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Collection on Populism: Free Content Collection

With the rise of populism across the globe in recent decades comprising distinct political styles, we invite you to read a collection of recent articles and chapters across the social sciences including sociological and social, political, geographical and cultural perspectives focusing on: Support for the concerns of ordinary people Relations between state, society, and citizens Power relationships within and between social groups How social inequality between groups (class, race, gender, etc.) influences politics All content is free until 31st December 2017!...

Opinion / Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Globalization

Decolonizing ‘Financial Literacy’

Does the discipline of sociology need to decolonise? When the editors of The Sociological Review put this question to their twitter followers earlier this year, the response was largely affirmative. Across the social sciences and humanities, there are growing concerns about the Eurocentricity of even the most putatively radical theoretical debates. Campaigns to decolonize higher education are not, however, limited to curricular matters. Sarah Cummings and Paul Hoebink have recently published research showing that only 14% of the authors (and...

Opinion / Population & Demography / Urban Sociology

Visualising the social space of housing in England

How can we represent sociological relations in a meaningful and visually appealing way whilst at the same time capturing the complexities of social and economic life? At this year’s British Sociological Association conference in Manchester, my poster aimed to address this question by bringing together elements of the work of the two sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and Otto Neurath. In brief, my poster depicts how their thinking can help to visualise and thereby help to better understand the social space of...

Applied Sociology / Opinion / Urban Sociology

What About the People? Unlocking the Key to Socially Sustainable and Resilient Communities

The World Resources Institute has published an article by Cathy Baldwin, and Robin King, entitled, What About the People? Unlocking the Key to Socially Sustainable and Resilient Communities. The article is about an applied social science report that argues for the use of social science theories of social capital and social cohesion as key determinants of community resilience in urban communities affected by climate change-related adverse weather events. It looks at this in the context of creating city built environments that...

Opinion / People / Social Identity / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Social Welfare

Promoting better understanding of social work: Interview with Guy Shennan

Guy Shennan is a social worker of over 25 yrs, Chair of the British Association of Social Workers (‘BASW’) and an independent consultant and trainer in solution-focused practice. He spoke to Sociology Lens about promoting a better public understanding of social work, of the need for collaboration between social work organisations and with service users, and on the benefits of social media as a means of achieving this.   What are the aims and visions of the British Association of Social...

News / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change

Why W.E.B. Du Bois is the founder of American scientific sociology: Interview between Nigel Dodd and Aldon Morris

Professor Nigel Dodd, Editor-in-Chief of the BJS, interviews Professor Aldon Morris of Northwestern University on the 2016 BJS Annual Public Lecture. In his lecture Aldon Morris discussed evidence from his book, The Scholar Denied, showing W.E.B Du Bois, an influential 20th century black scholar, was the founding father of modern scientific sociology. Watch the interview Watch the full Lecture You can also read and download Aldon Morris’ paper, W. E. B. Du Bois at the center: from science, civil rights movement, to Black Lives Matter. The...

Opinion / Peace, War & Social Conflict / Political & Economic Sociology / Population & Demography / Rural Sociology / Sociology of Globalization

Rethinking Agrarian Transitions and Left Politics in India: 50 years since Naxalbari

It is now half a century since the small uprising in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal led to the spread of a Maoist inspired revolutionary armed struggle in India, that is still ongoing. But with the Indian state now bent on crushing these Naxalites, and with the more general challenges faced by parliamentary communist parties across India, the question of how to analyse the agrarian economy – the basis of left strategy for a communist society in many...

News

World Hunger Day: Free Content Collection

World Hunger Day advocates sustainable solutions to hunger and poverty and is acknowledged on 28 May. This year’s theme explores the causes of chronic hunger. In light of this, a large collection of the latest innovative research that spans across the social science and humanities can be found here. Explore articles focused on four key areas: ethics, environment, nutrition, and policy & sustainability. Learn more about the causes and consequences of hunger in a specially-curated blog post written by Anna Davies,...

Applied Sociology / News

Sociologists Outside Academia call for Working Group Members – Developing an Applied Sociology Curriculum!

  For the past 18 months, the British Sociological Association (BSA) group Sociologists Outside Academia (SOA) has been focusing on the potential for careers working as applied or practical sociologists, beyond the traditional remits of academia.  Sociology is essential not only for understanding the big problems that face society, but also the daily issues that need addressing at work, at home or in the community.  We believe sociologists have the concepts, the theories and detailed knowledge of organisations and human...

Applied Sociology / Opinion / People

Sociologists Outside of Academia: Solutions to Everyday Problems. An Interview with Professor Nick Fox

I attended my first British Sociological Association Conference at the University of Manchester, 4-6 April 2017. I’m not a sociologist, nor a journalist, unless we’re counting a short stint as a reporter for an Irish Dancing magazine in 2004. I’m a publisher, and I came to the BSA Annual Conference firstly as an exhibitor, attending to promote the societies, journals, authors, contributors and community who publish with us, and secondly, with a more personal agenda to immerse myself in the...

Opinion / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Health & Illness / Sociology of Media & Communication

Health and new normals

A recent article in The Conservation – To be ill is to be human: why normalising illness would make it easier to cope with – authors Gill Hubbard and Claire Wakefield argue that sickness remains the great unsaid, an object and state of denial, a source of fear and cause of stigma. Because of this, we tend to stay quiet when we fall ill, often keeping it hidden and coping alone.  This may make it far harder to cope when...

Opinion / Sociology of Health & Illness

Sex, drugs and activism: making HIV treatment as prevention available in the UK

On 10 April 2017, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) announced that PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) – the use of HIV treatment in people who are HIV-negative to prevent HIV – would soon be available on the NHS. This is a landmark decision for the use of HIV treatment as prevention in the UK, making Scotland the first – and currently only – country to provide PrEP through the NHS. PrEP policy pathways The Scottish pathway to this policy decision has been...

Opinion / Sociology of Health & Illness

Liminal spaces : Making connections for healthcare professionals

Discovering this paper (on Twitter) by Brown et al (2017) and how elegantly it presents the ambivalent world of people recovering from ME, a contested and controversial condition. Encountering it on social media has led to me feeling compelled to write this blog to see if it elicits some response from other healthcare professionals. As a recovering nurse educator I have been in hiding for a number of years but this paper has encouraged me out of my cave. I...

Gender & Sexuality / Opinion / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Silence Does Not Equal Siding with the Oppressor: Why I Decided Not to Attend the March

Aside from disliking huge crowds, there are many reasons why I decided not to attend the Women’s March this upcoming Saturday (January 21st, 2017). This inauguration is scary and telling of times to come. It has been a while since I have been this scared, especially after moving to a red state. Up until now, I have been steadfast in my sociological training. Many professors tell budding sociologists they need to be (p)olitical as opposed to (P)olitical because objectivity is...

By Simons/Staff Sgt. (according to Exif data) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Books and arts / Political & Economic Sociology

Carbon offsetting: back from the dead

Back in 2006, before ‘foreclosure’, ‘credit default swaps’ and ‘double-dip recession’ became terms we needed to worry about, climate change was an issue that actually had some traction in popular culture. This was the year that An Inconvenient Truth was released, a film which, unusually for an apocalyptic documentary, actually made an impact. Not only did Al Gore’s film highlight the issue of climate change, but it also made viewers aware of they could do to make a difference. That...

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  • Death, Mourning, and Burial: A Cross-Cultural Reader, 2nd Edition
      The definitive reference on the anthropology of death and dying, expanded with new contributions covering everything from animal mourning to mortuary cannibalismFew subjects stir the imagination more than the study of how people across cultures deal with death and dying. This expanded second edition of the internationally bestselling Death, Mourning, and Burial offers cross-cultural […]
    Antonius C. G. M. Robben (Editor)
  • Sharing: Crime Against Capitalism
      Today's economic system, premised on the sale of physical goods, does not fit the information age in which we live. The capitalist order requires the maintenance of an artificial scarcity in goods that have the potential for near infinite and almost free replication. The sharing of informational goods through distributed global networks – digital […]
    Matthew David
  • Sharing: Crime Against Capitalism
      Today's economic system, premised on the sale of physical goods, does not fit the information age in which we live. The capitalist order requires the maintenance of an artificial scarcity in goods that have the potential for near infinite and almost free replication. The sharing of informational goods through distributed global networks – digital […]
    Matthew David

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Energy colonialism and the role of the global in local responses to new energy infrastructures in the UK

Video abstract for the paper by Susana Batel and Patrick Devine-Wright (University of Exeter) Read the paper here.