2 million to extendher research into ways of helping young fathers.

Since 2016, Dr Tarrant has led the project‘Responding to young fathers in a differentway’, set up to counteract the negativeimpression of young fathers.

This has now been extended for four years,with funding from Round 2 of the UKRIFuture Leaders Fellowship Scheme to carryout research on the needs of young fathersusing qualitative longitudinal, participatoryand comparative methods.

A part of the project, called the YoungDads Collective, trains fathers aged under 25to become advocates on behalf of otheryoung fathers when they deal withprofessionals. This has proven successful inLondon and was later introduced in Leeds.

The new funding will extend the YoungDads Collective to Grimsby and evaluate itsimpact on the lives of young fathers and theirfamilies in this new locality.

“In the current UK welfare and policycontext, young parents are often constructedas a risk and a problem,” said Dr Tarrant.

“Young fathers in particular are assumed tobe feckless, irresponsible or absent. Despitecompelling evidence that they desire to bepositively involved in their children’s lives,they continue to experience exclusion andstigmatisation, including in professionalsupport contexts.

“There is therefore a pressing need to see

young fathers in a different way and to turnthese commonsense, yet often unfoundedideas on their head.

“The scheme is a significant and excitingopportunity to implement a compassionateand truly participatory social policy andsupport environment in the UK, generatingan extended evidence base and practicesolutions of benefit for young fathers, theirfamilies and wider civil society.”

Dr Laura Way and Linzi Ladlow joined theteam as Research Fellows in January. Moredetails of the project are at:https://followingfathers.leeds.ac.uk/impactand at https://fyff.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk

£1m project helps young dads

A partnership which has helped youthworkers support young people in thecriminal justice system has won a prestigiousTimes Higher award.

The Greater Manchester Youth JusticeUniversity Partnership linked academicsfrom Manchester Metropolitan Universitywith services in the city that help youngpeople.

The initiative led to researchers workingwith young people to develop ParticipatoryYouth Practice, a framework which includesyoung people in its design and delivery.

This is based on eight principles,including, ‘let them participate’,‘acknowledge limited life chances’, ‘avoidthreats and sanctions’, and ‘develop theirambitions’. It has been embedded inpractice across Greater Manchester.

Researchers used innovative methodssuch as lyric writing and urban art withyoung people to develop it.

More than 260 staff in the area have now

benefited from the training, which has beendelivered by academics from the university’sManchester Centre for Youth Studies.

The initiative won the ‘KnowledgeExchange Project of the Year’, one of anumber of prizes given by the Times Higherto university initiatives last year.

The judges said they were impressed bythe partnership’s “linking of effectivepractice, research capabilities andcollaborative approaches.

“The framework has improved youthjustice services across the Greater Manchesterregion and, by giving children and youngpeople more of a voice, it helps to tacklereoffending rates and improve life chances.”

Criminologist Professor HannahSmithson, the academic lead on theinitiative, was among those who received theaward at the 15th annual Times HigherAwards gala dinner and ceremony.

She, her colleague Dr Deborah Jump, andPaul Axon, of Positive Steps Oldham, acharity for young people, adults andfamilies, which took part in the project,received the award.

Urban art helps win major awardfor youth justice partnership team

Hannah Smithson, Deborah Jump, Paul Axon

Dr Anna Tarrant

A week-long residential symposium fordoctoral candidates in disciplines includingsociology, economics, anthropology,philosophy, and business subjects is planned.

The 2020 Economy + Society SummerSchool takes place from 11 to 15 May atBlackwater Castle, in County Cork, Ireland.It will provide masterclasses where studentscan present their work, and will foster aspirit of scholarship and conversation.

Speakers include Chris Rojek, SharonWright, Mitchell Dean, Azrini Wahidin, BillCooke, Michelle Millar, Stefan Schwarzkopfand Lucy McCarthy. More details can befound at: https://tinyurl.com/vygm826• Please check for updates about the coronavirus

An international interdisciplinarysymposium is planned to look at the way thatmobilities research can be used in today’ssociety.

‘Im|mobile lives in turbulent times:methods and practices of mobilitiesresearch’ is scheduled to take place on 9 and10 July at Northumbria University’sNewcastle Business School.

The keynote speakers are: Professor SvenKesselring, Nuertingen-GeislingenUniversity, Professor Stephen Graham,Newcastle University, and Professor MaggieO’Neill, University College Cork. Moredetails: https://tinyurl.com/yxx89ka6

Round-up offuture events


Departmental news 9

University of Liverpool: Professor FionaMeasham has won an OutstandingContribution to Festivals award for her workon drug testing services at events.

Professor Measham was given the honourby the UK Festival Awards in December forsetting up The Loop, a non-profitorganisation that provides drug safetytesting and harm reduction services atnightclubs and festivals.

This was the first organisation to offerdrug safety testing services at UK events.People submit a sample, without fear of legalsanction, to be tested by The Loop’s team ofgraduate chemists, and the results are givento them by a healthcare professional.

UK Festival Awards said: “Throughout her30-year academic career – beginning atKing’s College, Cambridge and mostrecently as Chair in Criminology at theUniversity of Liverpool – Fiona’s work hasbeen shaped by her passion for music anddance culture.

“Amongst her achievements, she hasserved on the Government’s AdvisoryCouncil on the Misuse of Drugs, and on

David Nutt’s Drugs Science Committee, aswell as the Lib Dems’ expert panel oncannabis regulation.

“The Loop is a service that addresses the

reality of drug use in a pragmatic, non-judgmental and compassionate way.

“It has the power to save lives and, at atime of record drug related deaths nationally,it could not be more urgently needed.

“All the more impressive is that Fiona andher team of over 200 Loop volunteers are allunpaid and yet were able to develop andimplement the service with strong localstakeholder support in a profoundly hostilenational political context, more oftendominated by hysteria and scaremongeringthan the kind of measured evidenced basedpragmatism that has characterised Fiona’swork.

“Through this remarkable effort, Fionaand The Loop have not only helped keepyoung people safe but also changed thenational discourse amongst festivalpromoters, police, public health officials,the media and in Westminster.

“Policy on drugs and health has evolvedin a positive direction, away from the failedzero tolerance approaches of the past,towards a reality-based focus on health,leisure and harm reduction.”

Drug testing service at festivals wins award for outstanding work

Professor Fiona Measham

LSBU: The Crime and Justice ResearchGroup organised a conference with the aimof changing the way coercive control anddomestic abuse are considered.

‘Coercive control: contextualising theinvisible’ was held at the university as part ofan international campaign against gender-based violence which ran last year, beginningwith the International Day for the Elimin-ation of Violence Against Women in November.

The speakers at the LSBU event were:Lyndsey Dearlove, the Head of UK Says NoMore, the campaign committed to endingdomestic violence and sexual assault; RhianLewis, of the law firm Hogan LovellsInternational LLP; Dr Tirion Havard, LSBU;and Sophie Linden, London’s Deputy Mayorfor Policing and Crime.

The organisers say that although coerciveand controlling behaviour is now a criminaloffence, in reality this behaviour often goesunrecognised. By raising awareness it can beexposed as abusive.

The Crime and Justice Research Groupalso ran a seminar on ‘Stop and risk in theUS: a question of justice’, with a presentationby Professor Alex Vitale, of Brooklyn College,and another event on ‘Funding the elusivefemale gun-buyer: gender, rights andconsequences in US gun politics’, byProfessor Peter Squires, of the University ofBrighton.

Other events run at LSBU included aseminar by the Race, Gender and SexualitiesResearch Group on ‘The paradox of the anti-colonial settler-citizen: can the settlersrefuse?’, given by Dr Elian Weizman, ofSOAS.

Dr Clara Eroukhmanoff, of LSBU, gaveworkshop presentations entitled ‘Feministpolicy making – add feminism and stir’, andone entitled ‘The West and the rest?Challenging the emotions research agenda’at events in London.

Dr Eroukhmanoff’s book, The Securitisationof Islam: Covert Racism and Affect in the UnitedStates Post-9/11, was published recently, as wasThe Bonds of Family: Slavery, Commerce andCulture in the British Atlantic World, by Dr KatieDonington.

Event held on coercive controlKeele University: Dr Cora Xu has beenawarded a grant for a project which helpsChinese students educated in Britain toshare their untold experiences.

Her team will conduct a two-day digitalstorytelling workshop with six Chinesestudents using a creative research methodthat includes digital technology to exploretheir understanding of career andemployment.

Participants will produce a digital story bycombining pictures, video clips, music andrecorded voices.

Dr Xu will develop a toolkit from thefindings and present an online webinar forpostgraduate students looking to use theresearch method.

She will work with Dr Yang Hu, ofLancaster University, and research studentsfrom Keele and Lancaster for the project,funded by an ESRC CollaborativeInnovation Grant.

Dr Xu said: “The digital storytellingworkshop can enable our research team towork closely with a group of Chineseinternational students to explore theirunderstanding about career andemployment, an area that has often beenportrayed in a biased manner within themedia.”

Grant to helpChinese students

Dr Katie Donington

10 Departmental news


Goldsmiths: A five-year project whichinvestigated the work of statisticiansresponsible for surveys and data in Europeancountries has been completed.

‘Peopling Europe: how data make apeople’ (Arithmus) looked at how newdigital technologies and sources ofadministrative and big data are changingnational statistics.

The project, funded by the EuropeanResearch Council, was led by ProfessorEvelyn Ruppert and involved a team of post-doctoral and doctoral researchers studyingthe work of international organisations suchas Eurostat and national statistical institutes.

The main project outputs were two journalspecial issues, three books and variousarticles in peer-reviewed internationaljournals. Details at: www.arithmus.eu

In other Goldsmiths news, Dr Sara Farris’work on Elena Ferrante was used in theprogramme that accompanies the NationalTheatre’s new production of the Italianauthor’s Neapolitan novel series, My BrilliantFriend. Dr Farris has written about the novelsfor the Viewpoint website.

Goldsmiths researchers have had threebooks published recently. Professor DanNeyland’s work, Can Markets Solve Problems?,was launched at an event introduced bycolleague Professor Will Davies, withcomments from Professor Noortje Marres.

The book, co-authored with Dr VéraEhrenstein, of UCL, and Dr Sveta Milyaeva,University of Bristol, argues that whilemarket-based systems have been used ineducation, healthcare and carbon emissions,and proved controversial, there is no singleentity knowable as ‘the market’.

Dr Jennifer Fleetwood co-edited TheEmerald Handbook of Narrative Criminology.

This collection explores the methodologicalchallenges of analysing offenders’ stories andconsiders the narratives of victims, bystandersand criminal justice professionals:https://tinyurl.com/yx8pun3c

Dr Beckie Coleman’s book, Glitterworlds:The Future Politics of a Ubiquitous Thing, ispublished by Goldsmiths Press and examinesthe ubiquity of glitter, from bodilyadornment to activist glitter bombing.

Goldsmiths researchers have been involvedin various events. In her role as DistinguishedFellow at the University of New South Wales,Dr Marsha Rosengarten conducted aworkshop on ‘Time and infection’ and gave apublic lecture ‘Responding to abiomedicalised epidemic: a proposition foractivism in the current context of HIV’.

Dr Mariam Motamedi-Fraser gave a work-shop on ritualistic relations with non-humananimals at an event entitled ‘Reassemblingdemocracy: ritual as cultural resource’ at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.

Also, the Centre for Urban andCommunity Research hosted a series ofseminars entitled ‘Police, race, punishment:new directions in criminology’, put togetherby Dr Fleetwood and visiting professor JohnLea. These tackled topics including capitalpunishment and race, extrajudicial killings inPakistan, and law and disorder in the globalSouth.

Five-year project on how data isremaking Europe concludes

Professor Evelyn Ruppert

University of Glasgow: The School of Socialand Political Sciences has appointed two newmembers of staff in its sociology area.

Dr Thees Spreckelsen contributes toresearch methods for the Q-Step programme.Dr Spreckelsen worked at the universities ofOxford and Kent before moving to Glasgow.His research interests are on EU migrationand employment, and quasi-experimentalevaluation methods.

Dr Jennika Virhia is appointed as a researchassistant in the ‘Operationalising one healthin Tanzania’ project. She will help developand evaluate community-led solutions toreducing zoonotic disease in pastoralcommunities in northern Tanzania. Beforejoining the school, Dr Virhia was based in theSchool of Geographical and Earth Sciences,where she researched her PhD on zoonoticillness in Tanzania.

In other Glasgow news, a book that detailsthe pleasures and pains of learning a newlanguage in order to carry out ethnographicresearch has been published.

Learning and Using Languages inEthnographic Research has 15 case-study

accounts of ethnographers’ languagelearning.

The book is edited by Dr Robert Gibb andDr Julien Danero Iglesias, of the University ofGlasgow, and Dr Annabel Tremlett, Universityof Portsmouth.

A key theme is how researchers’experiences of learning and using otherlanguages in fieldwork contexts relate towider structures of power, hierarchy andinequality.

More details can be seen at:https://tinyurl.com/rjupl3p

Staff appointed at GlasgowDr Michelle Addison, of NorthumbriaUniversity, and Dr Maddie Breeze andProfessor Yvette Taylor, of the University ofStrathclyde, organised and spoke at an eventon ‘Imposterism in education: an individualproblem or a public feeling’.

The free public event, held at the Literaryand Philosophical Society of Newcastle, waspart of the ESRC Festival of Social Scienceand was at capacity with 70 attendees.

It also featured talks from school studentsfrom The Girls’ Network mentoring scheme,and from Dr Vicky Mountford-Brown, ofNewcastle University, and Tracey Herringtonof Thrive Teesside, which supports low-income communities.

Samia Singh, a graphic designer and artistbased in Punjab, India, designed the event’sartwork and gave a video talk.

Dr Addison, Dr Breeze and ProfessorTaylor are editing the Palgrave Handbook ofImposter Syndrome in Higher Education, due forpublication in 2021 and featuring over 30contributions from international authors.

Event tackles HE imposterism

Dr Annabel Tremlett

Departmental news 11


A new study of the experiences of LGBTQ+staff and students at the University ofCambridge has found that most feelsupported and safe, although it alsorecorded a minority who found their timethere “isolating”.

Researchers from the Department ofSociology, who conducted the qualitative‘Out at Cambridge’ study, say their findingsconfirm “significant progress” for LGBTQ+people at the institution.

Researcher and PhD candidate ElisabethSandler conducted 55 interviews withLGBTQ+ people: 31 staff members and 24students from 23 academic disciplinesacross all six Cambridge schools.

Professor Sarah Franklin, Head ofSociology, who led the research, said: “Thisresearch shows that, for many, Cambridge isone of the safest and most empoweringcommunities they have ever experienced.

“However, a small group of LGBTQ+ staffand students experiences Cambridge asunwelcoming and isolating. While muchprogress has been made, more still needs tobe done for a portion of the community –and we found that small changes can make

a big difference.”The report highlights “solidarity in

numbers” as a major contributor to a senseof comfort. One academic, now retired,described how having a lot of gay studentson one of the courses they taught gave them

the confidence to come out: “I knew thestudents would accept it.”

Students and staff members described thepositive impact of seeing rainbow flags onuniversity and college buildings. Onestudent spoke of attending a college servicein which the chaplain was vocal inwelcoming LGBTQ+ people: “[It] reallyhelped me to feel more comfortable todisclose myself.”

Some felt it “inappropriate” to disclosetheir identity as it was “irrelevant” to theirscholarly work. One postgraduate wasconcerned that disclosing themselves mightalter colleagues’ perceptions: “Thedepartment is very competitive…I wouldnot want them to see me as anything otherthan a professional person.”

Others who are already out spoke of theemotional labour involved, includingrepeatedly outing themselves in differentcontexts, feeling obliged to explainterminology or being seen as the ‘tokenqueer’. “I don’t know whether I want to dothe work of educating people,” explainedone student.

A website presenting the untold stories of themigrants who have shaped Britain has won aprestigious Guardian University Award.

Our Migration Story was set up to meetdemand from pupils for more diversehistories.

The website is divided into four timeperiods, from the Roman invasion of Britainin 43AD to Polish migration after 2004. Ineach section, images, quotations, videos,Parliamentary reports, poems and extractsfrom novels and newspapers, as well asacademic commentary, tell the stories ofmigrants to Britain.

The site, launched in 2016, supports newGCSEs on migration to Britain developed bythe OCR and AQA exam boards and includesquestions and classroom activities for teachersto use, as well as booklists and links to otherwebsites and organisations.

It is funded by the Arts and HumanitiesResearch Council and was developed byacademics from the universities of Manchesterand Cambridge, together with the raceequality think tank the Runnymede Trust,and draws on work from over 60 historians.

Teachers and teacher trainingorganisations, including Teach First and theInstitute of Education, have helped to refinethe site.

Since its launch, it has had more than

112,000 users – 53% from the UK and 47%from across the world.

Among the core team is Professor ClaireAlexander, of the University of Manchester.She said: “It gave a real boost to thearguments that we have been making forsome time about the importance ofrethinking British history and identity, howthat is taught in schools and how we imagineBritishness more generally. This is moreimportant now than ever.”

The site won the Research Impact categoryof the Guardian’s annual university awards. Itis at: www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk

Migration website wins award

Professor Sarah Franklin

Professor Claire Alexander

Minority of LGBTQ+ students feel‘isolated and unwelcome’ says report

Dr Manali Desai, of the Sociology Departmentat Cambridge, is the principal investigator ona new project investigating violence againstwomen in Delhi and Johannesburg.

The ESRC has given £1.76 million from2020 to 2023 for the project, which willexamine the transition from apartheid inSouth Africa, and from state-led developmentto neo-liberal economics in urban India.

It will explore how the shifts in security,ownership, rights and dispossession causedby these changes are manifested in genderedviolence in the two cities.

The project will have an emphasis onqualitative methodologies to allowresearchers to immerse themselves in thedaily life of specific neighbourhoods, whilealso looking at how local and national stateagencies and policies tackle violence againstwomen. It will draw broader conclusionsabout the effects of globalisation and urbantransformation on gender violence.

The other researchers on the project are:Professor Nandini Gooptu, University ofOxford; Professor Sanjay Srivastava, Instituteof Economic Growth, New Delhi; ProfessorKammila Naidoo, University ofJohannesburg; and Dr Lyn Ossome,Makerere Institute, Uganda.

Gender violencework gets funding

12 Study group news


Human-Animal studies group: The rise inanti-vaccine sentiment among the publicnow includes pet owners, Dr Pru Hobson-West, of the University of Nottingham, tolda recent event.

Dr Hobson-West, Associate Professor inthe School of Sociology and Social Policy,gave a lecture to the British VeterinaryAssociation Congress at the London VetShow on reasons why some owners arequestioning the merits of vaccination.

In the lecture, entitled ‘The rise of theanti-vaxxers: how should vets respond?’ DrHobson-West responded to a reportshowing an 18 per cent fall in the numberof dogs, cats and rabbits being vaccinated.

In her talk, she said that it was importantto look at pet owners’ trust in veterinaryadvice, rather than just provide educationabout the risk of diseases.

“These people are questioning the successnarrative of medicine and the same thing isnow happening in companion animalwork,” she said. “Trust in vets is potentiallyundermined by perceived conflicts ofinterest.

“What if vaccine critique is the symptomof something else – a wider disease, a widerproblem in society to do with risk, trust andscience? The challenge is that we have to bevery careful not to avoid misdiagnosing it,

otherwise we will make it worse.“Social media may now be spreading

critical ideas related to human and animalvaccination and is undoubtedly speeding upthe sharing of ideas between countries.However, critique of vaccines goes back tothe 19th century.

“It is essential that vets appear willing to

discuss owners’ concerns. I hope theveterinary profession will not rush tojudgement but seek to learn lessons fromthe detailed sociological research on humanvaccination debates.”

Dr Hobson-West, a founder member ofthe Human-Animal Studies Group, is nowworking on a comparison of childhood andpet vaccine controversies.

In other study group news, Dr Corey LeeWrenn has had a book published whichargues that campaigning organisations canbecome monopolies that stifle progresstowards their aims.

In Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits, DrWrenn, of the University of Kent, finds thatmodern social movements are dominated bybureaucratically oriented non-profits, whichcreates tension between activists and thosein charge in the organisation.

Her analysis of archival literature andinterviews with leaders finds that non-profitscan monopolise the movement, disempowercompetitors and erode democratic accessand decision-making. It considers howinequality within social movements can stiflesocial progress.

Dr Wrenn is Chair of the Animals andSociety section of the American SociologicalAssociation and the book is published bythe University of Michigan Press.

Rise in anti-vaccine sentiment includes pet owners, event hears

Dr Pru Hobson-West

Two postgraduate convenors, SophieAtherton and Wendy Gill, have beenappointed by the Youth Studies Group.

Sophie is a second year PhD sociologystudent at the University of Manchesterwhose work focuses on the secondary schoolexperiences of young people who aretransgender and non-binary.

“Through my new role I hope to helpcreate and develop a channel ofcommunication for myself and otheracademics across various areas of sociologyon the positioning and experiences ofyoung people in society,” she said.

Wendy is a second year PhD student atDurham University who is undertaking aparticipatory project on the longevity andsustainability of the Guide Association.

“As a youth work practitioner as well as aresearcher, it is important that my work iscollaborative and includes the voice ofyoung people,” she said.

The two were appointed by the group’sco-convenors, Dr Benjamin Hanckel, ofKing’s College London, Dr Caitlin Nunn, ofManchester Metropolitan University, and DrKarenza Moore, of Salford University, after

an appeal on its Twitter feed, @BSAYouthSG The appointments help fulfil one of the

group’s key aims, to include, support andlearn from postgraduate and early careerresearchers.

The expanding group plans to runfurther events on the ethical challenges of

contemporary sociological research withyoung people, and the relationship betweenyouth studies research and the youth workfield. It held a well-attended workshop onyouth intersections in September. For moreon the group, see: www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/study-groups/youth-study-group

Postgraduate convenors join youth group

Sophie Atherton Wendy Gill


Study group news 13

The Social Aspects of Death, Dying andBereavement study group held its annualsymposium at the University of Sheffield.

The event, held in December, focused onthe theme of death and relationships andbrought together a range of speakersstudying the topic.

The symposium opened with a plenarytalk by Jane Harris and Jimmy Edmonds, ofThe Good Grief Project, which supportsfamilies after the death of a child or youngperson.

They played clips of their recent film ‘Alove that never dies’, which explores howparents experience the loss of their child.They spoke of the ways in which grief andloss become embedded in everydayexperience, raising important questionsabout the lack of day-to-day dialogue aboutchild bereavement.

The day was organised into three sessions,with eight presentations considering someof the different relationships at the end oflife and after death.

Each one highlighted the ways in whichthe everyday is experienced at the end oflife and after loss. The symposium gavefrequent opportunities for debate.

The talks tackled subjects includingrelationships between professionals andpatients, familial relationships, pet ownersand deceased pets, and the absence ofrelationships at the end of life.

The event was organised by co-convenorsLaura Towers, University of Sheffield, andDr Julie Ellis, University of Huddersfield,and marked the end of Dr Ellis’ time inpost. A new co-convenor, Dr Sharon Mallon,of the Open University, was welcomed andDr Ellis was thanked for her work over theyears.

See the group webpage for details ofevents: https://tinyurl.com/t237mlq From information supplied by NatalieRichardson, University of Sheffield,[email protected]

Event tackles deathand relationships

Jane Harris and Jimmy Edmonds

The Education study group has two newconvenors, Dr Tamsin Bowers-Brown and DrJon Rainford. Dr Bowers-Brown is Head ofPedagogic Practice at the University ofDerby. Her research examines how thestructures of secondary and highereducation can serve to perpetuate ormitigate social inequality.

Dr Rainford, of Staffordshire University,has recently completed doctoral researchexploring the gaps between policy andpractice in relation to wideningparticipation in higher education. They joinProfessor Nicola Ingram, of SheffieldHallam, and Dr Michael Ward, of SwanseaUniversity.

New convenors for education group

Food group holds book launch event

Group looks at ‘making the visual’The Visual Sociology study group held anevent entitled ‘Making the visual: creating,thinking, distributing’. Twenty-fourresearchers from across the UK attended theevent at the Bluecoat Museum in Liverpool.

The keynote lecture was given by ProfessorMaggie O’Neil, of University College Cork,entitled ‘Walking, thinking, making: ways ofseeing and knowing’. This discussed walkingas a biographical method for conductingresearch, using examples from fundedprojects.

Dr Terence Heng, of the University ofLiverpool, took a workshop entitled ‘How towrite a visual essay’, to which participantswere encouraged to bring five of their ownphotographs. Participants considered howthey might go about ‘writing’ a visual essay,by selecting images in a visual dataset andsequencing them in a narrative.

The final workshop was by ProfessorHelen Lomax, of the University ofHuddersfield, entitled ‘Letting go: ethicsand analytics in visual research’, whichexplored the different ways of analysingvisual material and the ethical challenges inits dissemination. Using images brought byparticipants, the workshop interpreted themin different ways in order to consider whatthese offer sociological understandings.

Participants highlighted the event onTwitter. Dr Clare Butler, of NewcastleUniversity, tweeted that the keynote was“fantastic” and Dr Gary Bratchford,University of Central Lancashire, said it wasa “great day of presentations & workshoping”.

The study group are planning to run alonger event this year, which will includeshorter presentations and discussions toallow more PhD research projects to berepresented.

Members can follow the study group onTwitter @bsavissoc or visit its webpage athttps://tinyurl.com/vd8qkos

Professor Maggie O’Neill

Dr Tamsin Bowers-Brown

The Food studies group held a launch eventfor a new book, What is Food? Researching aTopic with Many Meanings.

The collection is edited by Ulla Gustafsson,Dr Rebecca O’Connell, Dr Alizon Draper andDr Andrea Tonner, and addresses topics suchas dietary health, sustainability, food safety

and food poverty. The book, which includesempirical evidence from the UK, Denmark,Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan, analysesdata reuse and the use of social media as data.

The launch was held at the Thomas CoramResearch Unit, UCL Institute of Education, inLondon. Details at: https://tinyurl.com/rdg8eu2


A new team of editors of the BSA journalSociological Research Online has begun itsthree-year term.

The team comprises: from the Universityof Leeds, Dr Angharad Beckett, Dr GregHollin, Dr Kahryn Hughes, Dr LucieMiddlemiss and Dr Katy Wright; andProfessor Jason Hughes, University ofLeicester, and Dr Anna Tarrant, Universityof Lincoln.

The new team will promote the journal’saccessibility by using open access and byproviding lay summaries of papers andalternative accessible formats.

It also plans to explore the use ofenhanced technology, multimedia andcreative outputs.

The editors will include multidisciplinaryand interdisciplinary perspectives onpressing contemporary issues, whilemaintaining SRO’s sociological roots.

The journal will continue to respond toemerging issues, including the commission-ing of rapid response articles and thedevelopment of a current issues section.

The team are keen to increase theinvolvement of academics at different careerstages, particularly early career academics,and will make the journal’s reach even moreinternational.

The BSA has thanked the journal’soutgoing editorial team for their work over

the past four years, which has increased itsimpact factor from 0.519 to 1.181.

The team are: Dr Steven Roberts, MonashUniversity, Dr Sanna Aaltonen, University of

Eastern Finland, and Dr Charlie Walker,University of Southampton.

The journal can be read at:https://journals.sagepub.com/home/sro

SRO journal editors will createnew current issues section

BSA Digital Content Officer, Donna Willis, writes:BSA’s online news platform, Everyday Society(es.britsoc.co.uk), was launched at the annualconference in Glasgow last year. Since then, ithas published regular editorial piecescovering the latest in sociological research aswell as news from the BSA President and thesociological community at large. Have youvisited recently?

As part of the BSA’s mission to representthe intellectual and sociological interests ofits members, Everyday Society serves toextend the reach of sociological research – tothe public, government bodies and beyond.The sociological landscape is fluid and in aconstant state of evolution and, as such, wetry to address the ever changing nature of thediscipline by encouraging contributors torespond to real-life events from a sociologicalperspective.

We think it’s vitally important that the BSAPresident has a voice too, which is why you’llfind regular posts from Professor SusanHalford engaging with sociologists, the publicand government departments.

Everyday Society serves to bring together

anyone with an interest in the disciplinethrough online dialogue, discussion andcollaboration.

Would you like to write about yoursociological research or forthcomingpublication? Are you working on a researchproject that is particularly relevant to real-lifeevents taking place right now? If the answer isyes to either of these questions, we’d love tohear from you. Contact me at:[email protected]

News site marks first year

Photos, clockwisefrom top left:

Dr Katy WrightDr Kahryn HughesDr Anna TarrantProfessor Jason HughesDr Angharad BeckettDr Greg HollinDr Lucie Middlemiss

14 BSA news

The BSA has condemned the crackdown byIndia’s police on people protesting againstthe passing of the Citizen Amendment Act.

The Act gives citizenship for immigrantHindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis andChristians, but it does not do the same forMuslim immigrants, violating the secularismenshrined in India’s constitution.

Widespread street protests have led to thearrest of thousands of people and the shuttingdown of the internet in parts of the country.

Professor Susan Halford, the BSA’sPresident, wrote to Chris Skidmore, the thenUK Universities and Science Minister, askingthe UK government to call on the Indiangovernment to stop these actions.

“Peaceful protest is a central element of thedemocratic right to free speech and publicdebate, and to repress this with violent forceis unacceptable. As a professional associationrepresenting sociology researchers andstudents, we are deeply concerned that thiscrackdown has targeted universities, leavingprotestors with serious injuries.”

BSA condemnsIndia crackdown

While many who voted for Brexit mayhave wished to see an end to all

immigration, the new points-based system,announced by Priti Patel in February, is allabout attracting the ‘right kind’ ofimmigrants. While ending EU freedom ofmovement and treating “EU and non-EUequally”, the system will ensure: “that the UKcontinues to attract the brightest and the bestfrom around the world”.1

Many employers have voiced theirconcerns.2 Sectors, reliant on migrantworkers who would not meet the minimumsalary threshold of £25,600, such as socialcare, food processing and horticulture, arelikely to be adversely affected.3 Given theseimmigration restrictions and employers’concerns about recruiting workers to fillspecific vacancies, it is interesting to considerwhether the old ‘reserve army of labour’ – theIrish – may prove to be an important sourceof migrant workers in the British economy.

As noted in a recent parliamentarybriefing: “Irish nationals have a special statusin UK law which is separate to and pre-datesthe rights they have as EU citizens.”4 Irishcitizens’ immigration status is derived fromthe Common Travel Area agreement“founded upon administrative agreements(in 1922 and 1952)”5. Because of theinternational border between the Republic ofIreland and Northern Ireland/UK it wasconsidered practical to share immigrationpolicies between the two states. As a resultBritish and Irish citizens can “move freelybetween, and reside in, these islands” as wellas having “the right to work, study and vote incertain elections, as well as to access socialwelfare benefits and health services”6.

Hence, the status of Irish citizens needs tobe contextualised as part of the enduringlegacies of colonialism and capitalism. It wasFriedrich Engels who identified the Irish as a“reserve army of labour” for the Britisheconomy at the height of the industrialrevolution.7

Although Irish migration may be associatedwith the 19th century, for most of the 20thcentury the Irish remained the largestmigrant group entering Britain. During the1950s, for example, approximately 50,000migrants were arriving annually fromIreland.8 By the 1970s close to one millionIrish-born people were living in Britain.9

The Irish were recruited to fill specificvacancies. For example, young women acrossIreland were recruited directly into nurse-training in British hospitals.10 But that is notto suggest that Irish migrants were universallywelcomed. In the 1930s, for instance, suchwas the hostility to the “Irish immigrationmenace”11 that the British governmentdebated imposing restrictions on thenumbers entering the country. However, anInter-Departmental Committee concludedthat Irish workers were necessary to theeconomy so it would be unwise to restricttheir numbers.12

Indeed, anti-Irish hostility persistedthrough the 20th century fuelled, in part, bythe Northern Irish Troubles in the 1970s-90s.13

As noted by Paddy Hillyard,14 the Irish inBritain were significantly impacted by theTroubles and the related security measures,especially the notorious Prevention ofTerrorism Act 1974. However, this topic hasbeen almost completely neglected by Britishsociologists (for a rare exception see the workof Hickman and colleagues at LondonMetropolitan University). Thus, the Irish haveoccupied an anomalous position enjoyingfree movement but facing deep-rootedhostility and resentment.15

So, what does all this mean for Britain in anera of points-based immigration? Will theIrish continue to be the reserve army oflabour?

The Irish economy is predicted to grow by3.4% in 2020.16 Nonetheless, outwardmigration persists and Britain remains theprimary destination slightly ahead ofAustralia, Canada and the USA.17 Moreover,Irish people are more highly educated thanin the past: 56.2 per cent of adults under theage of 40 possess a third-level qualification.18

Thus, the extent to which Irish migrants willobligingly fill low paid vacancies cannot beassumed. Nonetheless, without restrictions ontheir mobility, Irish migrants may offer someflexibility to British employers. However,there may be new pressures on the CTA if UK(non-EU) and Irish (EU) immigrationpolicies begin to diverge. The future of thereserve army of labour remains in the balance.• Louise Ryan is Professor of Sociology at theUniversity of Sheffield. Her recentpublication is: ‘The “Irish question”:marginalizations at the nexus of sociology ofmigration and ethnic and racial studies inBritain’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 43Issue 16, Hickman and Ryan (2020).

Will the Irish continue to be theUK’s reserve army of labour?

Continuing our Brexittheme, Professor LouiseRyan looks at the history ofIrish immigration to the UKand how Brexit could meanthat migrants from Irelandmay once again fill low-paidvacancies in British firms

Professor Louise Ryan

References1. www.gov.uk/government/news/uk‐announces‐new‐points‐based‐immigration‐system2. www.theguardian.com/uk‐news/2020/feb/18/the‐new‐uk‐immigration‐rules‐tell‐employers‐to‐suck‐it‐up3. www.ft.com/content/38dbdfc6‐5315‐11ea‐90ad‐25e377c0ee1f4. https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP‐76615. Ryan, Bernard (2001) ‘The common travel area between Britain and Ireland’ The Modern Law Review, 64(6), 831‐8546. www.gov.uk/government/publications/common‐travel‐area‐guidance7. Hazelkorn, Ellen (1983) ‘Reconsidering Marx and Engels on Ireland’. Saothar, 9, 79‐888. www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p‐plfp/populationandlabourforceprojections2017‐2051/migrationassumptions9. www.runnymedetrust.org/bgIrishCommunity.html10. Ryan, Louise (2007) ‘Who do you think you are? Irish nurses encountering ethnicity and constructing identity in Britain’Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(3), 416‐43811. Liverpool Echo, 15 January 193812. Ryan, Louise (2001) ‘Aliens, migrants and maids: public discourses on Irish immigration to Britain in 1937’ Immigrants &Minorities, 20(3), 25‐4213. Walter, B. and Hickman, M. J. (1997) ‘Discrimination and the Irish community in Britain’ (Commission for Racial EqualityReport)14. Hillyard, Paddy (1993) Suspect Community: People’s Experience of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in Britain. Pluto Press15. Hickman, Mary and Ryan, Louise (2020) ‘The “Irish question”: marginalizations at the nexus of sociology of migration andethnic and racial studies in Britain’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 43 Issue 16, open access 16. https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/spring‐2019‐economic‐forecast‐ireland‐s‐economic‐growth‐to‐moderate‐on‐the‐back‐of‐a‐less‐benign‐external‐environment_en 17. www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2019 18. www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p‐cp10esil/p10esil/le

In my view 15

16 International news

About 1 in 1,000 black men and boys inAmerica can expect to be killed by thepolice, a rate 2.5 times higher than whitemales, new research shows.

The analysis also showed that Latinomales, black females and native Americanmen and women are killed by police athigher rates than their white peers.

The study was led by Dr Frank Edwards, asociologist at Rutgers University, andpublished in the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences.

“That 1-in-1,000 number struck us as quitehigh,” said Dr Edwards. “That’s better oddsof being killed by police than you have ofwinning a lot of scratch-off lottery games.

“We believe these numbers, if anything,are a little bit conservative, maybe a bit toolow. But we think that these are the best thatcan be done in terms of just getting abaseline risk estimate out there.”

Living in constant fear of being killedcould lead to chronic stress, Dr Edwardssaid. He referred to ‘the talk’, a conversationthat many African American parents havewith their children about how to avoid beingharmed when interacting with police.

“They know that young black men aresingled out as being inherently suspect,” hesaid. “It can have these toxic effects oncommunities, in terms of both their physicaland mental health.”

The findings add hard numbers to apattern personified by victims of policeviolence including Eric Garner, Tamir Riceand Freddie Gray, he told the Los Angeles Times.

For Latino men and boys, the risk was upto 1.4 times higher than it was for whites. ForNative American men, the risk was 1.2 to 1.7times higher.

Overall, women’s risk of being killed bypolice was roughly 20 times lower than therisk to men, but there were also cleardifferences by ethnicity and race. Forinstance, black women were about 1.4 timesas likely to be killed by police as whitewomen. Native American women werebetween 1.1 and 2.1 times as likely to bekilled as their white peers.

In all groups, younger adults were most atrisk: the chances of being killed by policepeaked between the ages of 20 and 35.

Today’s unequal society may often bring tomind the board game Monopoly, where theplayer who develops an advantage almostalways goes on to win everything andbankrupt rivals in the process.

So a new game, Kapital!, in which playersrise up in rebellion to overthrow theircapitalist oppressor, may be more to thetaste of Network readers. The fact that it soldout its first run of 10,000 copies within threeweeks suggests it has a wider appeal, too.

Kapital! is designed by the sociologistsMonique and Michel Pinçon-Charlot, bothformer directors of Centre National de laRecherche Scientifique in France. Moniqueis also a former election candidate for theCommunist Party.

Kapital!, presented in a suitably blood-redbox, has as its stated objective: “Attempt toput down the mechanisms of social domin-ation to win the class war!”. One playerbegins with five times the capital of theothers, at least until they revolt.

As this is a French board game, playerswin not just by violent revolution but also bya suitably Bourdieusian accumulation ofcultural, social and symbolic capital, andready cash, reports 20minutes.fr

The Colombian State has apologised to thefamily of the sociology professor AlfredoCorrea de Andréis, who was killed in 2004as a result of suspected collusion betweenthe security forces and paramilitaries.

Professor de Andréis was arrested byagents of the Department of Security on theincorrect suspicion that he was involvedwith the guerrilla movement, theRevolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

In fact, Professor de Andréis, Rector ofthe University of Magdalena, was investigatingdisplaced persons in Bolívar and Atlántico.

Shortly after his release from a briefdetention he was shot dead on the street byright-wing paramilitaries, acting in collusionwith the security forces.

“On behalf of the State, I offer the mostsincere apologies and express my deepestcondolences for the damage caused to thelife, freedom and good name of the teacherand his family,” said Camilo Gómez Alzate,Director of the National Agency for LegalDefense of State.

The then Director of the SecurityDepartment, Jorge Noguera, has since beensentenced to 25 years in prison forcolluding with illegal far-right militias.

All around the worlNetwork takes a look at sociology beyond our shores

Odds of police killing are high

No monopoly on Kapital Apology for murder given


The University of Mumbai’s firstofficially recognised transgenderstudent, Sridevi Londhe, hasgraduated in sociology and psychology.

Four years ago Sridevi was the firstto enrol at the university after it hadintroduced a “third column forgender,”, says the Times of India.

Today, Sridevi, who changed hername from Santosh, works with anelectronics firm during the day andteaches underprivileged children in the evening. But finding work has been a struggle forher. As she says, “Graduation is only one battle won. People are still apprehensive of givinga job to a trans woman.

“When I was living with my family, they were embarrassed by me. They kept me lockedin the house. I have a brain. I have every right to live a life, have aspirations. Once I lefthome, I didn’t look back.

“Minorities have thrived on the fringes forever. Now it is upon people like us, who aremoving forward, educating ourselves, to drive the message forward that everyone is equal.To my trans sisters I say, it is not your own fight, it is a fight for the sisterhood.”

Transgender first for Mumbai

International news 17

A judge has found a University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociology professor not guilty ofvandalism after she was accused of taping asign reading ‘Deb loves rapists’ to NebraskaRepublican senator Deb Fischer’s officedoor.

The judge declared Patricia Wonch Hillnot guilty after a police analyst said shecould not say beyond a reasonable doubtthat fingerprints lifted from the tapeholding the sign were hers.

The acquittal marks the second time thisyear that Professor Wonch Hill has beencleared in cases in which she was chargedwith political vandalism.

As Network reported in the summer, shewas also accused of attaching goggle-eyedstickers to a campaign sign for anotherRepublican candidate, but the city droppedthat count in September.

Professor Wonch Hill said she had beentargeted by Republican lawmakers becauseshe is politically active and a frequent criticof the party, says AP News.

She has form, however: she was fined$500 in 2018 after spraying fake blood onthe steps of a lobbyist for the National RifleAssociation.

A sociology professor at Yonsei University inSouth Korea has been suspended fromteaching after his remarks on the wartimesexual enslavement of Korean womensparked controversy.

Ryu Seok-chun, said that “Japan is not thedirect assailant [of enslaved ‘comfort’women], and that the women were involvedin “some a sort of prostitution”.

To a student who questioned whether hewas implying the women went voluntarilyinto brothels for Japanese soldiers, Ryuanswered, “the prostitutes these days alsostart partly voluntarily – if you are curious,why don’t you try?”

Professor Ryu later issued a statementexplaining he did not intend to suggestprostitution to the student.

“I was explaining that prostitution hasalways existed due to poverty, regardless ofwhat period, in all parts of the world,” hesaid. “I asked the question with the intentionto suggest the students, who kept onchallenging me, do the researchthemselves.”

The university said that a gender equalitycommittee had launched an internalinvestigation.

Immanuel Wallerstein, the sociologist ofworld systems, has died, aged 88.

He argued that no system lasts foreverand that the current one, based oncapitalism, is slowly disintegrating.

On his web page he said: “I haveindicated in the past that I thought thecrucial struggle was a class struggle, usingclass in a very broadly defined sense. Whatthose who will be alive in the future can dois to struggle with themselves so this changemay be a real one.

“I still think that, and therefore I thinkthere is a 50-50 chance that we’ll make it totransformatory change, but only 50-50.”

Professor Wallerstein earned a bachelor’sdegree at Columbia in 1951, served in theUS army from 1951 to 1953, then received amaster’s degree at Columbia in 1954 with athesis on McCarthyism.

In 1971 he moved to McGill University inMontreal, and in 1976 he becameDistinguished Professor of Sociology at theState University of New York at Binghamton.He had been a senior research fellow at YaleUniversity since 2000.

The Modern World-System I: CapitalistAgriculture and the Origins of the EuropeanWorld-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, waspublished in 1974, the first of fourvolumes of what he called world-systemanalysis.

Other books he has published includeAfter Liberalism (1995), The End of the Worldas We Know It: Social Science for the 21stCentury (1999), The Decline of American Power(2003), and The Uncertainties of Knowledge(2004).

Iran has released the French academicRoland Marchal as part of a prisoner swapagreement.

Professor Marchal, a sociologist andsenior researcher at Sciences Po University,was imprisoned last June after he wascharged with “acting against nationalsecurity”.

As part of the agreement, Francereleased an Iranian engineer who wasaccused of violating US sanctions againstTehran.

The French government has also urgedIran to release a second academic, ProfessorMarchal’s colleague Fariba Adelkhah, whoholds both French and Iranian passports.

Iran Revolutionary Guards have arresteddozens of dual nationals in recent years,mostly on espionage charges.

ld...

No fingerprint of suspicion Remarks led to suspension

Iran frees jailed Professor

Wallerstein dies, aged 88

Links to online articles about these topics can be found atwww.britsoc.co.uk/members-area/network



How can sociologists usefully go abouttheorising Brexit and working out its

consequences?” Network gave me thischallenge when I mentioned I was writing abook about Brexit in its European andglobal context. I appreciate the invitation. Inresponse, I will try to put somethinginteresting into an already bubbling pot,without prescribing anyone else’s recipe ormenu.

Let me start with a narrative of self-deception followed by disillusionment. Myown. In 1963 I was the UK winner in aninternational Council of Europe essaycompetition for school kids. About 15winners from across Western Europe cameto London where we met Edward Heath,Prince Philip and other high-ups. Then wewent on a bus tour around the CommonMarket (through vineyards, down mines,along sea fronts and to Brussels, Strasbourg,Cologne, Bonn, etc). It was fantastic. I, atleast, was hooked. Approval of the EUbecame my steady state.

However, I was unhooked from my illusionabout the EU’s commitment to benignegalitarianism by the EuropeanCommission’s harsh, even cruel, response tomember states driven towards bankruptcy bythe Eurozone crisis in the early 2010s. Thisimposed forced restructuring of the publicsector, undermining welfare provision.These measures actually worsenedunemployment and social devastation,especially across southern Europe. Thesequel was riot and repression, mostdramatically in Greece. This time I made myown European tour including Glasgow,Brussels, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Paris, Prague,Graz, Madrid, Valencia, Milan, Turin and,most memorably, Athens.

Counter-intuitively, the experience ofdisillusionment may be enriching inmoderate doses. It prompts us to rethink,enabling us to become more sensitive andopen minded, perhaps arriving at a researchorientation somewhere between ‘detachedengagement’ and ‘engaged detachment’(See ‘Advocacy and Inquiry’ inhttp://lboro.academia.edu/DennisSmith– an access point for all references here).

Every day for a couple of years I have beendownloading reports of speeches and

manoeuvres inside and outside Westminster,in the UK and abroad. I have alsoaccumulated, at some domestic peril, a vastBrexit-related library (on book avalanchessee my inaugural lecture entitled ‘What areintellectuals for?’). Mining this wealth todecode Brexit is a complex task. Butnavigating complexity has always been mything, moving from individual lives towardsglobal geo-politics and back again.

Delve into my work and you will findbooks, chapters and papers on, for example:the lives, thoughts and careers ofintellectuals and politicians, past andpresent; the dynamics of not just urbanneighbourhoods, but also cities such asChicago, Birmingham and Sheffield, andnational societies across the globe; thetransformations of medieval and modernEurope; plus the complexities ofimperialism, globalisation and world-formation. Understanding Brexit is the latestiteration leading to questions aboutpopulism and democracy, which sadlycannot be done justice here.

I try to hold together the immediate,ground level discourse of makers andshakers and relevant wider patterns ofmacro-societal change across time andspace. My own core methodology foranalysing Brexit emerged during mydoctoral research, published as Conflict andCompromise (2018, 2nd ed). Olive Banks, mysupervisor and departmental colleague, waswriting Faces of Feminism (1981) at that time.We met regularly to discuss everything underthe sun. But basically she allowed me to get

on with my own research my own way.Only now do I realise how closely we

converged in our approaches, and no doubther influence was powerful, though gentlyapplied. We both operated by the followingrules of thumb:i) try to be a meticulous, thoughtful andimaginative empirical investigator, buildingup a body of evidence;ii) do not get ‘captured’ by a specific theory,vision or ideology, although thesephenomena are themselves relevant objectsof investigation and a useful source ofmultiple potential explanations;iii) be sensitive to transformations over timein institutions, people and socialrelationships, and consider a range ofpossible partial explanations for thosechanges (i.e. be ‘historical’); iv) at every societal level explore contrastsbetween cases that are similar to each otherin some respects and differ in others (i.e. be‘comparative’); and v) recognise that this approach poses thechallenge of explaining why and how thecases compared converge or diverge, testingpotential explanations against both verifyingand falsifying instances. It is from thisprocess that theoretical contributionsemerge. For example, the typology ofalleviative and remedial responses toattempted humiliation in Civilized Rebels(2018), 163-71.

The last paragraph draws on my 2018 PhilSalmon Memorial lecture at WolfsonCollege, Oxford entitled ‘Family fortunesand misfortunes: families and power in 19th

Dennis Smith, who isworking on a book aboutBrexit, gives us someideas about howsociologists mighttackle research into itsconsequences

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Sociologymay become harder tocarry outafter Brexit’

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century Birmingham and Sheffield’. For thefull lecture see Auto/Biography Yearbook 2018, 1-20.

What is the larger, turbulent, long term‘flow’ of which the political drama of recentyears is a small part? I would argue thatBrexit, the project of withdrawing from theEU, was shaped within a much longermacro-process. This was the struggle foradvantage between the British Empire andcontinental European powers, especiallyGermany and France.

Between the 1950s and 2000s the BritishEmpire was clearly dwindling while the EUexpanded to cover most of the Europeanmainland. This helps explain theconsistently unfavourable treatment of theEU in the British press.

In fact, since 1914 two Brexits, bothdisputed and divisive, have been prominenton Britain’s political agenda. These bothposed ‘in or out’ questions. First, mostobviously, is the UK in or out of the ‘Europegame’? Both Conservatives and Labourremain deeply divided on this. Second, lessobviously, is the UK in or out of the ‘empiregame’? In 1945 the Labour government said‘out’; in 1956 Suez adventurers said ‘in’. Inboth cases the state of play in 2020 is ‘out’.But is the game over in either case? Oneguide to a possible future is evidence fromthe past. And here we find some similaritiesbetween the two Brexits.

A three-phase sequence can be discernedin the first Brexit: Britain’s exit from being amajor colonial power, globally deploying itsmilitary strength, diplomatic muscle andbusiness clout. The first intense ‘moment’was between 1916 and the early 1920s. Onthe one hand, the British Empire lost mostof the Irish mainland, conquered by theNormans a thousand years before; on theother hand, it gained new British ‘mandates’in North Africa and the Middle East.

A second lurch of activity occurredbetween 1926 and 1931. It stretched fromthe Balfour Declaration of 1926, whichended the UK parliament’s right to legislatefor the ‘white dominions’ (Australia,Canada, etc) to the Statute of Westminster in1931, which enabled those dominions tobecome self-governing sovereign nations.Bigger news in the dominions, perhaps, thanin the UK.

The third phase, more shattering, wasbetween 1939 and 1947. World War Two andits aftermath bankrupted the British andcomprehensively undermined the UK’scapacity to enforce its rule over itsremaining colonies. An early consequencewas the defection of the Raj, specificallyIndia, Pakistan and Burma. The inhabitantsforced out their enfeebled overlords.Despite the rearguard action over Suez, the1950s and 1960s saw a long tail ofindependence ceremonies, especially inAfrica, shearing off the last remnants ofcolonial majesty.

Turning to the other Brexit issue, Britain’s

economic and political relationship with theEuropean Union has been a prominentpolitical issue three times since World WarTwo. The first was in the early 1970s over theUK’s highly contested entry to the CommonMarket. The second in the early 1990sbrought controversy over the Maastrichttreaty, the Euro currency, EU citizenship andsocio-economic coordination across memberstates.

The third political surge was between 2014and 2020. In other words, between theEuropean Parliamentary elections of 2014,in which Nigel Farage and the UnitedKingdom Independence Party won most UKMEPs, and January 2020 when the UK

parliament finally passed the WithdrawalAgreement Bill enacting the UK’s exit fromthe EU at the end of that month.

Common to both sequences are thoseintermittent phases of politicalintensification (1916-, 1926-, 1939-, 1945-,1971-, 1991-, 2014-) when public opinion fora brief while became more alert than normalto the tensions generated by imperial andEuropean affairs. On these occasions thepoliticians typically used two tactics. One wasto frame the times as ‘moments’ requiring‘action’: e.g Boris Johnson urging ‘GetBrexit done’. The other was to mobiliseemotional responses to shape the choicesmade by the public, the citizens at large: e.g.Michael Gove telling voters do not listen toexperts but trust yourself. In effect, be drivenby your fears, resentments and desires.

Apart from the shocking rattle of closinggates, echoing for years, Brexit may intensifyand institutionalise the emotion-ridden,short-term, jump-start politics just illustrated.Cross-border sociological research inEurope, even solo and self-financed, maybecome more difficult to carry out. A furtherdanger is the spread of populism, thrivingon growing disrespect for parliament.However, as the ghost of Christmas Yet toCome let Scrooge know, these are theforward-thrown shadows of what may be, notnecessarily shadows of what will be.

Cross-bordersociologicalresearch in Europe,even solo and self-financed, maybecome moredifficult to carry out

Dennis Smith

Professor DennisSmith is EmeritusProfessor of Sociologyat LoughboroughUniversity.

He is researchingglobalisation andworld‐formationprocesses, the shapingof cities, the workingsof capitalism anddemocracy, and thedevelopment ofEurope as a new kindof polity. He plans abook about Brexit aspart of this.

His books includeCivilized Rebels. AnInside Story of theWest's Retreat fromGlobal Power(Routledge, 2018),Globalization: TheHidden Agenda (Polity2006), and Conflictand Compromise:Class Formation inEnglish Society 1830‐1914 (Routledge,1982).

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What the worlds of sociology and highereducation will look like when the virus

finally abates is not something anyone caresto predict at present – more immediateconcerns are taking precedence.

But we know of a few changes already, ofcourse: universities have switched to teachingand working online, for instance.

We know also that the REF 2021 is to bepostponed until further notice in order toallow universities to divert staff into otherareas, including those working in clinical andhealth-related fields. The original submissiondeadline on 27 November will no longerapply. At least eight months’ notice will begiven of the new deadline.

Kim Hackett, REF Director at ResearchEngland, said that the next REF would “be aslight touch as possible, in view of thesechallenging times.”

Staff on the payroll of the submittinguniversity on 31 July 2020 will still form partof that institution’s REF submission, even ifthey worked at other universities before orafter that date. This ‘census date’ remainsunchanged.

For the BSA, the virus has meant thecancellation of its three main conferences:the annual event at Easter, and the Medsocand the Work, Employment and Societyconferences in September. Various smallerevents, including the Sociology of Religionstudy group conference in July, have alsobeen cancelled.

The cancellation of the main conference,the biggest gathering of sociologists in theUK, was particularly difficult for the BSA, notleast because it had already paid for thevenue and accommodation.

BSA chair Dr John Bone (pictured below)said in a statement: “It is with a heavy heart

that the BSA must announce the cancellationof our annual conference in Birmingham andour postgraduate conference.

“The BSA fully appreciates what thisdecision means for delegates hoping toparticipate in the annual conference andpresent their research.

“The BSA is obliged to honour thecontracts for the event venues and othersuppliers, but without registration money, thiswill unfortunately lead to a significantfinancial shortfall in our 2020 budget.”

Judith Mudd, the BSA’s Chief Executive,said that the effects of the virus came at atime when the move to open accesspublication would hit the association’sjournal income.

“We now also have greater clarity emergingon the expected impact of the transition ofour journals to open access, and this will havea longer term impact that will also need to becarefully managed.

“These unprecedented external impactsare affecting all of our sister organisations tovarying degrees. They, like us, are now havingto revisit strategies and budgets.

“The BSA must also make savings andexplore new ways to generate income tosupport the work that we do and, not least,our key mission to promote the wider projectthat is sociology.

“We have been taking steps to do this,focusing on areas where we might make

savings while protecting our key functions. “For example, we may need to replace

more face-to-face meetings with virtual onesand we may not be able to provide as muchfinancial support for as many activities as wewould like over the short term. We might alsoneed to move more of our publications toonline only.” • The BSA’s President, Professor SusanHalford, has said the virus would reveal somebasic truths about society.

“As the everyday practices of living in anunprecedented public health crisis evolve, wehave the opportunity to learn more aboutsocial divisions, social cohesion and socialchange.

“We will learn the resilience, or otherwise,of existing forms of capitalism, aboutconsumption practices under pressure –panic buying but also perhaps new forms ofself-provisioning and collaborativeconsumption – about working practice, work-life balance and communities both in placeand online.

“As universities and colleges move towardsonline provision, we have the opportunity tosee if and how a swift transition towardsdigital education works.

“It could be the step-change that some havebeen working towards for a long time, butwithout additional funding and training theburden on teaching colleagues will be great,even with the best will in the world that isclearly present.”

As the coronavirus rips through the world’spopulation, we take a look at its immediateeffects on sociology – the deaths of twoacademics, the postponement of the 2021REF, and the blow to the BSA’s finances.We also look at how sociologists areresponding to the media and startingresearch on the effects of the virus

BSA and higher education

The pandemic: taking so

Feature 21

Research

One response from sociologists is toresearch the effects of the virus on

society.Dr Michael Ward (pictured right) has

begun a project to collate the records ofpeople’s lives during the pandemic.

He has appealed for participants to keep a‘coronadiary’ of their experiences over thecoming months, in the form of handwrittennotebooks, word-processed files, videodiaries, blogs, social media posts, artworksand other forms of expression.

This project is based in part on the MassObservations studies conducted before,during and after the second world war.

“At present, governments are imposingever stricter conditions upon the behavioursof those within their territories,” said DrWard, of Swansea University.

“Yet at the same time, new modes ofsociality are being created in and through thedifferent social situations constantly cominginto existence. People are responding inmultiple ways – involving both panic anddespair, as well as creatively and imaginatively– to life in this time of pandemic. Newinterests, new interactions, a different sociallife is taking shape.

“In these changing and challenging times, Iam looking for participants to document andkeep a record of life experiences over thecoming months.”

Those interested should contact him at:

[email protected] or on 07890 874188.

In Canada, Dr Cary Wu has won $176,000to study how levels of trust affect diseaseprevention and control measures, part ofmore than $1.1 million given to YorkUniversity, as part of rapid research fundinginto the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus.

Dr Wu’s research will bring frontlineresearchers from China together withexperts in trust and public health in Canadaand Sweden to explore people’s trust ingovernment, health agencies and otherpeople during a time of crisis.

He will look at how their level of trustshapes public responses to the virus, such ascompliance with control policies andmethods of prevention, and how the virusaffects levels of xenophobia.

Media coverage

Sociologists have aired their expertise andtheir opinions about the coronavirus in

the social and news media. Dr Elisa Pieri, of the University of

Manchester, appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live,BBC Radio Manchester, and other stations totalk about her expertise in pandemics.

“I am concerned about the lack of testingof people who report symptoms,” she told 5 Live on 17 March.

“It’s very important that we follow WHOadvice and test and isolate those who have thedisease and the contact.

“Instead it seems we are focusing on socialdistancing, which can provide sometemporary results, but we are losing track ofwho is infected if we stop tracing people whohave symptoms who might have thecoronavirus.”

She said the government’s policy seemeddesigned for nuclear families who can benefitfrom the support of others in the household,

and not for those living alone or without theinternet as guidance. She said the govern-ment’s response might change over time. Shecan be heard at 38 minutes at:www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000gcmc

Sociologists also wrote on online fora,including Discover Society, which ran rapidresponse articles, including one on how thepandemic has put neo-liberalism underthreat and another calling for closure ofEurope’s refugee camps. The articles can beread at: https://tinyurl.com/th7kmkb

Social scientists were also advising thegovernment in France on its response to thevirus. A scientific council set up at the requestof President Emmanuel Macron includes thesociologist Daniel Benamouzig, AssociateProfessor at Sciences Po, and theanthropologist Laëtitia Atlani-Duault.

They sit with eight colleagues from thehard sciences, including a generalpractitioner, a resuscitator and five specialists.

AppreciationsThe sociologist William Helmreich, 74, diedof the coronavirus in March.

Professor Helmreich, of the City College ofthe City University of New York, was theauthor of more than a dozen books,including The World of the Yeshiva: AnIntimate Portrait of Orthodox Jewry andWhat Was I Thinking: The Dumb Things WeDo and How to Avoid Them.

For his book, The New York NobodyKnows: Walking 6,000 Miles in New YorkCity, he walked the streets of the city for fouryears, passing through almost all its blocks.

He was born in Switzerland in 1945 toparents who were Holocaust survivors, andcame to New York as an infant.

“Willie was in precisely the wrongprofession for the coronavirus – he was asociologist and he loved interacting withpeople,” Brandeis University ProfessorJonathan Sarna told the Jewish TelegraphicAgency. “Social distancing was not in hisnature.”

Professor Helmreich is survived by his wifeand three children.

Princess Maria Teresa of Spain, King Felipe’sdistant cousin, who has died in Paris aged86, was the first royal to die of thecoronavirus.

She obtained a doctorate in Hispanicstudies from Paris‐Sorbonne University andanother in political sociology from theComplutense University of Madrid. She alsostudied Islam and how it relates to women’srights.

Maria Teresa (pictured below) became aprofessor at both of her alma maters. Shewas also a socialist activist and fought forwomen’s rights, earning her the nickname ofthe ‘Red Princess’.

ociology’s temperature

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In the survey last year, run before thecoronavirus outbreak, sociologists were

asked about the important issues that societywas facing. Not surprisingly, many looked totheir own profession and saw theprecariousness of the neo-liberal academiccareer as a threat, using the survey to expresstheir concerns about sociology’s future.

One respondent thought that the dilutionof the discipline, in particular its splitting upinto sub-disciplines, meant that sociologyitself was losing its identity, seeing a “need tostrengthen ties and lessen sub-disciplines”.

Another writer saw a threat in the“‘democratisation’ of the research process,notably through the development ofparticipatory methods.” This brought“greater potential for input into all stages ofthe research process, but not without risks,including the politicisation of research andthe risk of unrealistic expectations of whatresearch might achieve in terms of effectingsocial change.

“The changing nature of the researchrelationship opens up access to hard-to- reachgroups but can result in researchers beingpressed to choose a side in contestedsituations. The status of sociologists as expertswhose impartial judgement can be trustedmay be compromised if sociologists are seenas partisan. Funders will take a view on this,including the ESRC with its commitment to‘independence’.”

Another respondent worried about thesociology of work. “The gap between thesociology of identity (sex, race, youth,hairstyle etc.) and the sociology of work andorganisation is still extremely problematic.

“The sociology of work has moved almostcompletely into business schools and thistrend shows no sign of reversing. Some of thelatest generation of scholars in organisationstudies (in business schools) call themselvessociologists of work, despite having neverformally studied sociology. I predict that thediscipline of sociology within sociology

The coronavirus is no doubt much on the minds of sociologists.But what other societal issues are on the horizon? The BSAasked its members last year to name emerging patterns insociety, and whether these are challenges or opportunitiesfor sociology. Network looks at some of the responses...

Sign of the times:sociologists revealtheir hopes and fears about trendsin society today

Universities wereonce a core part ofan independent,civil society. Nowthey are thoroughlydebased by theforces ofmarketisation andcustomerisation

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Sociology

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departments will continue to reject thesociology of work and organisation and willstagnate as a result.

“Some business schools have moresociologists in them than do sociologydepartments! We need to make some attemptat bringing together the two sides of sociologywhich have been drifting further apart for 30years.”

The situation was not all gloomy. Onerespondent noted the “increasing numbers ofstudents taking A-level sociology and GCSEsociology.

“Only four other A-level subjects (biology,chemistry, psychology and geography) hadmore candidates doing those subjectscompared to last year than sociology – anextra 2,875 students (around 8%) and thiswas in the context of a declining number ofA-level students – a 2% decline.”

Another wanted more focus on a sociologyof mental health, seeing the “need for a realfocus on the social shaping of subjectivity,which takes seriously the bodily and cerebralimpact of social adversity and the ways inwhich this shapes mental distress and can becombated by transforming the socialenvironment and social practices”.

One noted the “increase in prevalence ofeveryday objects and procedures driven byalgorithms, which in turn are designed bymathematicians and engineers, that modifyindividual and social behaviour,” noting that“sociologists are trailing behind in terms ofnecessary tools (maths, programminglanguages, technology in general) in order todeal with modern social phenomena”.

Higher EducationWhat threats and opportunities didsociologists answering the survey see intoday’s higher education?

As we might expect, the precariousness ofemployment in universities is cited by several:“The dearth of secure, long term academicemployment for junior colleagues anddeteriorating working conditions (e.g. inrelation to pensions) for the profession as awhole poses challenges for the capacity of theprofession to sustain itself. The professionrelies on voluntary labour for peer review,mentoring, etc. The time it takes tocontinually apply for new contracts means a

significant portion of junior colleagues can’tengage in these forms of collective activity.”

Another writes: “Academic careers becomeeven more precarious and stressful. Sincehumanities/social science academics havealmost nothing to offer the corporate stateand are sometimes critical of it, these areas inparticular are the subject of successive attackswhich effectively complement the slowererosion of academic working conditions andthe rise of the university as an ‘anxietyfactory’. Afraid for their jobs or afraid ofnegative feedback, academics retreat fromactive participation in the public sphere.”

Another wrote about the “Destruction ofuniversities via neo-liberal assault. Universitieswere once a core part of an independent, civilsociety. Now they are thoroughly debased bythe forces of marketisation and

customerisation. Higher education hasbecome a racket. Managerialism andneoliberalism have ripped apart all classicalnotions of education. Academics are nowprecarious labour. The very notions ofexpertise, knowledge and facts are alsodrastically under threat.

“Students are being enslaved into a riggedsystem of debt in return for empty slogans on‘employability’ rather than learning andquestioning society.”

One wanted to see “greater awareness ofthe internationalisation of higher educationand how this relates to decolonisation as theneed for global equality remains very muchimportant”.

The sociology ofwork has movedalmost completelyinto businessschools and thistrend shows no signof reversing

MON – SUN

1am-12pm

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Rise of the RightOther concerns of sociologists included therise of the Right, in the form of Trump,populism and fascism. One worried aboutthe “normalisation of hard right wingpolitics and a range of hostile environments– we need to consider how best todefend/support sociology and sociologistsin a climate where their legitimacy is underquestion, and engage with the social threatsbeing created by these politicalmovements”.

Another noted the “Rise of populism and‘strong-man’ political leadership fed byidentity polarisation in many societies acrossthe globe, most clearly in the US, UK,Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Brazil. Thisundermines trust in the state, trust inintergovernmental bodies in a time of risingpower for large international companieswho take control of technology that invadesand controls our everyday lives”.

To counter this, sociologists should“Resist the urge to be political only –increase the focus on solid empiricalresearch and scholarly analysis as the basisfor activism”.

Others noted threats in the form of “therise of far-right populism transforming intofascism” and a “Brexit/Trump/societalmove to the right”, while one was concernedmore generally with “illiberalism/intolerance” and the “narrowing of politicalthinking, hardening of social attitudes, lackof tolerance towards others”.

Neo‐liberalismPerhaps inevitably, neo-liberalism was citedas a worry.

One wrote: “Neoliberalism continues towreak havoc on society. Inequality, greedand criminality are rampant and there is nodemocratic accountability for powerfulindividuals and organisations.

“Senior ‘leaders’ in politics, government,military, lobbying and business are venaland corrupt, using new technologies such asmachine learning and digital performancemeasurement to rig the system, control themedia, enrich themselves and suppressdemocracy.

“Civil society mechanisms such as the ruleof law, the role of professions and tradeunions are totally outmanoeuvred.”

There was “increased vulnerability,precarity, fear, social apathy and depression”and “people are living without hope”, therespondent wrote.

‘We should increase the focus

We need to considerhow best to defendsociologists in aclimate where theirlegitimacy is under question

Neoliberalismcontinues to wreakhavoc on society.Inequality, greedand criminality arerampant

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Big DataSeveral responses saw big tech and big dataas both a threat and an opportunity.

One noted that “the power of Big Tech”was “probably the most significant contemp-orary trend in terms of its implications forsociety and for social scientists”.

In the general public it created “anxiety,depression [and] a significant erosion ofcivil and democrats rights”, and“professional sociologists potentially face athreat of displacement by industry-based‘data scientists’, whilst there is a significantchallenge to sociology in terms of engagingcritically with these emerging social trends”.

One worried about “‘consentedsurveillance’ – in which people allow theirpersonal data to be collected, scraped,mined, used for purposes which they (andeven the original data collector) might nothave envisaged.

“Unless it can be controlled/regulatedthe dangers yet to come may not now beenvisaged. People seem much lessconcerned – more valuing the ‘discounts’offered by the surveillance to which theyhave consented.”

Another worried about the developmentof real-time audio translation with accuracyincreasing to near-native levels throughmachine learning, which could cause a“collapse of minority languages, and apotential for serious consequences ofmistranslation.”

Climate changeClimate change andenvironmental destruction alsofeatured in the fears of some.

One wrote that we “can’tignore this huge trend. Theneed to change ourlifestyles and theinequality in effects ofclimate change affecteverything”.

Another wrote:“There is scopeto augmentexisting workon climatechangewithin thework of the BSA (such as the ClimateChange study group) to include a focus onwork, employment and welfare transitionsthat will be required to deliver real actionon low/net-zero carbon targets.”

Other issuesThere was a range of other issues too,including fears about an “increase in scope,significance, economic and politicalpenetration of corruption and organisedcrime”.

This meant that the general public would“encounter businesses with links toorganised crime on a more frequent basisbut will be largely unaware that they aredoing so. Organised crime figuresincreasingly merge with the world of‘legitimate’ business. As public servicescollapse, bribery re-enters the culturallexicon for many people. Services areincreasingly colonised by corporations withcorrupt links to politicians. Instances ofcorporate crime and malfeasance increase”.

This meant that sociologists “will need away to capture the significance of organisedcrime in a way which does not endangerthem or their careers”.

Another wrote about the developmentof human polygenomics, leading to

“more identification of geneticmarkers of various traits and abilities.

“The application of genetics to awhole range of traits and

behaviours is advancing veryrapidly, and is likely to

continue to do so. While theresults are complex,

scientists are gettingcloser to identifying thecontribution of clustersof genes on cognitive

ability, physical traits,risk of certain behaviours etc.

“This is likely to lead to a challenge to thecontribution of the social sciences tounderstanding humanity, as well as an over-interpretation of the contribution of biologyin political views and action.

“Sociologists need to better understandthe science of genetics in order to continueto defend the contribution of the socialwithout appearing to be the equivalent ofclimate change deniers in the face ofscientific evidence.”

Another issue highlighted was the growthof Africa, which was “likely to dominate thecoming century demographically – Africaneeds to feature more prominently thanhitherto in many fields of sociology”<

s on solid empirical research’

Got a point of view aboutsociology and thefuture?

Let us know – write aletter to Network or anarticle. We welcome contributions.

For more details email Tony Trueman at:[email protected]

Sociologistspotentially face athreat ofdisplacement byindustry-baseddata scientists

The need to changeour lifestyles andthe inequality ineffects of climatechange affecteverything

Sociologists need tobetter understandgenetics in order tocontinue to defendthe contribution ofthe social

Images: modified stock imagery

‘‘ ‘‘ ‘‘

26 Reviews

This book posits a critical sociologicalapproach towards positive psychology and

the science of happiness which, it says, arebased on oversimplification, commodificationand a culturally biased imposition ofhappiness, as well as a tool used to controlindividuals (as citizens and workers).

In Chapter 1, Cabanas and Illouz highlightthe politically and ideologically motivatednature of happiness research, and itsimplications. They emphasise that datacollected on happiness in turn influence andshape behavioural patterns at the macro level,and they criticise the measurement ofhappiness (mainly concerning its quant-ification) in relation to its methodologicalambiguities and lack of cultural relativism.

Chapter 2 focuses on happiness as aprominent means in neo-liberal societies ofbeing a useful and non-ideologicalinstrument to legitimise individualism, whichsubsequently results in isolation andloneliness in these very societies. This sectionshows the way that positive psychologyreduces the accountability of political andsocial institutions in citizens’ happiness andremoves the influence of circumstances fromthe happiness ‘equation’ to a large extent.The introduction of happiness to theeducational sphere is also discussed as aquestionable initiative, particularly due tolack of evidence regarding its impact –especially a causal one.

Chapter 3 explores the labour marketthrough the lens of happiness and how it hasbeen adopted as a mechanism to manageworkers’ behaviour. The authors point out

that happiness and being positive have beenconsidered as a prerequisite in the jobmarket. The authors show how the interestsof corporations and their workers began to beregarded as identical rather than complem-entary, and how, as the responsibility of beinghappy was passed on to the workersthemselves, collective responsibility andsolidarity started to be compromised.

Chapter 4 addresses the commodificationof happiness and how it has beenacknowledged as the benchmark for ahealthy and fulfilled life and has beendesigned as a generically standardised devicefor a better self (and citizen). This chapterproposes that happiness became a productthat is accompanied by the target ofcontinually achieving more of it, particularlyvia the prototypical features of a happyindividual: emotional self-management,authenticity and flourishing. On a relatednote, the concomitant rise in the pressureleading young individuals to feel the need toappear constantly happy is also emphasised,for which social networks have developed intoa valid outlet.

Chapter 5 examines the illustration ofbeing happy as the ‘normal’ state of mind inthe context of an emotional stratification,and how happiness is identified withgoodness and health, hence unhappiness(even not being happy enough) is associatedwith malfunctioning. The polarisation ofpositive and negative emotions are marked byunderlining the failure of positivepsychologists to recognise the idea thatnegative emotions could be functional as well,

e.g. as triggers of social movements in timesof crises.

While extended scientific counter-evidenceagainst the inputs and outputs of happinessresearch would have provided furtherrobustness to the arguments, the pertinentaccount of the shortcomings in happinessresearch is grasped well in the book. It isworthwhile to state that focusing on(individual) happiness and being concernedwith greater social problems are not alwaysmutually exclusive, and matters such as beinga medium for increasing individualism ormethodological issues linked toquantification are not specific to the scienceof happiness, while the latter is also notnecessarily problematic at all times. However,the book certainly offers a strong and well-delivered criticism of the obsession withhappiness as a reductionist, over-generalisedand commercialised element that is the onlyway to have a meaningful life and be a fullyfunctioning, good citizen.

Drawing attention to black feministarticulation of the interconnectedness of

structures of domination through the termintersectionality, Jennifer C. Nash sets herselftwo tasks. In tracking the intersectionalitydebates, firstly she points to the fault lines inblack feminist articulations. Secondly, shesuggests reanimating the connectionsbetween transnationalism andintersectionality on the one hand andaffective engagement with the oppressivestate on the other, through which blackfeminism could be reimagined. Although thebook claims to be set in the context of USuniversities, the scope of the book has alarger relevance in terms of black feministpolitics.

The narrations of the book revolve aroundthree main arguments. Firstly, while trackingthe intellectual history of intersectionality,Nash emphasises that any endeavour ofhistoricising intersectionality needs to bemade with caution, since such a move oftenresults in tracing intersectionality’s origin to asingular narrative, depicting its emergence asa product of black women’s intellectuallabour. The failure of such origin stories intracking multiple genealogies of the term inboth black feminist and women of colourfeminist traditions makes black feminists thesole claimants of intersectionality. The criticof intersectionality is often depicted by blackfeminists as an outsider, a threat who couldharm the intellectual and political terrain

Manufacturing Happy Citizens:How the Science and Industry of

Happiness Control our Lives

Edgar Cabanas and Eva IllouzPolity Press

2019260 pages£14.99 pbk

ISBN: 9781509537891 pbk

Black FeminismReimagined: AfterIntersectionality

Jennifer C. NashDuke University Press

2019 184 pages

£69.40 hbk, £17.99 pbkISBN: 9781478000433 hbk


Book

nDrAslı E. MertKoç University, Turkey

Reviews 27

When the world is creating a space tospread ultra-nationalist ideologies,

when the social fabric of communities isbecoming ruptured and when there is adeep ecological crisis, it becomes a paramountmoral responsibility to understand themotifs of these extremities and to identifysolutions. Of all the disciplines in socialsciences and hard sciences that canunderstand and interpret such things, theonus is more on sociology.

As Discovering Sociology points out, thehistorical genesis of the disciplineoriginated in an attempt to understand thechaos that emerged in the aftermath of theFrench revolution. In 1838, Auguste Comte,known as the father of sociology, first usedthe term sociology and defined it as thescientific study of social behaviour (p.29).

It was first used in a Weberian sense(verteshen) to analyse the events thatunfolded in the 19th and 20th centuriesacross the world. The discipline also evolvedfrom being protectionist to the existingsocial order to questioning the very orderitself and, importantly, cultivating

sociological thinking (Zygmunt Bauman)and creating a space to imagine socio-logically (C.W. Mills).

Discovering Sociology has 10 chapters and isdivided into two parts; the first provides thehistory of the discipline, while the secondpart engages with issues such as gender,race, class, migration, religion, crime andmany others.

The book also has separate chapters onethics and personal life. The personal was,for a long time, considered under theheading of micro sociological theory orunderstood from an ‘agency’ point of view,but having a chapter under the title‘personal’ connects well with the worldoutside academia.

In the chapter on theory, the authorsdissect theory and define it as a “set ofconnected hypotheses” (p.49) anddemonstrate the importance and relevanceof types of theories such as thephilosophical, grand theory (Parsons) andmiddle range theory (the MRT-Robert KMerton and micro theory-interpretativetradition). In doing so, they incorporaterelevant contemporary examples.

If the purpose of sociology is tounderstand the actions of an actor, theauthors say that they are determined by twofactors: actors’ own thinking (agency) andthe structures (family, education, healthservices, religion) of their world.

The sociological theories are broadlygrouped into three: functionalism, conflicttheories and interactionism. The tables

given in each chapter are enriching andthere are very useful summaries.

While there are many introductory bookson sociology by Osborne and Nimkoff,Ritzer, Inkels, Max Weber, and the classictextbook by Anthony Giddens, one must askwhat a new work can add to the alreadyexisting material.

The main attraction of the book is theinclusion of margin notes, box items, voxpops and also ‘pause for reflection’ sections.The book establishes connections betweenbroad social structures to personal life, fromsocial divisions to future societies (p. xvi)and importantly established connectionsbetween theory, method and substance,invoking the French sociologist PierreBourdieu’s (1988) statement following Kantthat “theory without empirical research isempty, empirical research without theory isempty”.

As a suggestion, the book could haveincorporated themes such as region,cinema, caste and health, but otherwise thebook has all the necessary capacity to be forundergraduate students. In its totality, thebook ‘invokes cognitive dissonance in theprocess’, i.e. that feeling of recognising thatan intellectual argument is right, butemotionally feeling it to be wrong, which isnecessary at any moment of life, moreimportantly in contemporary times.

Discovering SociologyMark McCormack, Eric Anderson,Kimberly Jamie, Matthew David

Red Globe Press2018

328 pages£25.99 pbk

ISBN: 9781137609724 pbk

that the black feminists have laboured tocarve out. In a defensive move, blackfeminists have advocated a politics of readingwhich propagates care as a method ofreading, a political commitment, a display ofrespect towards intersectionality as well as astrategy of guarding intersectionality frommisuse. However, in Nash’s narration, care asa strategy of black feminists is not only limitedto the method of reading practice but, in herview, black feminists writings of late have alsobecome emphatically preoccupied withadvocacy for self-care as an agenda for survival.

Secondly, in historicising the “institutionallife” of intersectionality, Nash first tracks blackfeminism’s relationship to women’s studies.She argues that in women’s studies,

intersectionality and transnationalism areposed as mutually exclusive categories eventhough in both of the analytics raciallymarked embodied subjects become the signsof feminist promise of inclusivity. Nashsuggests that in a move of reimagining theblack feminist theoretical and politicalproject, black feminists could surrender itsterritorial hold to intersectionality and permitthe analytic to move towards unleashingconnections between black feminism andwomen of colour feminism.

Thirdly, Nash argues that at the universitylevel, intersectionality has turned into adiversity project. In the name ofintersectionality, the universities tend toinsert diversity into existing structures in

apolitical ways, which in turn dilutes thetransformative and anti-subordination spiritof intersectionality. The continued statistsubordination of the black population has ledblack feminists to view the state as anti-black.In this context Nash emphasises the strategicmove of black feminist affective engagementwith the state, which would give a chance toblack women to demand that the state feeldifferently towards them. In this directionNash proposes letting go as a way forward andlove as a political practice for black feministsthrough which university space in particularand the state in general could be reformedand reimagined. n Dr Madhumita BiswalCentral University of Gujarat, India

ends

n Shilpa KrishnaUniversity of Hyderabad, India

Reviews ofrecent books in social scienceand sociology



28 Desert island discourse

Your first choice is The Making of a Moonie.Choice or Brainwashing?, by Eileen Barker –why did you choose that?

I always wonder why people assume that ascholar studying religion must be religious. Ialso study and teach about criminology, but Idon’t think people would assume I’m acriminal. (Spoiler alert! I’m neither). Themain problem here is the academy’sassumption that religion left the buildingsometime around the Enlightenment and yet,as most people in the world are religious andreligion is an important social force (considerwhy Evangelical Christians elected DonaldTrump or why the Shah of Iran was deposedby a theocracy, or why the BSA has had asociology of religion study group since the1970s) the sociology of religion should be astandard offer in any self-respecting sociologydepartment. The books I choose here reflectthat sociological imagination.

A dominant narrative about people whoconvert to new and often closed religiousmovements was that they were brainwashedand vulnerable. Worried parents wouldsometimes hire professional ‘cult-busters’ tokidnap their young, adult children and bringthem back home for ‘de-programming’. Noone seemed to ask whether those youngpeople had wilfully chosen their new groupsor whether their new spiritual homes were inmany ways similar to traditional religiousorganisations – apart from LSE sociologistEileen Barker, who changed that narrative in1984 and, with her charity Inform, continuesto do so.

Eileen Barker moved the popular, yetderogatory, term of ‘cults’ to one reflectingnuance and difference, ‘New religiousmovements’, through her study of theUnification church founded by South KoreanSun Myung Moon. Through detailedobservations, interviews, questionnaires andwider data analysis, she found thatcharacteristics like age, class or gender didn’thelp explain why people joined themovement. Rather, the ‘Moonies’ sharedcomplex experiences, attitudes and desires,came mainly from conventionally religiousfamilies, held the same values as theirreligious upbringing, and often simply

wanted to return to and recreate a sense of awarm family. Moonies, it transpired, werepretty much like anyone else.

What made you choose your next selection –Crossing the Gods: World Religions and WorldlyPolitics, by Jay Demerath?

University of Massachusetts (Amherst)sociologist Jay Demerath is one of theforemost sociologists of religion whosearguments and theories have persuadedscholars to take religion seriously as acontemporary social force. Demerath criss-crossed the world over a decade, visiting 14countries to explore religions in theirnational and international contexts. Hisquestions focused on the ways in whichreligious actors experience their religions andoften collaborate and compete with secularinterests.

He notes that such interaction had beenlargely ignored by scholars in the 1970s, whothought religions, and those who studiedthem, were anachronistic and irrelevant. Butthen, in the 1970s and 80s, came the rise ofthe hard-right religious conservatisms, thevisits and blessings of a Pope to Latin Americaand Poland, with their strong, anti-government political agendas, and crises inthe Middle East fuelled by religioussentiments and identities.

Demerath shows how the interests ofpoliticians and religious leaders often merge,distinguishing between religious actorsbecoming involved in politics, and suchactors becoming involved in the state. Thefirst, particularly for religions committed tochanging people’s behaviour, may beinevitable, while the second, usually related topower, is contentious, both for religious andsecular publics.

He was also adamant about the need forcomplex methods for a complex subject,arguing that (2001, 221): “Mark Twain onceobserved that ‘faith is believing what youknow ain’t so’. The very phrase ‘religiousbelief’ is subject to misinterpretation becauseit is so often confused with cognitive certaintyas opposed to cultural identity. What weactually believe – and with what level ofintensity – is fraught with ambiguity and

inconsistency, depending upon the socialcircumstances. It is hardly surprising thatquestionnaire responses are manipulatable.”

His case studies are sharp and layered withthe sort of insights and observations that willkeep my imagination alive and running.

Why did you select for your third book, TheSpiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Wayto Spirituality, by Paul Heelas and LindaWoodhead?

A cliché perhaps, but there was onesociological book that changed my life: TheSpiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Wayto Spirituality. The change occurred for tworeasons. The first was personal andprofessional: as a Lancaster University PhDstudent I was generously allowed toparticipate in small ways during its researchstage. This was my first taste of empiricalresearch and it was thrilling to find my waythrough church archives, county recordsoffices and libraries of census data, like adetective following clues, only to realise thatmuch of what is presented as ‘clean’ data is,in fact, often messy and full of human errors.

Second, the theories the authors developedwere sound and field-changing. Using asingle site as a base (Kendal, in the LakeDistrict) the research team during two yearsconducted surveys, interviews, observationsand archival research to find and map‘contemporary patterns of the sacred’ – theoften hidden, nuanced stories within andamongst religious and spiritual lives. Theresearchers categorised the population theystudied into two broad areas they described asthe ‘congregational domain’ composed ofchurches, chapels and other Christianinstitutions in the predominantly white town,and the ‘holistic milieu’, a diverse and oftenhard-to-find population whose activities had,in their own terms, a spiritual dimension –

Abby Day

Abby Day is Professor of Race, Faith and Culture inthe Sociology Department at Goldsmiths. Her booksand articles include Believing in Belonging: Belief andSocial Identity in the Modern World (OUP, 2013) andThe Religious Lives of Older Laywomen: the Last ActiveAnglican Generation (OUP, 2017). She is a former Chairof the BSA Sociology of Religion study group.

Desert island discourse 29


such as groups meeting in private homes,circle dancers, yoga and Tai Chi groups, andcomplementary therapy practitioners.

They found that the two types were distinct,with little or no overlap. Those in thecongregational domain believed in a higher,external power, such as God, while those inthe holistic milieu focused on their ownbodies and emotions, or ‘subjective lives’. Thebook’s title was arresting and misinterpretedby some. It was not the authors’ thesis thatreligion would die out and be replaced byspirituality, but rather that some kinds ofreligion are losing their appeal and credibilityas some forms of spirituality gain the same.They found that 7.9% of the Kendalpopulation belonged to the congregationaldomain, while 1.6% were in the holisticmilieu. They argued that if the current rate ofrespective decline and growth continued inKendal, within 40 years the holistic milieuwould outgrow the congregational domain.The text stands as a fine example of thegeneralisability of a single case study withtheories and methods that continue toinform contemporary research.

Linda Woodhead went on to lead thelargest research programme ever conductedinto contemporary religion, the AHRC-ESRCReligion and Society programme, which hasrevitalised and transformed the study ofreligion in the UK and internationally.

Your fourth choice is Religion in Britain since1945, by Grace Davie – why this book?

Another path-breaking work that formedmy career was Exeter University sociologistGrace Davie’s ‘believing without belonging’thesis, first written as a journal paper andthen as a book (1994). My first book, basedon my doctoral research, was somewhatunoriginally titled to present a variation onher theme, Believing in Belonging (Day 2011)as I wrote in conversation with, andsometimes against, her theories. For thenearly three decades following thepublication of her book, I and others workingin the field knew it was her thesis for whichwe would need to account, whether weagreed (and most did) with it or not.

Davie drew mainly on surveys to create hercompelling argument that the majority ofBritish people believe in God, hell, sin andheaven but just do not attend churchregularly. Her book was written to try toexplain that and to reveal more about ataken-for-granted phenomena which is rarelystudied or otherwise explored – the large,and apparently unremarkable, middleground in British religious affiliation.

She wrote that there were several good butsmall studies of religion in Britain, but “thepicture in the middle remains alarminglyblurred”, with very little known about “thebeliefs of ordinary British people in everydaylife” (Davie 1994, 6). Her work anticipatedand influenced future research in thesociology of religion by people such as NancyAmmerman who developed the concept of‘everyday religion’ by researching the“nonexperts, the people who do not make aliving being religious or thinking and writingabout religious ideas” (Ammerman 2007, 5)and Meredith McGuire’s (2008) explorationof ‘lived religion’.

While Grace Davie made more than adozen strong and deftly argued claims,several became central to my future study andthinking: the majority of British peoplepersist in believing in God but “see no needto participate with even minimal regularity intheir religious institutions” (ibid., 2). It ismore accurate to describe them as‘unchurched’ rather than secular(ibid.,12,13); the churches attract anaudience which is disproportionately elderly,female and conservative (ibid.,2).

Fortunately for me, she left the term‘belief’ relatively unexplained, something Iwas to pick up and, often with thecollaboration of anthropologist SimonColeman and sociologist Gordon Lynch,research its meaning and practice over thenext decade.

Your last book is The Politics of Piety: TheIslamic Revival and the Feminist Subject,by Saba Mahmood – what led you to this?

Opinions about conservative religiouswomen often rest on ideas that they areoppressed, mistaken or suffer from a falseconsciousness. The late Saba Mahmood’sstudy of Egyptian women’s involvement in aconservative, strict form of Islam known asthe ‘mosque’ or ‘piety’ movement challengedsuch narrow assumptions.

A Pakistani-born American woman whointroduces herself as someone stronglyinfluenced by Critical Marxism and feministtheory, she suggests that many feministsbelieve that “women Islamist supporters arepawns in a grand patriarchal plan”(Mahmood 2005, 1). She asks why womenacross the Muslim world actively support amovement that seems inimical to their “owninterests and agendas”, especially at ahistorical moment when these women appearto have more emancipatory possibilitiesavailable to them (Mahmood 2005, 2). Theconcept of ‘duty’ describes one of the goals ofthe mosque movement according toprinciples of ‘da’wa’, meaning a call orsummons. Mahmood’s analysis of themovement moves beyond the role of womenand contested versions of feminism toconcerns about the construction ofpersonhood, negotiations between politicsand piety, and the permeable bordersbetween public and private.

One reason I would want this book with meis for the fine detailed descriptions and voicesthat create a vivid, moving text, folded into adeeply engaging, thoughtful, theoreticalwork.

Another is that re-reading it would take meback to stories and places I remember frommy own research and others’, where themessy work of good research into religion iscarried out, revealing surprising phenomena– atheists who pray, religious people whodon’t believe in God, non-religious peoplewho do, feminists who adopt conservativepractices, Sunday Christians, Evangelicals forTrump, Friday Muslims, Jedi Knights andCultural Jews, to name a few. Some maydescribe such findings as puzzling orcontradictory; I prefer to think they arepatterns and processes we have not yetdiscerned. Further research is necessary.

And for your luxury?I’d say a photo album of my family, because

they’re what I’d miss most.

For references given in this article, please see:www.britsoc.co.uk/members-area/network

3. The Spiritual Revolution, by Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead main authors (2005) Blackwell

4. Religion in Britain since 1945, by Grace Davie (1994) Blackwell

5. The Politics of Piety, by Saba Mahmood (2005) Princeton University Press

1. The Making of a Moonie, Choice or Brainwashing?, by Eileen Barker (1984) Blackwell

Professor Day’s choices:

2. Crossing The Gods: World Religions And Worldly Politics, by Jay Demerath (2001) Rutgers University Press


30 News feature

Meet the PhD: Sarah Handyside

My thesis is a qualitative project exploring how teenagers use and experience social media, specifically Snapchat and Instagram, andhow those experiences are gendered, and gendering. I’m particularly interested in the temporal and spatial aspects of social media:how they make the past present, and how they make permanent content which was originally intended to be ephemeral.

My fieldwork was based in youth clubs – three inner city and one rural. I ran semi-structured group interviews with around 40teenagers and also took observational field notes from watching how young people used the spaces and engaged with their phones.

I think social media are integral to understanding multiple aspects of modern life, from interpersonal relationships to politicalparticipation. Given the influence of social media on modern politics and activism, I think research in these areas is vital.

I have always been interested in digital culture and emerging technologies and how they are affecting everyday life – I began mycareer in communications for technology firms. I also love working with teenagers and, as a passionate feminist, am very interested inissues related to gender. My research project brings together all these areas.

I’ve found the process pleasantly manageable so far. My supervisors are fantastic and there is also a lovely community of socialscience PhDs at the University of Warwick, who have really helped. Obviously it’s a marathon rather than a sprint, and there have beentimes when the long-term nature of it feels overwhelming. But broadly speaking it’s been a great experience.

The best part is having the luxury of spending your time exploring something you are genuinely interested in and which is indeliblylinked to the ‘real world’. There’s a great deal of freedom and flexibility, which is wonderful.

The hardest part has been organising my fieldwork. It took far longer and was a much more convoluted process than I imagined. Butthere have been personal challenges as well – a breakup and a family illness – which made maintaining focus very difficult at times. APhD really bleeds into your personal life and vice versa, and this can be very challenging.

Whilst you have to really, really want to do it in order to cope with the challenges, I also think it is very important to have a life outsideof your PhD, and to not see it as something larger than it is. Treat it as a job – albeit an unusual one. I make time for reading – subjectsand stories that have nothing to do with my PhD. I love going for long walks around London and having wine-fuelled discussions with mypartner – again, on subjects that have nothing to do with my PhD.

Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, 2016-2020

‘Whilst you have to really want to do it in order to cope with the challenges,I also think it is very important to have a life outside of your PhD’

A sociology degree makes people better offfinancially over the course of their lifetime,new research shows.

A study from the Institute for FiscalStudies says that women with sociologydegrees will gain around £66,000 over theirlifetime and men £34,000. This takes intoaccount their net earnings and any coststhey incur for tuition and maintenance.

This compares with an average netlifetime return of an undergraduate degreeof £130,000 for men and £100,000 forwomen, a gain of about 20 per cent, andwith a gain of around £500,000 on averagefor the 10 per cent of graduates with thehighest returns, mainly those in economics,law and medicine.

The £66,000 figure for the lifetime netgain for women taking sociology is higherthan the equivalent for psychology(£55,000) but lower than for politics(£157,000). For men, the sociology figure of£34,000 is higher than that for psychology(£27,000) but lower than politics (£174,000).

The report also found that overall, one infive graduates in England would have beenbetter off financially had they not gone touniversity. This figure was less than 10% forwomen sociology graduates, but 40% formen.

Men generally gain larger returns if theyattended a Russell Group university, butwomen see little difference in averagereturns across institution types.

The study drew on the LongitudinalEducation Outcomes (LEO) dataset andcontrolled for students’ prior attainmentand family background when comparingthose who undertook undergraduatedegrees with those who did not.

Previous IFS research studied the impactof undergraduate degrees on earnings atage 29, but the new research uses additionalLEO data on earlier cohorts to estimate theimpact of earnings over an individual’swhole working life.

The estimates are based on the earningsof individuals who were born in the mid-

1980s and went to university in the mid-2000s, with the analysis simulating earningsand employment trajectories to retirementage.

The report, ‘The impact ofundergraduate degrees on lifetimeearnings’, was commissioned by theDepartment for Education.

It also estimated the benefit of degrees tothe taxpayer, taking into account thegovernment cost of providing student loansand changes in tax payments.

It found that the expected gain to theexchequer of an individual enrolling in anundergraduate course is about £110,000 perstudent for men and £30,000 per studentfor women – but these rewards are drivenmainly by the highest-earning graduates.

The government makes a loss onfinancing the degrees of around 40 per centof male graduates and half of femalegraduates, according to the study.

The report can be read at:https://tinyurl.com/vn8r8fe

Sociology degree brings largerfinancial benefits for women

Events update, April 2020


Events 31

Because of the coronavirus a number of BSA events have been cancelled. To see the current situation, please visit the BSA’s website: www.britsoc.co.uk

Would you like to contribute to Network?

For more information pleasecontact Tony Trueman at:[email protected] oron 07964 023392, or BSA ChiefExecutive Judith Mudd at:[email protected]

Copy deadlines are around twomonths before publication(please check with Tony orJudith).

We try to print allmaterial received, butpressure of space maylead to articles beingedited and publicationbeing delayed; somearticles may be carriedonline only.

Books for review can beseen at:http://bit.ly/2gM3tDt

We are looking for letters,opinions pieces and newsarticles from sociologists

Magazine of the British Sociological AssociationRegistered Charity (no. 1080235)

Company Limited by Guarantee (no. 3890729)

Network is published three times a year:Spring

Summer

Autumn

ISSN: 1742-1616

Available online to members:

www.britsoc.co.uk

Spring 2020

Since humanities andsocial science academicshave almost nothing tooffer the corporate stateand are sometimes criticalof it, these areas inparticular are the subjectof successive attacks

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It is upon people like us,who are moving forwardand educating ourselves,to drive the messageforward that everyone isequal. To my trans sistersI say, it is not your ownfight, it is a fight for thesisterhood

‘

’The best part of a PhD is having theluxury of spending your time exploringsomething you are genuinelyinterested in, and which is indeliblylinked to the ‘real world’

‘

’

NETWORK

Documents

Network Spring 2020 v65 Layout 1 · Network Recording the working lives of sociologists for over 40 years Issue 134, Spring 2020 Also in this issue: n Researcher denied permanent