Summary of Staff Research Interests

Armstrong, Jo
My main research interests are: gender equality; gendered employment policy; gender relations in work (paid and unpaid); violence against women; and intersectionality in equality policies and institutions.

Birtchnell, Thomas
Geographies of expertise, elites, social inequality, cosmopolitanism, mobilities, social sustainability, innovation, India and South Asia, Hinduism, practice theory and mobile methods.

Büscher, Monika
My research interests include everyday practice of mobile living, behaviour in public places, public understanding of crises, collaboration in crisis response. Analytical orientations: ethnomethodology, science and technology studies, ethnographic studies of everyday practice at work and play, computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), cooperative analysis and system design, theories of the information society.

Coleman, Rebecca
My research interests are in bodies and embodiment; visual culture and the image; social, cultural and feminist theory; affect; temporality and the future; inventive and visual methodologies.

Dant, Tim
Material culture: material interaction, material civilization, embodied practice, cars, bicycles. Critical theory: Barthes, Baudrillard, Lefebvre. Television and media: everyday life, socialisation, morality.

Ferreday, Debra
My research interests are in gender, embodiment, cultural theory and technology. At present I am particularly engaged with the problematic relationship between feminism and feminine identities and cultural practices.

Fortier, Anne-Marie
My research interests are situated within the areas of critical race studies, gender and sexuality studies, cultural studies, postcolonialism, multiculturalism and nation formation, critical migration and diaspora studies, the cultural politics of emotions.

Gilloch, Graeme
My research has focused on the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School and, in particular, the writings of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer. In exploring the themes of urban and visual culture in these writers, my work has come to examine more contemporary theorists (Jean Baudrillard, Roland Barthes) writers (W.G. Sebald, Paul Auster, Orhan Pamuk) and artists (Sophie Calle, Janet Cardiff).

Gunnarsdóttir, Kristrún
My research interests are focused on two distinct ICT-related topics: 1) human-device interdependence in situated practice and problem-solving, in particular how anomalies and other phenomena of disorder can manifest issues of social relevance (responsibility, competence, accountability and legitimacy, etc), and how they are recognised and managed on an ongoing basis. In this work I have used methods and insights from studies in Ethnomethodology and CSCW: 2) Analysis and assessment of ICT innovations and visionary work, policy-programmes and governance. In this research I have used document, records and literature analysis, blog and forum data (discourse analysis) and ethnographic data.

Jessop, Bob
My research falls into five areas: (1) changes in contemporary capitalism and the dynamics of 'variegated capitalism', including the illogics of globalization and the contradictions of knowledge-based economies; (2) changes in the state's form, scale, and functions in the broad fields of economic and social policy; (3) governance, governance failure, and meta-governance - and its failure; (4) cultural political economy, i.e., advancing the cultural turn in political economy by analysing the variation, selection, and retention of economic and political imaginaries and their implications for economic, political, and social transformation; (5) the strategic-relational approach to issues of structure and agency.

Mackenzie, Adrian
Data, software and information cultures, genomic sciences and technologies, software studies, anthropologies of post-representational thinking and cognition, theories of capacity, individuation, invention and differentiation; the cultural politics of infrastructure, embodiments of connectivity and network images in wireless technology; repetition and difference in video and audiovisual technology; new media/technological cultures and practices.

McNeil, Maureen
My main research interest is in cultural studies of science and technology, particularly as it intersects with feminist studies. A main strand of this has focused on reproduction, with investigations of the politics, theories, and narratives of reproduction. I have pursued various projects around science, technology and popular culture. Recent explorations have included: memoirs pertaining to genomics and popular biographies of scientists.

Mort, Maggie
Sociology of science, technology and medicine: technological change, telemedicine and telecare, innovation in health science and technology, health policy and politics, disaster and recovery studies. I work largely with ethnographic and participative methodologies.

Penn, Roger
My current research interests involve a range of projects. I am involved in the Sociology of Football and the Sociology of Health as well as a longstanding project that is examining changing attitudes to gender roles. My work in the Sociology of Football is primarily visual and also has a strong comparative element. In particular I have conducted empirical fieldwork recently in Italy and Argentina as well as in Britain. I have also developed an interest in graffiti as a result of this research and have recently written a paper on 'The Phenomenal Forms of Graffiti in Rome and Buenos Aires'. This has been influence by discussions I had with Harold Garfinkel at UCLA during my sabbatical there in 2007. My work on Football and Health came together in a case study of the development of the Minerva Long-term Conditions Centre at PNE's stadium in Deepdale, Preston. I have also undertaken research into the 'Health Needs of Eastern European Migrants in Northwest England' in partnership with NHS Central Lancashire. As part of my work on the ESRC's Research Methods Node at Lancaster I am engaged in modelling changing attitudes to gender roles in Britain since 1991 using data from the BHPS.

Roberts, Celia
Feminist science studies and feminist theory, theories of the body and biology, genetics and reproductive technologies, puberty, aging and new technologies of care.

Sayer, Andrew
Social theory, political economy, moral economy or justice and economic life, class, inequality, climate change, employment, and the ethical dimension of everyday life OR why things matter to people, philosophy of social science. Critique of the return of the rich.

Shove, Elizabeth
Everyday life, design, consumption, technology, environment, water, energy, theories of practice

Singleton, Vicky
Materiality, practices, policy, feminist theory, science and technology, health, farming, craft work, gender constitution and enactment, standardization and generalisation, science and technology studies, (after) actor-network theory.

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Strid, Sofia
My research interests are both theoretical and policy oriented and include research on comparative gender equality and intersectionality in the EU27; gender based violence and intersectionalised violence against women; feminist civil society and the organisation and institutionalisation of women's interests by women and by political authorities; the EU as a polity and a political authority; intersectionality in equality policies; and the equality architecture/equality machinery.

Suchman, Lucy
Ethnographies of sites of technology production and use; critical innovation studies; rethinking social/material relations based in anthropology, feminist theory and science and technology studies.

Szerszynski, Bronislaw
Experimentality - exploring the role played by the trope of the experimental in different social practices and domains; real-world experiments (the 'laboratory without walls'. Environment - environmental citizenship; climate change; landscape perceptions. Technology - technology and (post)modernity; the governance of agricultural biotechnology; participatory technology appraisal. Bioeconomy - theorising the knowledge-based bioeconomy; alternative bioeconomic futures. Religion - postsecular social theory; the religious shaping of contemporary ideas of nature and technology. Publics - new social movements; cosmopolitan citizenship; public engagement exercises as the art of constructing publics.

Tutton, Richard
I characterize my work as being at the intersection of medical sociology and the social studies of science (or STS - Science and Technology Studies). My current work centres on developments in personalized medicine, in particular the emergence of direct-to-consumer 'personal genomics' services such as 23andMe.

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Twine, Richard
The sociology of human/animal relations and animal ethics, understandings of embodiment in the new genetics, sociological approaches to bioethics, environmental ethics/sociology, feminist theory and the sociology of the body. Sociological theory 'beyond dualism'.

Tyler, Imogen
Political Subjectivities, Social Identities, Social Class, Borders and Immigration, the Maternal, Publics and Counter Publics, Social Media, Revolt, Protest and Activism, Political Aesthetics, Psycho-Social theory.

Urry, John
mobilities, complexity theory, tourism, transportation, automobilities, contemporary capitalism, climate change and social science

Walby, Sylvia
I am interested in both theoretical development and policy impact, and enjoy collaborative research. My research is situated within the tension between general social theory and specific forms of inequality, especially gender. This has led from theorizing patriarchy to mainstreaming complex inequalities into social theory. Substantively, I am interested in economic change, fascinated by new political forms (e.g. European Union) and concerned about marginalised groups (domestic violence matters). These issues are framed by globalisation, the understanding of which requires the use of complexity theory, and 'human rights' which has become the most important framing of contemporary projects for global justice.

Waterton, Claire
My research examines the making and politics of environmental knowledge. I am interested in the different ways we know and objectify the natural world - from the ways scientists construct classifications of nature, to the ways amateur naturalists record their observations of particular organisms, to the ways we understand an environment to be 'polluted', to the ways we determine the risks of fissile material, and so on. I make use of STS, anthropology of science, and other social theory. A lot of my research involves empirical work: I look in detail at the context and the practices involved in the making of environmental knowledges.

Wood, Lisa
My research interests are in the following areas: Science and Technology Studies; Innovation; Actor Network Theory; Human Machine Interactions; Work Practices including enactments of accountability, ethics, safety and risk; Ethnography. I currently work on the EU FP7 funded BRIDGE project (www.bridgeproject.eu/en)exploring social, legal and ethical aspects of technology, organisational dynamics and human action during large-scale emergencies.