Research Staff at CRESI

The following members of the Department of Sociology are actively engaged in the CRESI research activities:

Dr Adrian Athique
My research interests include the social practice (and malpractice) of film exhibition in South Asia, the environmental aspects of retail entertainment and the cultural economy of urban leisure, media piracy and unofficial networks of media distribution, new media technologies and the transnational reception of Indian and Australian media – all of these part of a wider interest in cultural sociology, geography and history and the political economy of media. Current research projects include: 'Non-Resident Cinema: Transnational Audiences for Indian Films', 'The Multiplex in India: A Cultural Economy of Urban Leisure', 'Australian Broadcasting in the Asia Pacific'.

Professor Ted Benton
My research has been at the interface between critical political economy in the historical materialist tradition and green critical approaches to capitalist industrialism. I have been arguing, along with James O'Connor, Joel Kovel and many others that critical political economy needs to be radically re-worked to allow fully integrated analysis of the various dimensions of the 'metabolism' between socio-economic systems and their dynamics, on the one hand, and their ecological and other conditions, means, media and unintended consequences, on the other. Conversely, the necessity for 'green' analysts to engage with the insights of critical political economy, specifically capitalist economic forms (as distinct from mere 'industrialism') has been argued. My current research interests include:

1) A projected 'broad brush' analysis of the prospects of neo-liberal globalisation in relation to its socio-ecological countertendencies and crisis-tendencies, and likely forms of active resistance.

2) A more focussed analysis of the growing crisis in food-production/ distribution in relation to land-use issues, biodiversity conservation, alternative energy generation and new agricultural technologies.

3) Further development of work published in 2007 on the history and future of urban/ rural politics in the UK. This would link closely to the topics under 2 above, but related specifically to the UK.

Professor Robin Blackburn
The institutional shaping of the markets, the dynamic of capitalist development, and the historical selection of structures of power and ideology; the dynamics of slavery, slave resistance and anti-slavery; pensions and financial markets.

Professor Joan Busfield
Joan Busfield's current research focuses on the power of the pharmaceutical industry and the role it plays in shaping health care. She had a particular interested in issues such as the globalisation of the industry, inappropriate and unecessary use of pills, the strategies used by the industry to generate demand for its products and the cultural aspects of pharmaceutical use.

Professor Diane Elson
I am currently working on various topics in fiscal sociology, especially gender-responsive budgeting (which seeks to ensure that government budgets promote the achievement of gender equality) and participatory budgeting (which aims to enable the ordinary citizen to have a direct input into decisions on government budgets). My interest in gender equality and government budgets dates back to the mid 1990s, when many governments were cutting expenditure on public services, while at the same time claiming to be committed to promoting gender equality and women's human rights. More recently I have begun to examine the gender dimensions of revenue side of the budget, and am part of an international research project ( funded by Ford Foundation and the Canadian International Development Research Centre) examining gender and taxation in selected developing countries. I have also undertaken some research on the spread of participatory budgeting from Brazil to many other countries, including UK. I have worked with numerous government bodies, UN agencies, and women's organizations on these topics, and am a member of the UK Women's Budget Group.

Professor Miriam Glucksmann
Broad research interests are in the areas of gender, work and employment; the shifting boundaries between production, distribution and consumption; the interconnections between different forms of social divisions; temporalities and spatialities. Ongoing and planned projects include: changing relations of production, distribution and consumption; care work; food work; call centres, telephone shopping and sales; transformation of retail and retail employment; self-service and 'consumption work'.

Professor Mark Harvey
Over a number of years, I have been developing an 'instituted economic process' (IEP) approach to economic sociology over a broad range of empirical areas. An historical and comparative approach to all my empirical research has driven the development of this analytical framework. I am currently engaged on a major ESRC research project on The transition to a sustainable bio-economy in Europe the USA and Brazil. This research addresses issues of the governance of capitalism in a period of major structural changes. Other active research interests include public and private economies of knowledge; innovation in diet and food consumption; legal, informal and illegal labour markets; and institutionalisation of lifecourses and societal rights over resources.

Professor Ewa Morawska
My scholarly interests and research are in the fields of (i) comparative-historical sociology of international migration/immigration/ethnicity, including economic mechanisms of cross-border population movements and economic aspects of immigrants'/ethnic minorities' inclusion/exclusion from the receiver society; and (ii)post-communist transformation of East Europe. My current research focuses upon the persistence and transplantation into West European societies of the traditional homo sovieticus set of attitudes and practices by way of westbound work-seeking (im)migrants from post-communist countries. The research explores the significance of varied economic cultures in shaping the internationalisation of labour markets.

Professor Lydia Morris
My research addresses the connection between idealised conceptions of rights and the study of rights in practice. It does so through a focus on judgement, whereby universal standards are applied to specific cases, taking as an example the ten year history of legislative attempts to withdraw welfare support from in-country claimants for asylum. In particular, the research analyses the process of challenging such legislation, culminating in 14 judgements variously delivered by the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. These judgements are placed in the context of political debate and intent surrounding the legislation, the actions of civil society groups/NGO's seeking to contest the legislation, and the role of solicitors and barristers involved in the challenge. Based on both documentary sources and qualitative interviews with key actors, the research addresses four empirical levels: political purpose, civil society mobilisation, the dynamic of legal argument, and the delivery and effects of the judgements. The research will then move on to draw out the theoretical implications of this case study for a sociology of rights and judgement.

Dr Sean Nixon
I have had a long standing interest in the study of commercial cultures and consumption, particularly the intersection of the 'commercial domain' with wider social and cultural formations. This preoccupation has surfaced in the studies of gendered forms of commerce within advertising, retailing and magazine culture in the 1980s and in the analysis of the gendered dynamics of workplace cultures within the advertising industry. My current project explores the relationship between advertising and social change in Britain between 1951-67, focusing on advertising's relationship to the promotion of growing affluence and, to a lesser extent, the liberalising of social values in this period.

Dr Lynne Pettinger
My research explores the continued significance of work in consumer society through a series of linked projects exploring the work that facilitates forms of consumption. I have studied retail work, the labour of musicians and sex work. In each of these I have been interested in how workers' own consumption is needed for them to get and keep work, in the forms of embodied labour that each involves, and in the interactions between workers and consumers, and work and consumption. The project on sex work explores customers' experiences of being a service recipient and I am developing a research project to examine this theme in other service contexts.

Dr Darren Thiel
My main areas of interest are the interrelationships between economy, culture and social stratification; the economic sociology of migration; informal and criminal economies. I am currently working on a monograph based on an ethnographic account of a London construction site in which he explores the interrelationships between economic practices, culture and social stratification with a particular focus on economic embeddedness, social capital and ethnic stratification patterns.