Welcome the new Head of Department

We welcome Virinder Kalra as the new HoD, and thank the outgoing HoD John Solomos for all his hard work and support.

BSA/BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed Prize for Ethnography

We are delighted to announce that Maria do Mar Pereira's most recent book Power, Knowledge and Feminist Scholarship: an Ethnography of Academia was shortlisted for the BSA / BBC Radio 4 Thinking Allowed Prize for Ethnography.

Tune into to Radio 4 to hear a discussion of her book a special edition of Thinking Allowed (aired Wednesday 11 April 2018) at 16.00.

BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize

Lucy Mayblin has been announced as the winner of the BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2018 for her book, Asylum After Empire: Colonial legacies in the Politics of Asylum Seeking 

The BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize is for the best first and sole-authored book within the discipline of Sociology.

BSA Distinguished Service Award

John Solomos has been given this year’s Distinguished Service to British Sociology Award, an award made each year by the British Sociological Association to an outstanding individual who has contributed greatly to the discipline.

Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences

Emeritus Professor Elizabeth Dowler has been elected a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, nominated by the Social Policy Association.

The department is delighted to announce that Dr Hannah Jones has been awarded an ESRC IAA grant for a collaborative project entitled 'Immigration Otherwise: Co-Production and Participative Engagement'. The project is a collaboration with Dr Yasmin Gunaratnam at Goldsmiths, University of London and theatre company ActREAL. They will be working with schools in Oxford and Coventry to explore the implications of immigration control on young peoples’ lives.

The image is the cover of a collaboratively-authored book by Hannah, Yasmin and six others, on which the theatre work will be based.

Keep an eye on our Research Impact page for more information.

A workshop titled ‘Chaos and Crisis: Can Prison Be Better Than This?’ took place on Wednesday 17th of January 2018 at the University of Warwick. This event was co-organised by the Howard League for Penal Reform, Safe Ground, and the Department of Sociology and the Criminal Justice Centre at Warwick. It was supported by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account fund that seeks to raise public engagement on current issues inside English and Welsh prisons. The workshop was designed to be an interactive, day-long encounter that brought together a range of prison practitioners and employees, former prisoners, criminal justice charities and NGOs, media, researchers, campaigners and others interested in issues of criminal justice. An impressive range of panelists, all having substantial experience and knowledge of prisons attended.

• Find out more and watch videos from the event...
  

Behaviour Change By Design

University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine

We are seeking two RA/SRA’s to join the Behaviour Change by Design team. See below for further details on the posts we’re recruiting to:

Research Associate/Senior Research Associate* in Social or Behavioural Sciences

We seek a talented researcher to join a new four year Wellcome funded work programme on behaviour change. The successful post-holder will join a new team to develop and lead a series of planned activities to help forge collaborative relationships between policy makers and researchers in order to maximise the implementation of evidence generated by our research programme on changing behaviour by re-designing environments. The closing date for this post is: 31st January 2018, with interviews to be held on the 9th February 2018. For further details and to apply, click here.

Research Associate/Senior Research Associate

We are also recruiting for a health researcher to join a new Wellcome funded work programme on behaviour change. The project is funded for four years starting in January 2018. The successful post-holder will carry out and develop an agreed programme of research across the collaborating institutions of the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol and the multitude of sites in which field studies will be conducted including Melbourne (Australia), as well as England, Scotland and Wales. The closing date for this post is: 30th January, with interviews to be held on the 9th February. For further details and to apply, click here.

 For further information about our research programme please see our new website:

http://www.behaviourchangebydesign.iph.cam.ac.uk/we-are-currently-recruiting/

I am pleased to say our first video is now on the EC Research and Innovation Channel.

To help increase awareness and engagement with our project please share this video far and wide. The video gaining the most LIKEs (not just views) on this channel will win and likes need to be received by mid-April. Winning this will rapidly increase national and international visibility of the project.

Thank you so much your support. Between staff, students and Departmental and University level social media channels we can create fantastic exposure and public engagement as part of our project's impact pathway.

Best Wishes,

India

Toxic Expertise Project Administrator

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PEiZYNtck8&index=11&list=PLvpwIjZTs-LjHDvRTqlyjfLeflXDak5er

Dr Loretta Lou recently attended this event at the University of Bristol. Here's her account of the day:

On Friday I presented my recently published article ‘In the Absence of a Peasantry, What, Then, Is a Hong Kong Farmer?’ at the HKHP Workshop. I used this opportunity the publicize my new publication among a group of Hong Kong specialists. The talk was well received and I had fruitful exchanges with my fellow speakers about non-elites’ contributions to Hong Kong’s social and economic development; Hong Kong’s development during the post-war years; transnational Hong Kong; and the place of Hong Kong in British Empire. We’ve exchanged contacts for future collaborations. During the roundtable discussion, I also had a chance to learn from former BBC Hong Kong-based journalist Vaudine England about writing academic books for general audiences.

Image of Loretta presenting her paper

Morteza Hashemi, a recent PhD graduate from Warwick’s Sociology department, has been awarded the Farabi International Award, the highest honour for research in the humanities and social sciences given by the Iranian government.

We are very pleased to announce that Emeritus Professor Jim Beckford's new book is now available (both in hardback and e-book format):

Sarah Harvey, Silke Steidinger and James A. Beckford (eds) New Religious Movements and Counselling: Academic, Professional and Personal Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2018, xiii + 248pp.

ISBN: 978-1-4724-7271-7

Hidden Histories is an alternative lecture series run by staff and students at Warwick. The series is hosted by the Students' Union, and is supported by Sociology, as well as English and Comparative Literary Studies, History, PAIS, and the School for Cross-Faculty studies.

The first lecture in the series will take place on 25 Jan at 19:00 in SO.21.

Following the award of the Athena SWAN bronze award, Maria, Nickie, and Ruth attended the awards ceremony in Glasgow to accept the award.

From L - R: Dr Maria do Mar Pereira, Professor Nickie Charles, and Dr Ruth Pearce.

• Find out more about the Athena SWAN award on the Equality Challenge Unit website.
• Find out more about the department's work towards the award (and following the award!) on our Athena SWAN webpage.