Recent publications
The following books have been published recently by members of Sociology in Manchester.
Understanding Social Research: Thinking Creatively (2011) Sage
Jennifer Mason and Angela Dale's cutting-edge new book brings together a wide variety of research methods - both qualitative and quantitative. The authors identify the most appropriate methods for different research questions and highlight areas where it might be fruitful to compliment different methods with each other or exploit creative tensions between them. The book is a highly practical guide which seeks to draw readers outside their methodological comfort zones. This inter-disciplinary approach is complimented by a wide range of strategically chosen examples which demonstrate the authors' pragmatic and creative take on research design. This book includes:
- Critical coverage of issues in research design;
- Expert experience in many methodological fields;
- An overview of the many different ways to approach similar research problems;
- Coverage of the tensions between different methodological approaches;
- Examples of excellence in research design and practice;
- An examination of how to turn methodological tensions into richer research practice.
Understanding Social Research: Thinking Creatively (2011) Sage
Personal Life: New Directions in Sociological Thinking (2007) Cambridge: Polity
By Carol Smart
This exciting new book puts forward a new way of understanding families and relationships. Breaking with conventional wisdom, it offers a fresh conceptual approach to understanding personal life, which realigns empirical research with theoretical analysis. Carol Smart gives emphasis to ideas of connectedness, relationality and embeddedness, rejecting many of the assumptions found in theories of individualisation and de–traditionalisation by authors such as Beck and Beck–Gernsheim, Bauman and Giddens.
Instead, her approach prioritises the bonds between people, the importance of memory and cultural heritage, the significance of emotions (both positive and negative), how family secrets work and change over time, and the underestimated importance of things such as shared possessions or homes in the maintenance and memory of relationships.
Personal Life: New Directions in Sociological Thinking at Amazon
Late Modernity and Social Change: Reconstructing Social and Personal Life (2006) Routledge
By Brian Heaphy
In this book Brian Heaphy unravels debates about modernity in contemporary social theory and examines key sociological ideas about the nature and implications of social change from modernist, poststructuralist, postmodernist and late modernist perspectives.
Late Modernity and Social Change begins byoutlining founding sociological ideas about modernity and social change and considers different definitions of what some refer to as ‘postmodernity’ and others term ‘late modernity’. In doing so, it introduces the ideas of founding social thinkers including Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel and Freud, and the work of key contemporary theorists, among them Lacan, Foucault, Lyotrad, Baudrillard, Bauman, Giddens and Beck. It also discusses feminist, Queer and post-colonial ideas about studying modern and post-modern experience. A special feature of the book is that it brings contemporary theories of modernity and social change to life through extended examples from personal life (including self and identity, relational and intimate life, death, dying and life-politics).
White Lives (2006) London: Routledge
Winner of the 2007 Philip Abrams Memorial Prize from the British Sociological Association
'White Lives' reconsidered white identities through white experiences of race. Exploring race, alongside class and gender, Bridget Byrne analyses the flexibility of racialised discourse in everyday life, whilst simultaneously arguing for a radical deconstruction of the notions of race these discourses create. Bridget Byrne focuses on the experience of white mothers and their young children, as a key site in the reproduction of class, race and gendered subjectivities. Through this, she offers a unique perspective on both the experience of motherhood and ideas of white identity. Her analysis is multilayered, looking at local and private spaces but also considering national and public debates concerning race.
Smoke Signals: Women, Smoking and Visual Culture in Britain (2006) London: Berg
‘Smoke Signals’ charts women's changing relationship to tobacco from the 1880s to the 1980s, during which time smoking transformed from a male practice to one enjoyed by both sexes. Focusing on the feminization of cigarette smoking, the author unravels the role of visual culture and the impact of social, economic, medical and technological changes. Drawing on women's own photographs, alongside images from magazines, newspapers, television and film, this book provides a detailed and stimulating exploration of the role of visual culture in the history of women and smoking.
Health and Social Research in Multicultural Societies (2006) Abingdon: Routledge
By James Nazroo
Research on ethnicity is of relevance to a wide variety of health, economic and social issues in modern societies. This is reflected in the growing body of research with a focus on ethnicity. Despite this, there are no ready sources of information on the methodological issues facing such research. This volume aims to plug that gap. Straightforward in its approach and accessible to those who are not specialists in studies of ethnicity, Health and Social Research in Multicultural Societies provides essential and clear guidance on appropriate methods. Using a combination of critical analysis and case studies to illustrate the benefits and pitfalls of particular approaches, this volume provides access to core issues relevant to research with ethnic minority groups. It is a resource for those carrying out and using what is a considerable body of research, including students, academics, researchers, and research commissioners.
Reflexive Embodiment in Contemporary Society (2006) Open University Press
This book explores the concept of reflexive embodiment ' how we, as embodied beings, reflect upon our own embodiment. He considers the ways in which we modify and maintain our bodies, from brushing our teeth and washing our faces through to tattooing and bodybuilding. Some forms of `body work' are demanded by social conventions; others represent legitimate choices, and others still deviate from or resist the norm. He argues that a proper understanding of reflexive embodiment must be alert to these differences, and that we must appreciate that our bodies are not passive or inert substances that we can mould as we like. They change in ways that we do not intend and of which we are not aware, and they may prove difficult to change in the ways we do intend. Many theorists in sociology offer perspectives on the link between society and body modification, mostly focused in one way or another upon `modernity'. Nick Crossley contends that existing perspectives are very selective in the range of modification practices they focus upon and in their conception of both modernity and its effects upon the body. While various theories identify clusters of modification practices and link them to aspects of modernity, there has been no systematic attempt to combine these partial accounts into a coherent vision. This book provides such a vision and offers a major contribution to the sociology of the body.
Contesting Psychiatry: Social Movements in Mental Health (2005) London: Routledge
Resistance and social movements in mental health have been important in shaping current practice in both mental health and psychiatry. "Contesting Psychiatry", focusing largely on the UK, examines the history of resistance to psychiatry between 1950 and 2000. Building on the author's extensive research the book provides an empirical account and exploration of the key features including: an account of the key social movements and organisations who have contested psychiatry over the last fifty years; the theorisation of resistance to psychiatry which might apply to other national contexts and to social movement formation and protest in other medical arenas; and the exploration of theories of power in psychiatry. Innovative and insightful, this text addresses changes in health and medicine, providing a new sociological perspective on psychiatry.
Trust in Food: A comparative and Institutional Analysis
By Unni Kjaernes, Mark Harvey, and Alan Warde
Scandals in food, growth of supermarket power, new technologies and crises in obesity have shaken popular trust in food across Europe. The BSE epidemic, concern over GM foods, dioxin scares and avian flu have placed consumer trust and how to restore it at the top of government agendas. Uncovering surprising differences between countries, "Trust in Food" examines these issues to challenge the idea of the consumer as a sovereign individual and to demonstrate how consumption is institutionalized within societies. The book arises from a study, funded by the EU, of six European countries (Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway and Portugal). It seeks to explain different levels of trust in the foods and the food systems of those countries. It offers a comparative institutional analysis.
Researching voluntary and community action: The potential of qualitative case studies
by Duncan Scott and Lynne Russell
Published by the Joseph Rowntree FoundationA review of the use of qualitative case studies when researching the voluntary and community sectors. The voluntary and community sectors are more prominent in policy discussions than at any time since the establishment of the modern welfare state. But there is no well-researched body of knowledge about the sectors. This study explores what we can learn from qualitative case studies and suggests ways in which their use can be further developed in the future.
Based on a series of case studies and evaluations of voluntary organisations and community groups, the study explores:
- Popular and academic conceptions of a 'case study'
- Contrasting views on the analytic contribution of this type of research
- The rhetoric and reality of undertaking qualitative case studies
- The impact of these approaches in the voluntary and community sectors
- How researchers – specialist and non-specialist – can contribute to the
- use of different forms of qualitative case studies.
Researching voluntary and community action: The potential of qualitative case studies at Amazon
Dispora and Hybridity
By Virinder Kalra, Raminder K Kahlon and John Hutnyk.
Published by Sage Publications
This book is an exhaustive, politically inflected, assessment of the key debates on diaspora and hybridity. It relates the topics to contemporary social struggles and cultural contexts, providing the
reader with a framework to evaluate and displace the key ideological arguments, theories and narratives deployed in culturalist academic circles today. The authors demonstrate how diaspora and hybridity serve as problematic tools, cutting across traditional boundaries of nations and groups, where trans-national spaces for a range of contested cultural, political and economic
outcomes might arise.
Dispora and Hybridity at Amazon
Globalization & Belonging
By Mike Savage, Gaynor Bagnall and Brian Longhurst
Published by Sage Publications
In our increasingly globalized era, how has attachement to place been re-defined? Drawing on long-term empirical research into cultural practices, lifestyles and identities of nearly 200 residents in Manchester, Globalization and Belonging traces a new ethic of 'elective belonging' where the values and identities of regional in-migrants play a decisive role in generating a sense of attachment. The authors show how 'elective belonging' makes sense of many social practices, invluding parenting; gender relationships; friendship patterns; cultural tastes; use of the media work and leisure; attitudes to urban space and landscape.
Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective
Edited by Fiona Devine and Mary C Waters
Published by Blackwell
This unique collection of original essays brings a comparative perspective to issues of social inequality. First-rate sociologists from around the world have contributed to this exciting and rigorous volume, drawing upon their own research in the fields of race and ethnicity, class and inequality, and gender and sexuality. Qualitative research on social inequalities is enjoying increasing prominence in the sub-discipline of social stratification because it addresses issues of culture, identity, experience, meaning and process. This collection is at the cutting edge of the study of social inequalities and identifies new directions of thinking about and doing research on race, class and gender in a stimulating and innovative way. Examples of race, class or gender inequalities are considered from the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Portugal, Finland, and Japan. Each essay reflects on methodological issues and the strengths of qualitative research, and examines how new areas of research contribute to new ways of thinking. As a whole, these essays encourage students to see the study of social inequalities as central to a sociological understanding of contemporary societies in the twenty-first century.
Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective at Amazon
After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere
Edited by Nick Crossley and John Michael Roberts
Published by Blackwell, a Sociological Review Monograph
Contemporary debate about the public sphere has been dominated by discussion of Jurgen Habermas's seminal study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. The contributors to this collection push forward Habermas's agenda by reflecting on current social processes and events, such as anti-corporate protests and the emergence of the Internet. They also consider alternative perspectives posed by thinkers such as Bakhtin, Bourdieu and Honneth. Combining work by established commentators and new researchers, After Habermas brings fresh perspectives and ideas to bear on debates about the public sphere.
After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere at Amazon
Class Practices: How parents help their children get good jobs
By Fiona Devine
Published by Cambridge University Press
This important new book is a comparative study of social mobility based on qualitative interviews with middle-class parents in America and Britain. It addresses the key issue in stratification research, namely, the stability of class relations and middle-class reproduction. Drawing on interviewee accounts of how parents mobilised economic, cultural and social resources to help them into professional careers, it then considers how the interviewees, as parents, seek to increase their children's chances of educational success and occupational advancement. Middle-class parents may try to secure their children's social position but it is not an easy or straightforward affair. With the decline of the quality of state education and increased job insecurity in the labour market since the 1970s and 1980s, the reproduction of advantage is more difficult than in the affluent decades of the 1950s and 1960s. The implications for public policy, especially public investment in higher education, are considered.
Class Practices: How parents help their children get good jobs at Amazon
Critical Technology: A Social Theory of Personal Computing
Published by Ashgate Press
Winner of the 2005 Philip Abrams Memorial Prize from the British Sociological Association
Focusing in particular on the personal computer, this thought-provoking work offers an original sociological perspective on contemporary computer technology. Graeme Kirkpatrick argues that the computer is a contested space within which important social conflicts are played out. The outcomes of these conflicts are extremely important as they shape our future experiences of technology, society and politics. The book argues that, for computer users, empowerment and social status are largely determined by the extent to which one understands the technology of the machine. This kind of understanding will be increasingly important for equal citizenship in modern societies. Thus technology - and our understanding of it - is central to the concerns of critical social theory. Providing an interesting and original perspective on a current and much debated field, this book takes issue with received wisdom. It will be essential reading for all those with interests in cyber-culture, the sociology of technology and contemporary citizenship politics.
The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of Social Innovation
Edited by Helene Curtis and Mimi Sanderson, with an introduction by Sheila Rowbotham
Published by Whiting and Birch Ltd.
A work covering the rapid growth of social organizations in 1960s England, detailing what if felt like to be there at the beginning of a social organization and the dire political and economic circumstances that prompted their creation. Collecting stories from the groups that created many of modern England's most prominent community institutions, the book conveys the struggles and success of these groups, explaining how, in time, many came to be accepted aspects of the English social fabric. Thirty-eight figures from this tumultuous time in British history are interviewed, including the founders of groups like Shelter, the Claimants Union, and the North Kensington Law Centre.