Research

Women on the line

Going undercover is something we associate with investigative journalists like Donal MacIntyre or a fictional character from Spooks. It is not something we might readily think of university academics doing.

But that is exactly what the Department of Sociology’s Professor Miriam Glucksmann did more than 25 years ago, spending nine months working on an assembly line in London.

The result of her remarkable investigation was Women on the Line, a book that has come to be a pioneering classic not just among sociologists but a wide range of people around the world. The sensitive nature of the story meant Professor Glucksmann had to publish under the pseudonym Ruth Cavendish.

A quarter of a century later, the book has been re-published, this time with the true author’s name on the cover and with a new introduction including the author’s reflections on changes in the economy, industry and neighbourhood where she carried out her research.

Professor Glucksmann said: ‘It’s been strange all these years being asked if I know Ruth Cavendish and if I know her work, when all the time we are one and the same person. It feels quite liberating finally to be able to reveal the full story.’

Professor Glucksmann’s original plan was to discover why working class women were not engaging with the women’s movement at the time, but this led to a far broader project. Women on the Line is a vivid account of the world of work in a British motor components factory (the name of which is also revealed for the first time in the new version). It records the experiences of migrant women from Ireland, the Caribbean and South Asia as they go about their daily repetitive work on the assembly line. It also explores their lives, friendships, relationships both at the factory and at home.

Described as ‘a work of bitter realism and careful thought,’ the new edition of the book has already received a range of impressive reviews.

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A humanitarian research project

Professor Hani Hagras from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering has been invited to be world-leading expert in the first partnership between a technology association (the IEEE) and a major humanitarian organisation, the United Nations (UN).

Professor Hagras’s expertise in computational intelligence and energy management will be needed in the Humanitarian Technology Challenge project, targeted at developing technological solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing public health and disaster response workers today.

Professor Hagras explains: ‘The objective is to create sustainable solutions that can be implemented locally, within the environmental, cultural, structural, political and socio-economic conditions where they will be deployed.’

Five potential needs have been prioritised as ‘challenges’ to be addressed and Professor Hagras will work with colleagues on the reliable electricity challenge. He will employ computational intelligence techniques to provide better energy management and savings in addition to the provision of reliable electricity.

For more information, see: www.ieee.org/go/htc

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Also in the printed April edition of Wyvern:

• Civil war research
• Sociology students create online journal
• Reconnecting and revitalising communities