BSA Regional Postgraduate Event: ‘Close to home: moral dilemmas, ethical practice and complexities of reflexivity in ethnographic research.’

Friday 3 June 2016, London School of Economics

Confirmed speakers: Claire Alexander (University of Manchester), Michaela Benson (Goldsmiths), Karen Lumsden (Loughborough University), Lisa Mckenzie (LSE), Laurie Taylor (BBC Radio 4).

Ethnography as a methodological tool is founded in a long tradition of social science research and over the past decade ethnography has moved once again to forefront of sociological concern. Considered one of the few research methods able to escape the shackles of the academy in full form, in recent months ethnographic accounts have both topped the best sellers lists internationally alongside attracting much academic and lay commentary and critique (Goffman, 2015; Martin, 2015; Mckenzie, 2015). Central to such debates is the concern and question regarding who is permitted to conduct ethnographic research citing the occupational hazard ethnographers risk in eroticising or misrepresenting their research subjects and sites. Appreciating the diverse forms that ethnographic research can take, this event explores the role of the researcher in ethnographic research, reflecting on the challenges the researcher faces in the collection and presentation of data. The event opens with the question of how the researcher can facilitate critical thought and provide valuable contribution to the discipline, whilst avoiding inaccuracies or enacting symbolic violence, however unintentional. Critically reflecting on the concept of reflexivity, the event looks to investigate power dynamics alongside the emotional experience of the research field.

For more information, click here.

Wednesday, 8th June 5pm-6.30pm

Room MS.05, Maths Building, University of Warwick

So we can keep track of numbers, please register to attend at www.brem2016.eventbrite.co.uk

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown came to this country in 1972 from Uganda. She completed her M.Phil. in literature at Oxford in 1975. She is a journalist who has written for The Guardian, Observer, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Evening Standard, The Mail and other newspapers and is now a regular columnist on The Independent and London’s Evening Standard. She is also a radio and television broadcaster and author of several books. Her book, No Place Like Home, well received by critics, was an autobiographical account of a twice removed immigrant. From 1996 to 2001 she was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research which published True Colours on the role of government on racial attitudes. Tony Blair launched the book in March 1999. She is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre. In 2000 she published, Who Do We Think We Are? which went on to be published in the US too, an acclaimed book on the state of the nation. Andrew Marr and Sir Bernard Crick among other reviewers found the book exceptionally wise and challenging. After Multiculturalism, a pamphlet re-assessing the multicultural ideology in Britain was the first critical examination by a social democrat of a settled and now damaging orthodoxy. She is also a regular international public speaker in Britain, other European countries, North America and Asian nations. In 2001 came the publication of Mixed Feelings, a book on mixed race Britons which has been praised by all those who have reviewed it to date. In June 1999, she received an honorary degree from the Open University for her contributions to social justice. She is a Vice President of the United Nations Association, UK and has also agreed to be a special ambassador for the Samaritans. She is the President of the Institute of Family Therapy. She is married with a twenty eight year old son and thirteen year old daughter.

In 2001 she was appointed an MBE for services to journalism in the new year’s honours list. In July 2003 Liverpool John Moore’s University made her an Honorary Fellow. In 2003 she returned her MBE as a protest against the new empire in Iraq and a growing republicanism. In September 2004, she was awarded an honorary degree by the Oxford Brookes University . In April 2004, her film on Islam for Channel 4 won an award and in May 2004, she received the EMMA award for best print journalist for her columns in the Independent. In September 2004, a collection of her journalistic writings, Some of My Best Friends Are… was published in 2005. Since that year, she has been seen on stage in her one woman show, commissioned and directed by the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of their new work festival. In 2005, she was voted the 10th most influential black/Asian woman in the country in a poll and in another she was among the most powerful Asian media professionals in the UK. In 2008 she was appointed Visiting Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies and Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Lincoln.

The event will be followed by a reception with juice, wine and snacks

This is a public lecture and all are welcome

So we can keep track of numbers, please register to attend at www.brem2016.eventbrite.co.uk

Find out more about Warwick’s Borders, Race, Ethnicity and Migration (BREM) Network at www.warwick.ac.uk/brem

Amy Hinterberger has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Seed Award in Humanities & Social Science for her project, Blood and tissue samples as ‘human subjects’. The Award is for £39,897. The project will run from October 2016 – July 2017. The research will investigate transformations in the definition of the human research subject in biomedicine across the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.

The Department of Sociology is proud to announce the publication of Dr Mark Carrigan’s new monongraph. Social media is an increasingly important part of academic life that can be a fantastic medium for promoting your work, networking with colleagues and for demonstrating impact. However, alongside the opportunities it also poses challenging questions about how to engage online, and how to represent yourself professionally.

This practical book provides clear guidance on effectively and intelligently using social media for academic purposes across disciplines, from publicising your work and building networks to engaging the public with your research. It is supported by real life examples and underpinned by principles of good practice to ensure you have the skills to make the most of this exciting medium.

It is with great pleasure that the Department of Sociology is able to announce that Professor Gurminder K Bhambra has been elected to the 2016 Boaventura de Sousa Santos Chair in the Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra. This is an honorary position and will involve a series of high-profile activities in Coimbra in the autumn.

The Department of Sociology is very proud to announce that Professor Gurminder K Bhambra has been named Current Sociology’s Sociologist of the Month. Current Sociology is the International Sociological Association’s main journal and they will be featuring a profile of Professor Bhambra and her publications over the month of March.

The call for papers has been released for an upcoming event, Arguing with Justice. This event is being organised by Ros Williams and Amy Hinterberger and sponsored by our Markets, Technology, Expertise research theme. We look forward to abstracts from Early Career Researchers interested in the broad intersection of social justice and the biosciences. More information can be found here: https://arguingwithjustice.wordpress.com/cfp/

SOCIOLOGY PUBLIC LECTURE
 

The Lens of Race: Conceptualizing Difference in Italy and the United States

19 May, 2016 in S0.11 from 5:00 - 6:30 pm
All welcome

Department of Sociology

Co-hosted by the Inequalities and Social Change & Economy, Technology, Expertise Research Groups

Ann Morning, Department of Sociology, New York University

Marcello Maneri , Department of Sociology, University of Milan – Bicocca

Download Poster/Abstract here

New article by Professor Gurminder K Bhambra looks at the dominant intellectual genealogy of the concept of citizenship and examines its deeper racialized structures. The article, ‘Citizens and Others: The Constitution of Citizenship through Exclusion’ is published in the journal, Alternatives. You can read it here. http://gkbhambra.net/articles/

This new article by Professor Gurminder K Bhambra examines the implications of the financial crash and the recent crisis of migration on the stability of the European Union project. The article, 'Whither Europe? Postcolonial versus Neocolonial Cosmopolitanism?' has been recently published in Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. You can read the article here.