CRESI is the home of economic sociology at Essex, carrying out pathbreaking research on economic sociology, economic justice, and the political economy of economic inequalities. We have a strong interest in critically challenging regimes of power that compound wealth concentration and perpetuate different forms of racial capitalism and worker exploitation. Our centre is led by scholars who have made pioneering contributions to the political economy of corporate power, critical scholarship on global philanthropy, feminist political economy, the sociology of power and ignorance, cultural economy, and political anthropology. Our research interests include the following:
- the finitude of earth's resources (land, water, energy)
- human rights and economic justice
- feminist political economy
- welfare regimes and pensions
- racial capitalism, slavery and forced labour, historical and contemporary
- the pharmaceutical industry
- work and employment
- gender budgeting and fiscal sociology
- economies of knowledge and epistemic injustice.
We emphasize the value of collaborative research within the Department of Sociology, as well as interdisciplinary research with researchers and staff in other parts of the University. We have close links to the Human Rights Centre, the Centre for Discourse and Ideology Analysis (CIDA), the Essex Business School, the Essex South Asia Research Network (ESARN), and Health and Human Sciences.
CRESI hosts regular seminars featuring internationally renowned speakers and guests, as well as facilitating visiting student and professorial research visits from scholars across the world. Many of our webinars and events are organised in close collaboration with student groups, including the Essex Students’ Union, the Black Social and Political Society (BSPS), and a student-led webinar on resource use and democracy in Bolivia.