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Previous 2023 Events:

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ESRC Digital Good Network 

Keynote lecture - Łukasz Szulc on Feminist and Queer Manifestos for Digital Utopias

22 June, 1pm to 2.45pm

University of ��«Ӱҵ and online

The ESRC Digital Good Network is delighted to host Łukasz Szulc, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture at the University of Manchester, for what is sure to be an engaging keynote lecture as part of our first Digital Good Network summer school. 

When it comes to digital technology, academics in social sciences and humanities are often playing catch-up. The rapid acceleration of technological change, the black-box nature of major digital technologies and academics’ hindered access to Big Tech’s data force us to provide a largely belated or reactive critique. Arguing that critique alone is not enough to shape better digital futures, Łukasz will build on the idea of utopia to think about the digital good in a radical and revolutionary way. 

The event will be hybrid - attendees are able to join in-person at the University of ��«Ӱҵ and online. All are welcome, refreshments to follow.  

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Migration Matters Festival

Together for Change

22 June, 4pm to 6pm

Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, ��«Ӱҵ City Centre, ��«Ӱҵ S1 2BX

Together for Change is an evening of events co-created by members of Young People Together, a creative empowerment programme for young adults from around the world aged 16-30, in partnership with Stand & Be Counted Theatre and the University of ��«Ӱҵ.

As part of this year's Migration Matters Festival we are hosting an evening of live performance, documentary and discussion. Join us for 20 minutes or 2 hours, everyone is welcome.

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The Art of Healthy Lifespan Festival

Saturday 28 January – Saturday 4 February 2023

A series of free events exploring ageing and health across the life course

Join us at The Art of Healthy Lifespans for a series of inclusive events and exhibitions showcasing the role of art and creativity in understanding and enhancing health and well-being across the life course.

Free and open to all.

To find out more information about the festival and to book on events, please visit the Art of Healthy Lifespan festival page.

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John Westergaard Annual Lecture

Thursday 2nd February 3.00pm - 4.30pm.

The lecture will be a hybrid event, with the opportunity to attend F2F or join online. Please register for the event via .

Location: Richard Roberts Auditorium

Lecture by Professor , London School of Economics.
 

Sam Friedman is Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. He has     published widely on class, culture and social mobility, and recently co-authored The Class   Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged. He is also the author of Comedy and Distinction: The   Cultural Currency of a ‘Good’ Sense of Humour and co-author of Social Class in the 21st     Century. He is currently working on a new book (with Aaron Reeves) looking at the historical     development of the British elite, drawing on the entire 125-year database of Who's Who. 

Born to Rule: 125 years of Change and Continuity in the British Elite 

The British elite has always been trailed by caricatures. Occupying a central place in the global cultural imagination, it is routinely skewered as a closed establishment cabal, a totem of ‘old-boy’ class inequality, a snobbish out-of-touch chumocracy, and more recently, the dynamic engine room of financialised capitalism.  But beyond the narrow scholarly accounts and journalistic polemics - who actually are the British elite? How do people reach its ranks and obtain their power? How has it reproduced itself over time? And what does eliteness really look like in contemporary Britain? In this lecture I answer these questions by mining a new and unparalleled data set of the British elite (constructed with my co-author Aaron Reeves). Bringing together the entire historical database of Who’s Who, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, genealogical records, Probate data, and 100 in-depth interviews, I analyse the 100,000 individuals that have shaped Britain over the last 125 years.  

The story I uncover looks notably different from prevailing narratives. Certainly, Britain’s upper echelons are no longer a closed shop. But neither are they in terminal decline. While the elite has become both significantly more open, in terms of social origins and schooling, and more diverse, in terms of gender and ethnicity, this progress has now stalled and, in many areas, processes of elite reproduction have been rejuvenated. Indeed wealth and occupational position increasingly overlap, suggesting the return of a ruling class who wield both increasing economic and symbolic power. And, significantly, just as this elite pulls away, so it also masters a careful public performance of ‘ordinariness’ to head off public suspicions of snobbishness and self-interest. These changes matter. Put simply, when elites are socially homogeneous they are more likely to reward those similar to themselves and implement policies that protect their advantages. This lecture thus aims not only to provide a forensic empirical exploration of the British elite, but also argues that this elite can and should be re-made through the political choices we, as societies, make.

 

Previous 2022 Events:

The Department of Sociological Studies is delighted to announce a new annual lecture 'Big Ideas in Social Policy'. The inaugural event will consist of four outstanding presentations and a panel discussion on the topic of 'Social Policy in the Era of Global Crises'.

Thursday 26 May 2022

Speakers:    

Professor Anuj Kapilashrami, Essex University

Emeritus Professor Fiona Williams OBE, Leeds University

Professor Ian Gough, The London School of Economics & Political Science

Professor Ann Phoenix, UCL Inst, Education

Biographies:

Professor Anuj Kapilashrami: The ideational crisis in social policy: applying an intersectional  decolonising lens for social equity and justice.

In this talk I argue that our failure to remedy social inequities and injustices are in large part attributable to how sociological problems or ‘crises’, and corresponding solutions, are framed. Examining knowledge production and discursive frames with respect to key critical contemporary social policy areas- migration, health and social inequalities, I discuss the siloed, parochial, Euro-centric nature of this ideation process, and the role of the global-local governance complex in crystalising these reductive essentialised frames in social policy today. Current approach limits our understanding, creates exceptionalism of issues and limits possibilities for actions, in the process reinforcing the inequalities and injustices social policy sets out to remedy. I argue that meaningful actions and solutions require explicit adoption of an intersectionality and decolonial perspective that challenge the colonial underpinnings of social policy and disrupts hegemonic epistemologies and praxis.

Kapilashrami is an Interdisciplinary social scientist trained in Sociology and Public health and Professor in Global health Policy and Equity in the School of Health & Social Care at the University of Essex. Her work lies at the intersections of health policy, politics and development praxis, with particular interest in understanding their interface with equity, human rights and social justice. Her longstanding research experience spans two decades in academia, policy and development sectors in South Asia and the UK. Her current work focuses on advancing an intersectional approach, methodologically and empirically, to examine health inequalities and structural determinants of health and well-being (most recently applied to the field of migration health and COVID-19). She has published widely in these areas in leading journals and advised/ trained policy makers, practitioners and early career researchers in South Asia, Central Asia and the UK.

Professor Fiona Williams: The Global Crisis of Care and its Intersections with Other Crises.

My argument is that there are three global crises whose risks and inequalities are interconnected. In my talk I will focus on one of these – the global crisis of care. This is characterised by two key dynamics: the longstanding devaluation of care as practice, work, and ethic; and the depletion of support, resources and time to enable people’s capacity to care and be cared-for. However, the policy implications of these dynamics are also caught up in two other global crises: of migration and the racialisation of borders, and of the environment. I will argue that understanding these intersections is important for political alliances and for future social policy. 

Williams is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of Leeds and Honorary Professor at the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.  Her research covers gender, race, and migration in social policy. A key concern is about the place of care in contemporary society. Past books include ‘Social Policy, A Critical Introduction. Issues of ‘Race’, Gender and Class’; ‘Rethinking Families’; and, with Lister et al.,&�Բ�����;‘Gendering Citizenship in Western Europe’. Her latest book, ‘Social Policy. A Critical and Intersectional Analysis’ examines what the crises of racialized borders, of care, and of climate change mean for social policy. Fiona is a Fellow of the British Academy where she edits the Journal of the British Academy. She was awarded an OBE in 2005 for services to social policy.

Professor Ian Gough: How on earth can future social policy be squared with net zero?

To square equity and justice with ecological sustainability cannot be achieved overnight, so I propose two stages, concentrating only on the rich world. First, add a social dimension to the Green New Deal framework. This should involve a shift in focus from Beveridgean transfers to public provision of essentials - a framework of Universal Basic Services. Second, to move further towards an economy of egalitarian sufficiency, the notion of 'ceilings' must accompany our traditional concern with guaranteeing welfare floors. This will need to tackle wasteful and inegalitarian consumption, excessive incomes and unproductive jobs, for example in the financial sector.

Gough is Visiting Professor in CASE (Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion) and an Associate of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, both at the London School of Economics.  He is also Emeritus Professor at the University if Bath. His past books include The Political Economy of the Welfare State; A Theory of Human Need; Global Capital, Human Needs and Social Policies. His latest book titled Heat, Greed and Human Need: Climate Change, Capitalism and Sustainable Wellbeing, was published in October 2017. Recent paper: 'Two Scenarios for Sustainable Welfare: A Framework for an Eco-Social Contract' in Social Policy and Society. In 2021 he was awarded a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship to research ‘Valuing what Matters: From Efficiency to Sufficiency’.

Professor Ann Phoenix: Working Towards Holistic, Intersectional Policy Features.

In publishing Social Insurance and Allied Services in November 1942, William Beveridge adopted as his first principle that:  

“The first principle is that any proposals for the future, while they should use to the full experience gathered in the past, should not be restricted by consideration of sectional interests established in the obtaining of that experience. Now, when the war is abolishing landmarks of every kind, is the opportunity for using experience in a clear field. A revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.” 

This principle is surely fitting for a period where the unexpected conjunctions of environmental activism, pandemic, the resurgence and global spread of Black Lives Matter, wars, #MeToo and concerns about children’s health and hunger, constitute global crises. Already, recognition of the global, national and local inequities that produced differential outcomes of Covid-19 (and all the other issues) have been transformational for some. We need, however, Beveridge’s notion of the importance of revolution at such a time, rather than patching together piecemeal solutions. 

In this talk, I will argue that this period of unanticipated transformational conjunctions requires holistic thinking that recognises that our contemporary Wants require difficult conversations to help devise claims to hopeful policies. If the focus of these conversations is, as Beveridge suggested, not to be restricted, they would have to be multi-sited (e.g. education, health, employment and homes) and historically engaged as well as future-oriented. They would also have to face the challenge of simultaneously addressing inequities produced in relation to gender relations; migration policy and the hostile environment; racialisation and racisms; access to internet connectivity; poverty and intergenerational relations and the life course. For one of the things that has become clear since Beveridge is that it is no longer acceptable to treat people as if they are unidimensional and hence to take white men as the norm against which we measure policies. As Gail Lewis and Fiona Williams have shown, an intersectional view is crucial.  

Phoenix is Professor of Psychosocial studies at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Department of Social Science, UCL Institute of Education and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her policy engagement includes co-directing the Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre funded by the Department for Education. Her research includes work on racialised and gendered identities and experiences; mixed-parentage, masculinities, consumption, young people and their parents, the transition to motherhood, families, migration and transnational families.  From 2016-8 she was the Erkko Professor at the Helsinki University Collegium for Advanced Studies, Finland. In 2020 she was the Kerstin Hesselgren Guest Professor at Umea University, Sweden and in 2022 is finishing the professorship in person. In July 2020 and 2021 she was the Angela Davis Visiting Professor at Frankfurt University, Germany (on Zoom). 

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Previous 2021 events

Why we still need class analysis… but what sort of class analysis do we need?

The Westergaard Annual Lecture with Professor Beverley Skeggs, Lancaster University

Tuesday 9 November 2021, 16:30 – 18:00

The world is awash with descriptions of rising global inequality such as “The wealth of the 10 richest men has increased by half a trillion dollars since the pandemic began", and  “The wealth of the 22 richest men is more than the whole of the wealth of all women in Africa”. These horrifying descriptions are often not accompanied with analysis of why global inequality and impoverishment are intensifying. John Westergaard argued many years ago that the analysis of industrial production is not adequate to explain wealth accumulation. If that is the case, what sort of explanation do we need instead? And what has inequality to do with class?

In this lecture, Beverley explored the possibilities and limits of different explanations: What do we mean by class? Can we understand capitalism without class? Is class still the motor of capitalism as Marx argued? As a concept class is called on to do many things in many places: it operates daily through popular culture as well as in academic disciplines. It is represented in images as well as statistics and complex abstractions. Most people think they know what class is, or think class is dead. Again.

Examining two major historical routes into definitions of class we see how inequality through class comes to be explained in entirely different ways, but ways which sound very similar, hence leading to some very confused and bizarre understandings – it’s a minefield out there—and even more so when entwined histories of race and gender are included in the explanations. Beverley will use these different trajectories to develop an analysis of inequality and how class with race and gender are fundamental to understanding the different capitalist formations that infrastructure how we experience our daily lives.

Bio
Beverley Skeggs is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. She has published The Media; Issues in Sociology; Feminist Cultural Theory; Formations of Class and Gender; Class, Self, Culture  Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety (with Les Moran) and Feminism after Bourdieu (with Lisa Adkins), and with Helen Wood, Reacting to Reality TV: Audience, Performance, Value and Reality TV and Class. As an ESRC Professorial Fellow she developed a “sociology of values and value’’ and whilst Director of the Atlantic Fellows Programme, established the ‘Global Economies of Care’ theme at the LSE. She is currently Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University and Chief Exec of The Sociological Review Foundation.

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Previous 2020 events

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Gender-Based Violence and Community Impacts

Wednesday 25 November 2020

The Department of Sociological Studies held a gender-based violence and community impacts online event, in recognition of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls.

View recordings from the event here

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Data Visualization In Society

Wednesday 6th May 2020
4pm (BST) 

The virtual launch of , an open access book edited by Martin Engebretsen and Helen Kennedy, and published by Amsterdam University Press. 

Today we are witnessing an increased use of data visualization in society. Across domains, graphs, charts and maps are used to explain, convince and tell stories. This is especially true during the Coronavirus pandemic, when information is being communicated in simple data visualizations - one of them, the 'flatten the curve' line chart, has even become famous.

In this era in which more and more data are produced and circulated digitally, and digital tools make visualization production increasingly accessible, it is important to study the conditions under which such visual texts are generated, disseminated and thought to be of societal benefit. This book is a contribution to the multi-disciplined and multi-faceted conversation concerning the forms, uses and roles of data visualization in society. Do data visualizations do 'good' or 'bad'? Do they promote understanding and engagement, or do they do ideological work, privileging certain views of the world over others? The contributions in Data Visualization In Society engage with these core questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

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Sociologies of Reality TV  (This event has been postponed until further notice)

Wednesday 8 April 2020
9.30am - 4.30pm
38 Mappin Street, ��«Ӱҵ

Reality TV has, in the past three decades, moved from the margins of popular culture to its core. The success of television shows, such as Love Island and others, has prompted discussions concerning mental health and suicide, forms of coercive control and representations of marginalised groups in popular culture. Whilst existing sociological analyses of reality TV offer important contributions to discussions of identity construction, governmentality and performance and agency, such work remains largely piecemeal and disconnected. The potential therefore remains for interdisciplinary debates to push explorations of reality TV further and to reveal insights into the role of this cultural artefact as a site for exploration of identity, voice, performance, mediated social relations and consumption. Doing so offers the potential to contribute to long-standing sociological themes as well as exploring new directions in sociology and beyond. 

We are keen to explore the wide breadth of sociological and other themes potentially arising from analyses of reality TV. By way of example, we encourage contributions for papers which address the questions below, but other areas of interest are also welcome. 

• How do the dynamics of social structures intersect with and shape the appeal of othering processes evident in reality TV?  

• What are the impacts of the over-representation of some individuals on identity making and performance (particularly the focus on certain body-types, races, age groups and sexual orientations)?

• To what extent is the persistent under-representations of some individuals a reflection of societal inequalities and social divisions (and what are the implications arising from this)?

• How can reality TV play an empowering role in its representations of marginalised members of society, or does derision persist?

• How might new sociologies and methodologies including feminist, queer or post-colonial perspectives facilitate new understandings of reality TV’s impact as a cultural object? 

• What are the methodological implications of researching reality TV, particularly navigating ethical challenges?

Presentations are likely to be as part of themed panels, with approximately 20 minutes per paper. The symposium is deliberately designed around interactive/debate-centred sessions with opportunity for audience interaction. The following speakers have confirmed their participation in the event: 

• Professor Ruth Holliday (University of Leeds) 
• Professor Helen Wood (Lancaster University) 
• Dr Kim Allen (University of Leeds) 
• Dr Jilly Kay (University of Leicester) 

Contact
If you would like to discuss any aspect of this event, please contact the event organisers, Dr Xavier L’Hoiry and/or Dr Kitty Nichols.

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Countering health determinants of adolescent criminalisation: The case of childhood neurodevelopmental disability

Professor Nathan Hughes' Inaugural Lecture

Wednesday 12 February 2020, 17:30 - 19:30
Lecture Theatre 6, The Diamond (followed by a drinks reception in ICOSS)

Health and developmental difficulties in childhood increase the risk that a young person will be exposed to the criminal justice system, particularly in a context of social marginalisation and inequality. This includes neurodevelopmental disabilities, such as learning disability, brain injury and language disorders, which are characterised by a combination of cognitive, emotional and communication difficulties. While such difficulties increase propensity towards criminal behaviour in some forms or contexts, it is also clear that criminal justice processes disable, and ultimately criminalize, these young people. This provides a persuasive case for policy and practice reform. Engaging with developmental neurosciences offers opportunities to address the failure of current practices and interventions to prevent the offending of these young people – though this is not without challenges. In parallel, the recent UN General Comment No. 24 on child justice reiterates the need to uphold international conventions on the rights of young people and those with disabilities.

Power asymmetries and colonial legacies in the humanitarian response to refugee crises: towards a theory of technocolonialism.

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Lecture with

Wednesday 5th February 2020, 16:15 - 17:30
Lecture Theatre 1, Elmfield Building 

Digital innovation, artificial intelligence and data practices are increasingly central to the humanitarian response to recent humanitarian emergencies including refugee crises. This lecture introduced the concept of technocolonialism to capture how the convergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures and capitalist forces reinvigorate and reshape colonial relationships of dependency. 

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Previous 2019 events

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Understanding ‘real-life extremisms’ (and why failing to do so matters)

The Westergaard Annual Lecture with Professor Hilary Pilkington

Thursday 14 November 2019, 17:30 – 19:00
Lecture Theatre 4, The Diamond, ��«Ӱҵ

Violent extremism is the defining challenge of our age; our failure to understand it has huge real-world consequences. However, persistent conceptual slippage and political re-framing mean signifiers of terrorism and extremism have converged in recent political discourse such that non-violent extremism is increasingly framed as a pathway into terrorism. This has led to a significant gap between extremism in theory (the ‘staircase to terrorism’) and extremisms in real life, where ‘extremists’ rarely understand themselves as such and their extremisms are lived out amidst the everyday realities of largely ‘normal’ lives. The paper starts by assessing the empirical evidence to date about the relationship between inequality and radicalisation. It demonstrates that while there is an inconsistent and complex relationship between the two, we find most consistency between perceived (rather than objective measures of) inequality and radicalisation and between socio-political (rather than socio-economic) inequality and radicalisation. An illustration of how this presents itself in the form of feeling a ‘second class citizen’ whose grievances are ‘silenced’ in the political arena is provided drawing on ethnographic work conducted with activists from the English Defence League. The paper suggests, moreover, that the perceived and socio-political nature of the inequalities identified opens the possibility for positive intervention. It provides an example of this by drawing on the recent experience of conducting a ‘mediated dialogue’ intervention with young people from ‘extreme right’ and ‘Islamist’ milieus. It shows that while the opinions and beliefs of these young people may meet standard criteria of ‘extremism’ - in as much as they differ from established norms and have potentially dangerous consequences - they are far from the closed-minded, dogmatic individuals lost to the political mainstream that the ascription of ‘extremist’ suggests. It concludes that close-up empirical research with ‘real-life extremists’ not only provides a richer picture of the spectrum of contemporary extremisms but can help us move beyond (often counter-productive) condemnation strategies in challenging extremism by revealing and mobilising the capacity of ‘real-life’ actors in the extremism field to reflect, interact and work to counter extremism.

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Dr Jo Warner: The Emotional Politics of Child Protection

��«Ӱҵ Twilight Social Work Seminar

Wednesday 25 September 2019, 16:00 – 18:00

Jo is particularly concerned to improve our understanding of the way ‘risk work’ has shaped professional practice and the impact of cultures of inquiry, fear and blame on social workers and others. She has undertaken several projects involving the qualitative analysis of documents such as inquiry reports, serious case reviews and media accounts such as newspaper reports. Her book 'The Emotional Politics of Social Work and Child Protection' gained national and international acclaim for its contribution to helping practitioners and academics explore how collective emotions, such as anger, shame, fear and disgust, are central to constructions of risk and blame. In her current research, Jo is analysing the politics of social work through interviews with Members of Parliament.

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Symposium: Health Technologies in Practice: Between the home and the clinic

Wednesday 19 June 2019, 12:30 - 17:00 and Thursday 20 June, 09:00 - 13:30.

St Mary's Church, Bramall Lane, ��«Ӱҵ

The symposium was part of a Leverhulme Trust Funded Research Project on 'Knowledge, Care and the Practices of Self-Monitoring'. Focusing on health technologies in practice, the project aimed to understand how and why people self-monitor and to consider how this relates to knowledge, expertise and care. Presentations at the symposium related to self-monitoring and other everyday health technologies to consider 'health technologies in practice' from different perspectives and very different methodologies. The symposium brought together an interdisciplinary group of researchers, with interests in STS, medical sociology, anthropology, disability studies, media studies and cultural studies.

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Brexit and Social Policy: The Social Policy and Society Annual Lecture

Wednesday 15 May 2019, 5:15pm

The Diamond, ��«Ӱҵ

The Managing Editors of Social Policy and Society (Dr Liam Foster and
Dr Majella Kilkey) are delighted to invite you to the journal’s third
Annual Lecture, sponsored by Cambridge University Press.

The lecture focuses on ‘Brexit and Social Policy’, the subject of a
themed section in the January 2019 issue of Social Policy and Society,
which was guest edited by Dr Steve Corbett and Professor Alan Walker,
and included an article by Professor Mary Daly.

Speakers:

• Steve Corbett – Lecturer in Social Policy at Liverpool Hope University.
• Mary Daly – Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Oxford.
• Alan Walker – Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology at the University of ��«Ӱҵ.

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‘Imagined Futures’ in the Navigation and Management of Uncertainty for Young Women in Aotearoa New Zealand - a seminar with ViF Professor Alan France

Thursday 9 May 2019, 4:00pm - 6:00pm

Elmfield, room 216, University of ��«Ӱҵ

Uncertainty and insecurity in employment for young women is not a new phenomenon, yet since the late 1990s it has increased dramatically. As a result, the notions of secure permanent work and ‘career building’ are seen as a thing of the past. Simultaneously, and not unconnected, we have also seen the ‘massification’ of higher education with more young women than ever entering university, seeing it as an opportunity to improve their situation in the future labour market. But how, in these uncertain times, are they imagining their futures? What is influencing their planning and what are their motivations? This paper explores these questions, by drawing upon research with a diverse group of young women in Aotearoa New Zealand who are completing their degrees. It will show, through an intersectional lens, how class and ethnicity have a significant impact on their choices, opportunities and their sense of future possibilities.

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Borders and Divisions: Brexit and Beyond

Thursday 28 March 2019

Brexit cannot be understood in isolation, and this event brought together a distinguished panel of migration experts to discuss the implications of on-going events in Europe and worldwide for borders and divisions, especially in the European context. The discussion focused on three themes:

Theme 1 – The Politicisation of Migration: Experiences Elsewhere
Theme 2 – Understanding the Causes
Theme 3 – Addressing the Challenges?

What can be done to address the challenges facing many societies? Each of our speakers offered one example to inspire optimism.

Organised by the Migration Research Group at the University of ��«Ӱҵ in collaboration with the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw and IMISCOE. It is supported by the Noble Foundation’s Programme on Modern Poland.

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‘These are a few of my favourite things’: Exploring the Value of Material Culture in the Everyday

A BSA Postgraduate Forum Regional Event

Friday 1 March 2019

Read the report about the event here

The value of objects and their relationships to social beings is being forever made apparent through a diversity of areas of sociological inquiry. This event seeks to contribute to this sociologically significant area, reflecting on materiality, its importance and its place within our everyday social worlds.

Dr Sophie Woodward from the University of Manchester will be speaking about her project, ‘Dormant Things’ in domestic spaces, which explores the vitalities and relationalities of things that are not currently being used.

The aim of this day is to support postgraduate research students working within the field of everyday life and material culture. It offers the chance to share ideas in a supportive and friendly environment, whilst also providing an important opportunity to network.

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Previous 2018 events

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John Westergaard Lecture with Professor Diane Reay: The Persistence of Class Inequalities in Education and what can be done about them

Thursday 22 November 2018

John Westergaard wrote the first comprehensive overview of social class inequality in the UK in 1975. Class in a Capitalist Society demonstrated unequivocally that class had not withered away, rather its damaging consequence were evident in all spheres of social life. Fifty years later class inequalities are as persistent as ever, and the patterns of educational opportunities, Westergaard and his co-author Henrietta Resler wrote about, are as unjust and unfair as they were in the 1970s. This talk focuses on class inequalities in education in 21st century England, the country with the most unequal educational system of the 4 countries making up the UK . It examines both continuities with the past but also new troubling mutations of class inequalities. It argues that although the forms that class inequalities take shift and change over time, the underlying injustices in terms of both recognition and resources remain largely the same.

The lecture will be chaired by Alan Walker, Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology and Sarah Neal, Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of ��«Ӱҵ.

This event will be held in the Diamond building on Thursday 22 November 2018, 17:30 - 19:00.

Welcome refreshments will be available from 5:30pm, with the lecture to begin at 6:00pm.

The First University of ��«Ӱҵ Annual Social Work Lecture: The British Betrayal of Childhood - what should we do about it? An action-centred conversation with Professor Sir Al Aynsley Green

Wednesday 17 October 2018

You are warmly invited to attend the first of our University of ��«Ӱҵ Annual Social Work Lectures, a series of lectures focused on current issues of direct relevance to social work policy and practice. “The British Betrayal of Childhood - what should we do about it?” will be delivered by Professor Sir Al Aynsley Green, the first Children's Commissioner for England and now a leading commentator on children's rights and experiences.

The event will be held at the ICOSS building at the University on Wednesday 17 October 2018 at 4pm and will be followed by a wine reception.

Making the unseen visible: How can 'practice theory' help us talk about the work we do in the voluntary and community sector?

Thursday 1 February 2018

You are warmly invited to the launch of a book, New Practices for New Publics: theories of social practice and the community and voluntary sector.

Over the last two years, university academics and voluntary and community sector workers have met through a series of events funded by the Economic and Social Research Council that explored whether and how new academic theories might help understand the everyday work that the sector does. The team found that some of these theories were valuable in drawing attention to activities and approaches that are common place in the sector, but often 'unseen' or not recognised by policy makers and funders - in particular the things people do related to ideas of care.

During an intense five-day ‘book sprint’ in July 2017, the project team worked together to put their thoughts into a co-written book: New Practices for New Publics: theories of social practice and the community and voluntary sector.

At this book launch, the project team wanted to share what they learned during our events and why they think it's important. They also reflected on the experience of co-authorship in a ‘book sprint’.

The event included presentations from community partners including Community Works and the Community University Partnership Programme on the themes of the series/ the book; reflections by Vicky Singleton from Lancaster University, who contributed to the launch event in May 2016; thoughts about co-authorship models and challenges; a chance to engage in more depth with the arguments in the book and how they might apply to community and voluntary work practices.

Redesigning the Welfare State for Children

With Kathy Evans, CEO, Children England

Wednesday 7 February 2018

Kathy took a historical look over the last 75 years of children’s social care, since both the creation of Children England and the publication of the Beveridge Report in 1942, as a basis to reflect on the major challenges for children’s rights and care in 2017, including: the social contract between society and its children; the ‘marketplace’ and ‘business modelling’ of caring professions; and, the case for redesigning the welfare state for children.

Migration-induced social change in Poland

The Second Annual Social Policy and Society Journal Lecture with Professor Izabela Grabowska, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw

Wednesday 18 April 2018

The second Annual Lecture of the Social Policy and Society Journal, sponsored by Cambridge University Press in association with the Noble Foundation. The lecture focused on ‘Migration-Induced Social Change in Poland’ and was delivered by Professor Izabela Grabowska from SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.

To capture the impact of migration on a single, sending country (Poland in this case) is not an easy task. It requires that we disentangle the migratory outcomes from those of more general societal changes, happening retrospectively, in the present time and prospectively. This lecture will offer the methodological device of ‘an inside-out’ approach (White 2016), which suggests that migration needs to be analysed not as a forefront, isolated and individual process but complementary to the wide general societal trends and conditions. Special focus will be given to the grass-root social change, ‘hand-made’ by return migrants with the help of migratory social remittances as local forms of social and cultural diffusion (Grabowska et al. 2017). The lecture was based on the wide array of quantitative and qualitative data documented in the forthcoming book The Impact of Migration on Poland: Mobility and Social Change (with Anne White, Pawel Kaczmarczyk and Krystyna Slany, UCL Press) in which the Polish society is discussed in light of other ‘new EU countries’ of Central and Eastern Europe. The lecture took up some of the themes addressed in an article to be submitted to the Journal Social Policy & Society.

Unity in times of division: Irish women and the struggle for the vote

Inaugural lecture by Professor Louise Ryan

Wednesday 25 April 2018

A hung parliament, an Irish party holding the balance of power, a controversial issue threatening to cause political turmoil. Sound familiar? But no, this is not Brexit. Over 100 years ago, in the early 1910s, a similar situation prevailed. A minority Liberal government was supported by the Irish Parliamentary Party and the controversial issue that could potentially have brought down the government was female enfranchisement. The Irish party had other priorities – keeping the Asquith in power in order to ensure that Home Rule was successfully introduced by the Liberal government.

While the British suffrage movement castigated the Irish Parliamentary Party for blocking suffrage measures, meanwhile women in Ireland had to navigate a tricky path between the campaign for votes and the campaign to gain Irish independent from Britain. Irish suffragists found themselves campaigning alongside their British colleagues and sharing many of their concerns and priorities. However, Irish suffrage activists were ever mindful of the potentially divisive situation around them.

Although perhaps best known for the work on migration, Louise focused her professorial lecture on Vote 100 and link with her two recent books and her extensive body of work on the Irish suffrage movement. Louise explored the range and depth of the suffrage campaign and assess the efforts to maintain a united social movement, and avoid fragmentation, against a backdrop of deep political, social, religious and economic divisions.

Louise's two most recent books were launched at the event and introduced by Dr Breda Gray from the University of Limerick. The books are entitled: Winning the Vote for Women: the Irish Citizen newspaper and the suffrage movement in Ireland and Irish Women and the Vote: becoming citizens (edited by Louise Ryan and Margaret Ward).

Modern slavery, expertise and evidence roundtable

Tuesday 15 May 2018

- Professor Joel Quirk, University of Witwatersrand (South Africa)
- Dr Sanja Milivojevic, La Trobe University (Australia)
- Klara Skrivankova, UK and Europe Programme Manager, Anti-Slavery International

Chairs: Dr Hannah Lewis and Professor Genevieve LeBaron

This Roundtable brought together two leading scholars of modern slavery from Australia and South Africa, and experts from Anti-Slavery International, to reflect on current efforts to address modern slavery. Speakers shared cutting edge research and practitioner perspectives on the state of global and national government efforts to combat modern slavery, including: Are current government and civil society initiatives to measure, study, and combat modern slavery working? Are the right actors and experts involved? Is it dangerous to enact solutions when the evidence base on modern slavery is still so thin? This interdisciplinary conversation will benchmark the state of anti-slavery movements and governance, and chart out pathways forward.

This event was jointly organised by the Department of Sociological Studies, the Migration Research Group, and the ��«Ӱҵ Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI).

Where is public sociology now? Sociological urgencies and responses

Sociology at ��«Ӱҵ Event

Wednesday 6 June 2018

In his well-cited beginning to his popularisation of public sociology in 2004 Michael Burowoy emphasised the need for sociologists to respond ‘to the growing gap between the sociological ethos and the world we study’, reminding his audience that, ‘the challenge of public sociology is to engage multiple publics in multiple ways’. We organised this event as an opportunity to review and reflect on what public sociologies might mean fourteen years after Burowoy’s intervention and in the context of such national and global urgencies as Brexit, new nationalisms, the refugee crisis, the Grenfell disaster, Trump and the new populism, Me Too, Time’s Up and so forth. This appears to be a particular moment when sociological thinking is needed and these presentations showcased some of the disciplinary labour that is currently being done.

Department of Sociological Studies postgraduate research (PGR) conference 2018: Researching Society, New Horizons

Wednesday 13 June 2018

Contemporary society offers new opportunities and challenges for social scientists. From accelerated processes of globalisation, to the proliferation of the digital, to the vote for Brexit and Trump, society is in continuous flux. Nevertheless, many aspects of our lives remain constant with social scientists utilising innovative methods to gain new insights in these areas. It is by undertaking research in the contemporary world that we can help create new research horizons.

This one-day conference invited all researchers with an interest in the workings of twenty-first century society. The organising committee welcomed submissions of abstracts from postgraduate students within this theme. 

Abstracts on the following sub-themes were especially encouraged:

Globalisation and migration;
Digital society;
Rising social inequalities;
Ageing society;
Health and illness;
Changing family relationships and structures;
Shifting understandings of gender;
Using innovative research methods;
Sociological theory;
Creating social policy for the twenty-first century.

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Previous 2017 events

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New Practices for New Publics - ESRC Seminar Series

Seminar 5: New Publics and Practice Approaches

31 January 2017

New Practices for New Publics is an innovative series of events designed to bring together cutting edge thinking in social science with the experiences of civil society organisations, especially those in the community and voluntary sector.

This fifth seminar, New Publics and Practice Approaches, considered the contribution of practice theory to thinking about civil society organisations’ work of campaigning, fundraising and advocacy. In these processes, civil society organisations often try to create particular notions of ‘publics’ as a focus for their activities, for different purposes and in different ways. Meanwhile, these groups increasingly operate in a ‘neoliberal’ context where the boundaries between private and public services are being redrawn, and the distinctive space of ‘civil society’ or even ‘community’ action is narrowed. The seminar explored what practice-based approaches can teach us about these activities and this context, considering where, if and when practice theories might bring new understanding for the sector.

How do data make us feel? Everyday life in times of datafication

Inaugural lecture by Professor Helen Kennedy

15 February 2017

Datafication (or the quantification of aspects of life previously experienced in qualitative, non-numeric form which are then tabulated, visualised and analysed) is increasingly ubiquitous. But how do ever-more-commonplace data make us feel? Helen focused on this question in this talk.

To put it another way, what happens when data of all kinds become ordinary? Helen argues that as social media and other data, and their mining, become more and more commonplace, new data relations emerge, and that these are characterised as much by emotions and desires as they are by the types of cognitive rationalities that the predominance of metrics, data and numbers are said to evoke.

In the first part of the talk, Helen drew on some of her recent research to provide some answers to the question of how data make us feel. One emotional response to datafication, she proposed, is desire, a desire for numbers. To talk about a desire for numbers, rather than a ‘trust in numbers’, a concept that Ted Porter (1996) wrote about in the mid-1990s, makes it possible to account for some of the contradictions that accompany the becoming-ordinary of data. Another form of emotional engaging with data can be seen in the fact that the main way that most people get access to data is through their visualisation, or visual representation in charts, graphs and other visual forms. Here again emotions play an important role in engagements with ever-more-commonplace data.

In social scientific studies of data in society, as in data policies and data practices, little attention has been paid to how people live with data, to whether, how and why data matter to people. The second part of the talk was therefore a manifesto for studying living with data ‘from the bottom up’ and for more understanding of the emotional character of engaging with data. This, Helen proposed, will enhance understanding of the new roles of data in society and of whether and how data condition our existence.

The State of Regulation: Professional, ethical and personal dilemmas - Half-day symposium

8 March 2017, 12pm - 4pm

This symposium shared the findings from a recent study of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) regulation and heard the experiences of two registrants who have been through the Fitness to Practise (FtP) Process. The session considered the professional, ethical and personal dilemmas that emerge when registrants are subject to the current FtP model and also explored a new way of approaching conduct issues in social work practice.

Social Policy & Society Annual Lecture

22 March 2017, 5pm - 6pm

The first Annual Lecture lecture of the Journal Social Policy & Society, sponsored by Cambridge University Press in association with the University of ��«Ӱҵ Social Policy Research Cluster, focused on 'troubled families', the subject of a themed section in the January 2017 issue of Social Policy & Society, and was delivered by Dr Stephen Crossley and Dr Michael Lambert, the themed section editors. The lecture was followed by a wine reception in the exhibition space at the same venue from 6pm to 7 pm to celebrate the first year of Social Policy & Society under the editorship of Liam Foster and Majella Kilkey at the University of ��«Ӱҵ.

Belonging in a post-Brexit-vote Britain: researching race, ethnicity and migration in a changing landscape

9 May 2017, Elmfield Building, ��«Ӱҵ

A one-day conference hosted by the Department of Sociological Studies (in collaboration with the  and ) will be held at ��«Ӱҵ.

This event seeks to bring together early career and established academics, to share knowledge and experiences in the unique research environment resulting from the UK electorate’s decision to leave the EU. According to the UN, campaigns advocating a leave vote presented a ‘divisive, anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric’ (Stone, 2016) and in the three weeks following the vote there was a 20% increase in reported race related hate crime in the UK (BBC, 2016). As Brexit campaigners stated that leaving the EU would make ‘Britain Great Again’, anti-migrant and xenophobic narratives conflated, implying that migration threatens Britishness. Sociologically, in this context, the boundary between historically distinct fields (migration research and race and ethnicity research) becomes blurred. This event provides a timely opportunity to examine the interface between these fields and consider directions for future research.

Disrupting Transitions: Young people, education and employment

23 May 2017, Department of Sociological Studies, Elmfield Building, ��«Ӱҵ

This academic symposium brings together leading scholars in the field to explore new research and share ideas and concepts. The symposium arises from a large FP7 project on young people at risk of early school leaving (RESL.eu).

Speakers include Prof Kate Morris (University of ��«Ӱҵ), Ingrid Schoon (University College London), Louise Ryan (University of ��«Ӱҵ) and William Maloney (University of Newcastle).

The Orphan Industrial Complex: Charitable Commodification and its Consequences for Child Protection

Guest lecture with Kristen Cheney, Associate Professor, International Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands

7 June 2017, Conference Room, Interdisciplinary Centre of the Social Sciences(ICOSS), ��«Ӱҵ, 219 Portobello, ��«Ӱҵ S1 4DP

Abstract

The misidentification of “orphans” as a category for development and humanitarian intervention has subsequently been misappropriated by many Western individuals and charitable organizations, resulting in an ‘orphan industrial complex’ that problematically commoditizes children as targets for charitable intervention—particularly in the global south. The discourse and practice of “orphan rescue” drives the “production” of orphans as objects for particular kinds of intervention that are counter to established international standards of child protection. In this presentation, Cheney will explain the concept of the orphan industrial complex, how it works and what its consequences are for children, families, and child protection systems.

Biography

Kristen Cheney is Associate Professor in Children & Youth Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands. Her current research interests centre on issues of AIDS orphanhood, the political economy of intercountry adoption and surrogacy, child protection and deinstitutionalization, and the impact of young people’s sexually explicit media exposure/usage on sexuality education and SRHR in developing-country contexts. She specialises in child- and youth-centred and participatory qualitative research methods primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. She is the author of Crying for Our Elders: African Orphanhood in the Age of HIV and AIDS (2017) and of Pillars of the Nation: Child Citizens and Ugandan National Development (2007).

This event was supported and hosted by The ��«Ӱҵ Institute for International Development (SIID).

Department of Sociological Studies postgraduate research (PGR) conference 2017: Branching out in research

13 June 2017, Department of Sociological Studies, Elmfield Building, ��«Ӱҵ

The focus of the conference for this year was ‘Branching out in Research’ which aimed to explore how we can look beyond the usual realms of social research, in terms of topic areas, social groups and methodology. This included the following areas:

• Under researched topics;
• Working with ‘hard to reach’ groups;
• Innovative research methods;
• Interdisciplinary research;
• Collaboration and engagement.

This one-day conference brought together postgraduate research students and early career researchers from social science and related disciplines to present their research and ideas, build networks and develop presentation skills.

Caring & Ageing: international perspectives on family and workplace challenges

2nd Annual CIRCLE International Seminar

23 June 2017, Elmfield Building, ��«Ӱҵ, S10 2TU

At this year’s annual seminar we hosted leading international speakers Professor Norah Keating (Alberta, Swansea and North West [S Africa] Universities) and Professor Kate O’Loughlin (University of Sydney). This year our seminar also celebrated our collaboration, with international partners, on Sustainable Care: connecting people and systems, funded by the Worldwide Universities Network, and publication of the inaugural volume of the International Journal of Care and Caring, new from the Policy Press in 2017, and based at the University of ��«Ӱҵ. Our programme for the afternoon featured two guest lectures, opportunities for Q&A / discussion, and a brief introduction to the journal and its distinctive features.

Africa in the Era of Sustainable Development Goals

22 June 2017, Workrooms 3 and 4, 38 Mappin Street, University of ��«Ӱҵ, S1 3JD.

��«Ӱҵ All African Postgraduate Research Group (AAPoRG) and Africa@��«Ӱҵ hosted its first postgraduate conference.

Keynote speakers:

• Professor Graham Harrison, University of ��«Ӱҵ
• Dr Admos Chimhowu, University of Manchester

The expiration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) ushered in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the current global development policy. Given the problems of the attainment of the MDGs in Africa, this one-day conference aims to provide a forum for postgraduate and early career researchers with special interest in African affairs, to showcase, discuss and share their current research on sustainable development in Africa. Submission of abstracts is invited from all disciplines that engage with the theoretical, policy and practical issues of attaining sustainable development in Africa.

Science, Technology and Humanity: The 11th Annual Science in Public Conference

10 - 12 July 2017, The Edge, ��«Ӱҵ, S10 3ED

Science and technology are essential ingredients of our humanity. The emergence of fruitful and diverse scholarly perspectives on the history, practice, communication, governance and impacts of scientific knowledge reflects this fact. Yet rapid scientific and technological change has also unsettled the idea of what it means to be human; for example, through new frontiers in physical and cognitive enhancement, shift to knowledge economies, and potential threats to employment from mass automation. These changes take place in a context of broader challenges to expertise and evidence, dramatically illustrated by the EU referendum and the election of Donald Trump.

Taking these matters seriously calls for a renewed focus on compassion, benevolence and civilization. This year at Science in Public, we asked: How do science and technology affect what it means to be human?

Keynote speakers:

• Sarah Whatmore (University of Oxford)
• Steven Shapin (Harvard University)
• Dan Sarewitz (Arizona State University)

Digital Society Network Annual Lecture: New media, old inequalities: Approaching youth, creative politics and digital media across social class, gender and geography

With Dr Shakuntala Banaji, London School of Economics

Monday 9th October 2017

4.15pm – 5.30pm (followed by book launch and drinks reception)

Venue: Lecture Theatre 4, The Diamond

Over the past seventeen years, Dr Shakuntala Banaji's research around young people, politics and creativity has interrogated the role and affordances of new and emerging digital media in processes of social change. From refugee children connecting with their peers across Europe through ICQ chat in 2002, through youth activists in Europe and India deploying social media in politically progressive or retrograde ways, to young female gamers in the MENA region selectively hiding and revealing their gender via avatars and play talk during MMOGs, one common thread has been the ways in which digital media creates spaces for new politics and new agencies whilst also hiding or entrenching structural inequalities. But to what extent are we simply doing the digital wrong? Could its technical affordances be used to overcome systematic hierarchies, at least online? Do its social affordances simply enhance the agency of particular social classes in the global south? And are there ways in which the narrative of the digital in liberation politics has become yet another enemy of those seeking deeper social structural transformation? Shakuntala's lecture attempted to answer these questions in the context of findings from several major comparative research projects in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa over the past decade.

The First Annual John Westergaard Lecture: The Costs of Inequality: Escalating Inequality, Racism and Nationalism in the UK

With Professor Mike Savage, London School of Economics

Thursday 9 November 2017

Welcome refreshments from 5.30pm

Lecture: 6pm – 7pm

Venue: Lecture Theatre 1, The Diamond

Mike Savage reflected on how trends towards intensified inequality in the UK have led into increasing political volatility and the rise of populism. Drawing on research he has undertaken from the National Child Development Study on the dynamics of racist views, he showed how class, race and gender divisions intersect in new and powerful ways in the current context.

The declining centrality of the divide between middle and working class, and the growing polarisation of economic inequality between elite and precariat creates new insecurities which drive political alignments. Mike argued against the view that the 'white working class' are part of a racist populist backlash against immigration, and showed how the economic elite's espousal of 'imperial nationalism' plays a large role in driving xenophobic politics.

The lecture was chaired by Professor Alan Walker, Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology in the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of ��«Ӱҵ.

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Previous 2016 events

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Research symposium: In the wake of Japan’s nuclear tsunami: reflections on the nature of disaster in the 21st Century

21 April 2016

Widening the circle: Re-thinking family support in safeguarding

28 April 2016

1st annual CIRCLE international seminar: Care, caring and carers: international perspectives

17 May 2016

Department of Sociological Studies postgraduate research (PGR) conference 2016: Breaking boundaries

19 May 2016

New practices for new publics seminar series - Seminar 2

22 June 2016

Speaking out for social work - Crossing divides and building relationships

6 July 2016

The social reproductive worlds of migrants - 3rd ISA forum of sociology

10 to 14 July 2016

Vienna, Austria

‘The social reproductive worlds of migrants’, session was organised by Dr Majella Kilkey and colleagues, that will take place during the 3rd ISA Forum of Sociology.

While research highlights the role inward migration plays in meeting the social reproductive needs of migrant-receiving societies, less attention is paid to the social reproductive aspects of migrants’ lives. In the context of the increasing volume in international migration and its feminisation, and the increasingly instrumentalist and economistic approach to migration-entry regimes, it is critical that migration and family policies begin to acknowledge that a production system cannot operate without a reproduction system (Truong, 1996).

��«Ӱҵ Death Group event: 'Improvising ritual: How to commemorate the death of the modern soldier?'

5 September 2016

Digital Society Network Annual Lecture: Doing digital media research over time and across platforms: Lessons from studies of YouTube, Twitter and games culture

Thursday 29 September 2016

With Professor Jean Burgess, Director of the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

Culture and politics of data visualisation: A one-day conference

10 October 2016

This one-day conference addressed the culture and politics of data visualisation, bringing critical thought into dialogue with the practice and potential of visualising data and considering how they might inform each other.

Museum Piece: Isabella

19 October 2016

This session included a short performance by artist-researcher Kirsty Surgey, a WRoCAH supported PhD student at the University of ��«Ӱҵ.

Taking as its starting point objects found when emptying a house that had been bought by her great-great grandfather in 1903, this performance sought to uncover the story of Kirsty's great-great grandmother, ‘Isabella’. As a farmer’s wife in Cumberland at the start of the twentieth century, Isabella left few records. The fragments that are left behind can be connected into narratives, but the voice that emerges questions what can be known and what is unknowable about one’s ancestors.

The performance was followed by a short workshop in which participants were invited to explore their own stories through creative practice and an opportunity to discuss any questions that arose from the performance.

BSA Social Aspects of Death, Dying and Bereavement Study Group Annual Symposium

2 December 2016

For decades now, technological advances in specialist fields such as medicine have changed attitudes and expectations about death and the experience of dying. However, as technologies have become more ubiquitous in our everyday social and domestic lives, the ways in which death, dying and bereavement can be technologically mediated are increasing and becoming more diverse. From online memorials to apps that self- monitor physiological health and/or decline, the ways in which bodies, persons, and technology intersect are raising questions about mortality - what death is, what it means, and how it is experienced in the 21st Century. This is a diverse field and we welcome abstracts which interpret the theme and the notion of ‘technology’ broadly – including more ‘mundane’ technologies that shape the experience of ‘end of life’. The purpose of this day is to highlight research and practice that contributes to and extends our thinking on this topic.

New Practices for New Publics - ESRC Seminar Series

Seminar 4: Using practice theory for social change

14 December 2016

Alfred Denny Conference Room, Alfred Denny Building, Western Bank, ��«Ӱҵ, S10 2TN

New Practices for New Publics is an innovative series of events designed to bring together cutting edge thinking in social science with the experiences of civil society organisations, especially those in the community and voluntary sector.

The event will consider how to use practice theory for social change. Practice-based approaches aim to help effect positive social change and to provide a more encompassing and grounded conceptualisation of change processes than a focus on attitudes, values and behaviours. To what extent does practice theory help understand how and why practices recruit people, how new practices emerge, thrive and travel and why others fail to ‘catch on’?

We are very pleased to welcome three speakers – Matt Watson, David Evans and Margit Keller - who will discuss their experiences of practice theory in relation to efforts and programmes to bring about social change. These talks will be followed by a workshop, led by Margit Keller and Peter Jackson, which will allow us to work through how to draw on practice theory when trying to develop and implement changes, drawing on local examples.

We have (limited) funds to contribute towards costs of travel and accommodation for participants – please get in touch if you will need support in this way.

To book your place please email: newpractices@brighton.ac.uk.