Dr Imogen Tyler

PhD Supervision Interests

I welcome PhD applications in any of my areas of research. Please feel free to contact me to discuss preliminary ideas for PhD proposals or postdoctoral applications.

Current Teaching

join me on twitter @DrImogenTyler or in the real world term-time Tuesday mornings, Bowland North B Floor, CGWS coffee morning.

Senior Lecturer in Sociology 

Co-Director of the Centre of Gender and Women's Studies (with Celia Roberts)

Doctoral Director (with C.Roberts) for the Sociology Department (all programmes)

Lancaster pathway lead for  Sociology, Science, Technology, Innovation & Social Practices and Social Anthropology in the ESRC North West Doctoral Training Centre.

Departmental Equalities and Disabilities Officer

Website Strategy Officer

I currently teach all or some of the following courses:

• MCS 101 Media and Cultural Studies
• SOCL230 Bodies in Society 
• SOCL314 Feminism and Social Change 
• SOCL352 Dissertation Course (supervisor)
• GWS 403 Feminist Cultural Theory
  

Research Interests

All my research is concerned with social inequalities, power, injustice and resistance. My work examines why inequalities exist, why inequalities are currently growing (for example, patterns of neoliberalism, marketization, privatisation and the erosion of democracy, rights and welfare systems), the intersections of different histories and forms of inequality (for example, gender, citizenship status, disability). My work also considers how inequalities are measured and classified, the ways in which inequalities are reproduced & resisted and critically the kinds of subjectivities and identities which are constituted through unequal social relations. My research is multi-disciplinary and criss-crosses the arts and social sciences. It is intersectional work which employs mixed methods and draws together long-standing research interests in migration, internal and external borders, sexual politics, social class, race & ethnicity, disability and poverty, and an abiding interest in culture, representation, processes of mediation and political aesthetics. This interdisciplinary context is crucial as one of the questions I am most interested in examining (and in my view one of the most important questions for the social sciences today) is "how and why publics consent to deepening inequalities"? That is "how is consent for inequality procured"? To approach this question requires analysis not only of the material conditions of inequality, but a much better understanding of how inequalites are produced and sustained through media and communication systems--  the political aesthetics of inequality.

In 2010 I was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and the major outcome of this fellowship is the monograph Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain (London: Zed, 2013).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Revolting Subjects
1. Social Abjection
2. The Abject Politics of British Citizenship
3. The Asylum Invasion Complex
4. Naked Protest: Maternal Politics and the Feminist Commons
5. The Big Society: Eviction and Occupation
6. Britain and its Poor
7. The Kids are Revolting
Revolting Subjects: An Afterword

Through this research I have begun to develop a rich psycho-social account of the ways in which stigmatization operates as a form of governance that legitimates the reproduction and entrenchment of inequalities and injustices. I am now keen to find the time and funding to extend this work through a major new project on stigma and inequality provisionally entitled Wasted Generations: New Cultural and Political Economies of Stigma. This transnational project would extend my existing research on stigma and empoverishment in Britain to other national settings in the global north and south (including Asia and Africa). It would examine the impact the emergence of new cultural and political economies of poverty and stigma in a range of different local settings and in a range of registers, including government policy, local policy and services, and media cultures. This project would focus on three interlinked areas/populations: 1) young people, unemployment and workfare regimes  2) disability, welfare and hate crime and 3) irregular migrants and disciplinary citizenship regimes.

Asylum, Migrancy, Citizenship and Borders

I have published widely in this area and in 2009 I set up a cross departmental Migrancy Research Group at Lancaster University. I have recently edited,  with Katarzyna Marciniak (Ohio University) a special issue of Citizenship Studies on `Immigrant Protest`(2013). An edited book, Immigrant Protest: Politics, Aesthetics, and Everyday Dissent (SUNY) will be published in 2014.

I have recently completed an ESRC funded project called 'Making Asylum Seekers Legible and Visible: An Analysis of the Dilemmas and Mitigating Strategies of Asylum Advocacy in the UK and US '. During 2012-2014 I will be running and participating an ESRC Seminar Series ?Exploring Everyday Practice and Resistance in Immigration Detention? with Dr Nick Gill (Exeter) (PI), Prof Mary Bosworth (Oxford), Dr Imogen Tyler (Lancaster), Dr Dominique Moran (Birmingham), Dr Alex Hall (York, UK). The final workshop in this series will take place in the North West of England in 2014. I am currently working with post-doctoral student,  Maja Sager on her project `Contested Boundaries. An ethnographic study of activist practices for the inclusion of excluded migrants in Sweden, Denmark and the UK'. (Centre for Gender and Womens Studies, Centre for Mobilities Research and the Sociology Department Lancaster & Lund University Sweden, funded by the Swedish Research Council and the European Union). 

Maternal Publics and Counter Publics

I have published widely in this area, most recently editing a special issue with Tracey Jesen (Newcastle) on the theme of Austerity Parenting (2012) and an issue of Feminist Review on `Birth' (2009). I sit on the editorial board of Studies in the Maternal and have been centrally involved with the development of MaMSIE (Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics) an international research network based at Birkbeck University. I have also recently completed (with Dr Celia Roberts and Dr Candice Satchwell) on a European-funded research project on Childbirth Organisations in the UK 2009-2011. I am in an ongoing colloboration with the arts organisation Birthrites and the artist Helen Knowles With Carol Kingdon, I am developing new research on the changing visual culture of birth and its implications in terms of women's expectations and experiences.

External Roles

 I am an external examiner for the BA in Sociology at Oxford Brookes University.

I am on the advisory board of the ESRC project Celebrity Youth (The role of celebrity in young people's classed and gendered aspirations').

Journal editorial board member

 European Journal of Cultural Studies http://ecs.sagepub.com/

 Feminist Media Studies http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rfms

 Sociological Research Online http://www.socresonline.org.uk/

 Studies in the Maternal http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/

MAMSIE Board Member

• Wasted Generations: New Cultural and Political Economies of Poverty and Stigma

  25/03/2013 →
  In the globalized world of the twenty-first century, economic polarization has reached unparalleled depths both in terms of the deepening inequalities within post-industrial nation-states and in terms ... Read more»

• ESRC Seminar Series ‘Exploring Everyday Practice and Resistance in Immigration Detention‘.

  01/09/2012 → 31/12/2014
  Detention is a pressing empirical, conceptual, and political issue. Detained populations, detention facilities, and industries have expanded globally. We argue that developments in detention practices ... Read more»

• Maternal Publics and Counter Publics

  01/01/2011 →
  ... Read more»

• Revolting Subjects : Marginalisation and Resistance

  01/09/2010 → 23/03/2012
  ... Read more»

• FEC Code: for EAA7033 Making asylum seekers legible and visibl

  01/07/2010 →
  Making Asylum Seekers Legible and Visible: An Analysis of the Dilemmas and Mitigating Strategies of Asylum Advocacy in the UK and US Start date: 01 September 2010 End date: 31 December 2011 This re ... Read more»

• FP7: EPOK

  01/02/2009 → 30/04/2012
  ... Read more»

• Feminist Media Studies reading group

  03/08/2007 → 01/08/2008
  The main purpose of the first meeting of the reading group is to think about how the group will develop over the next academic year. Our proposed focus is 'Affect, Emotion, Media', with a particular ... Read more»

• Melancholic States - International Conference

  15/05/2006 →
  CALL FOR PAPERS The concept of melancholia has assumed widespread and varied currency across numerous fields. Sometimes used to refer to a state of mind or to an affective state; sometimes used to s ... Read more»

• Revolting Subjects & Societies Beyond Oil Book Launch

  11/03/2013
  23rd of April 2013 5.30pm book launch Lancaster University Blackwells Book Shop and supported by Zed Books Imogen Tyler Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain and J ... Read more»

• Naked Protest

  27/10/2012
  Imogen Tyler's research on Naked Protest referenced in Business Insider ... Read more»

• "The kids are revolting. But why?: Reflections on the Summer 2011 English Riots one year on: the 'Underclass', welfare retrenchment and workfare regimes". Open Democracy

  19/07/2012
  Short article in Open Democracy ... Read more»

• Chavs: Thinking Allowed

  04/07/2011
  Radio 4 Interview, Thinking Allowed Podcast at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0124nty ... Read more»

• European Research Project on Childbirth Organisations

  10/03/2009
  Dr Celia Roberts and Dr Imogen Tyler have been awarded a 150k European grant (7th Framework Science and Society) to undertake research on childbirth organisations in the UK. This research project form ... Read more»

• New 'maternal studies' journal launch

  01/03/2009
  Dr Imogen Tyler is on the editorial board of a new interdisciplinary ejournal Studies in the Maternal which will be launched this month. This is the first journal dedicated to`maternal studies' in the ... Read more»

• Imogen Tyler interviewed on Radio 4 Women's Hour

  04/08/2008
  Imogen Tyler was interviewed on Women's Hour. Listen to the podcast at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/01/2008_34_fri.shtml?rss ... Read more»

• European Journal of Cultural Studies

  (Editorial board member)
  Activity: Editorial activity
  Read more»

• Sociological Research Online

  (Editorial board member)
  Activity: Editorial activity
  Read more»

• Feminist Media Studies

  (Editorial board member)
  Activity: Editorial activity
  Read more»

• Studies in The Maternal

  (Editorial board member)
  Activity: Editorial activity
  Read more»

• Birthrites Exhibition

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 11/5/2011
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Public Lecture: Private View: Public Birth

  (Speaker) 9/5/2011
  Activity: Public lecture/debate/seminar
  Read more»

• Immigrant Protest: Political Aesthetics

  (Speaker) 24/9/2011
  Activity: Public lecture/debate/seminar
  Read more»

• Association of Consumer Research

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 27/6/2010
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Representing the Maternal -- A speaker series presented by the University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design to discuss representations of motherhood and related work/life issues.

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 4/2/2009
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Public Lecture: Why the Maternal Now?

  (Speaker) 3/2/2009
  Activity: Public lecture/debate/seminar
  Read more»

• Going Cheap: Female Celebrity in the Tabloid, Reality and Scandal Genres

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 25/6/2008
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• (Un)Making Personhood

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 27/5/2007
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Identity Matters

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 1/7/2005
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Power, Ethics and Feminism

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 8/12/2000
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• The International Migration Centre, Canadian Sociological Association, Canadian Association of Geographers, The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 30/5/2012
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Forthcoming Feminisms: Gender Activism, Politics and Theories' British Sociological Association, Gender Study Group

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 26/10/2012
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Leeds Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies, Leeds University.

  (Invited speaker) 11/5/2012
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Motherhood, Servitude, and the Delegation of Care

  (Invited speaker) 20/5/2011
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Disobedience Day

  (Invited speaker) 11/5/2011
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• Seminar paper Sociology Department LSE

  (Speaker) 16/3/2011
  Activity: Invited talk
  Read more»

• Immigrant Protest: The Ethics and Politics of Scholarship on Asylum in Britain

  (Speaker)
  Activity: Invited talk
  Read more»

• Maternal Bodies and Identities in Contemporary Britain

  (Speaker) 8/6/2009
  Activity: Invited talk
  Read more»

• Mother Trouble

  (Invited speaker) 28/5/2009
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• ERSC funded seminar on Motherhood, Markets and Consumption, Lancaster University

  (Invited speaker) 28/5/2008
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• Emotional Labour Centre for Gender and Womens Studies

  (Invited speaker) 9/4/2009
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• Studies in Maternal Journal Launch Birkbeck

  (Invited speaker) 17/3/2009
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• Seminar Series,Gender and Media Group

  (Speaker) 8/5/2008
  Activity: Invited talk
  Read more»

• New Sciences of Protection: Designing Safe-Living

  (Invited speaker) 13/3/2008
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Interdisciplinary Institute (MISST), Manchester Metropolitan University

  (Invited speaker) 28/2/2008
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• Interrupting Maternal Voices: Between the Theoretical and Empirical, MAMSiE, Birbeck College, London

  (Invited speaker) 7/11/2007
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• New Sciences of Protection: Designing Safe-Living programme, IAS, Lancaster University.

  (Invited speaker) 4/10/2007
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• State, Violence and Subjectivities: Conversations with Prof. Veena Das, Lancaster University.

  (Invited speaker) 1/10/2007
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• THE EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

  (Speaker) 8/9/2011
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• New Sciences of Protection: Designing Safe-Living

  (Invited speaker) 4/10/2007
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Emotion, Culture, Affect: Feminist Engagements, Goldsmiths College

  (Invited speaker) 9/6/2007
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• mmigrant Protest: Migrancy, Borders, Resistance Workshop

  (Organiser) 3/2/2010
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Birth: The Cultural Politics of Reproduction International Conference, Lancaster University

  (Organiser)
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Maternal Bodies, Lancaster University

  (Organiser) 5/11/2005
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Professor Lauren Berlant, Leverhulme Visiting Professor

  (Host)
  Activity: Hosting an academic visitor
  Read more»

• Katarzyna Marciniak (Ohio) Visiting Professor Migrancy Research Group and the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies

  (Host)
  Activity: Hosting an academic visitor
  Read more»

• War, Terror, Spectacle, Lancaster University

  (Organiser)
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• War and Media Conference, Lancaster University

  (Organiser)
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Melancholic States International conference, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies

  (Organiser)
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• Workshops with Sociology School Teachers and Pupils

  (Organiser)
  Activity: Schools engagement
  Read more»

• Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots one year on

  (Participant) 28/9/2012
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• FEMINIST SPACES AND FUTURES

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 17/11/2012
  Activity: Participation in conference
  Read more»

• ‘Different Subject, Diverse Strands: Diversity at the (Inter)discipline’

  (Invited speaker) 18/1/2013
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• ‘Mothering and the New Politics of Parenting’ BSA Families and Relationship Study Group

  (Invited speaker) 9/5/2013
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»