Profile

I joined the Sociology department in my current role in September 2023, having previously taught within the department over several years. My research sits at the intersections between Sociology, Education, and Law. My PhD was co-supervised between Applied Linguistics and Sociology here at Warwick, and focused on the discursive realisation of the contemporary citizenship regime in the UK. Prior to taking up my current role, I worked in a research-focused position in the School of Law, and before joining academia, I spent approximately 10 years teaching in the education sector. My research interests coalesce around in/exclusion, bordering, affective politics, and creative practice.

Research

My current research focuses on the potentials afforded by arts and creative methods as a medium for effecting change in police practice. My particular interest is in productions and transformations from the 'bottom-up' - the ways in which, within creative spaces, policed communities might articulate policing as an endeavour, and might reimagine the very role and function of the police as an institution.

I am co-convenor of the British Sociological Association's Emotions Study Group, where our network engages in a broad range of questions around emotion and affect through our termly seminar series and our annual symposium.

Teaching and administrative roles

The modules I currently convene are:

Sociology of Education (SO123)

Educational Inequalities (SO244)

Undergraduate Dissertation (SO301)

I am the Director of the Sociology Joint Honours degrees, and co-lead Sociology's Widening Participation support.

Select publications

Lewis, R. and Hodgson, J. (forthcoming). 'Arts and Policing: imagining new approaches to police-community relationships?' In. Asquith, N. L., Rodgers, J., Clover, J., Cordner, G., Dwyer, A. & Ahmed, R. (Eds). Routledge International Handbook of Critical Policing. London and New York: Routledge.

Hodgson, J. and Lewis, R. 'Policing, culture and community: West Midlands Police as City of Culture partners' (University of Warwick 2023)

Lewis, R. 'Anxious vigilance and the production of (il)legitimacy in the UK citizenship regime: “it’s how you sift them out, y’know?”' (2022) Conflict and Society vol 8(1)

Carvalho, H., Chamberlen, A., and Lewis, R. 'Punitiveness beyond criminal justice : punishable and punitive subjects in an era of prevention, anti-migration and austerity' (2020) The British Journal of Criminology vol 60(2)