pathway: Sociology Alumni

Drawing on 10 years’ experience working in the NHS my research will develop new understanding of the modalities through which technologies comes to bear on the production of knowledge, practice, and discourse in healthcare. Focusing on the everyday reality/experience of the ‘Medical Record’ and of record keeping I am interested in; (1) how knowledge is produced, recorded, and practiced (by patients, doctors, clinical scientists, nurses, administrators, managers etc.), (2) how technologies used in the construction of the record have a performative role in experiences of the Medical Record, and of how, (3) more broadly, we can/should consider the Medical Record an ontological object.

My research takes place at the intersection of critical migration studies and analyses of anti-trafficking. I will research the diverse array of policies, initiatives and campaigns set up by organisations as different as NGOs, trade unions, social responsibility offices of agribusiness companies, governments, and police force, that share the stated aim of fighting against caporalato, which is the “gangmaster system” that is allegedly responsible for the terrible living and working conditions of migrant farmworkers in the South of Italy.

I look at Romanian minimal techno (rominimal) as a distinct concept of rave, community and affective environment. I investigate the co-emergences of identity and community as they come to be articulated in the rominimal scene.

How does one make identity through and with rominimal? What social needs/conditions does it respond to and how is it sustained through mundane/ritual practices as a consistent and particular scene and community? I also look at how the identities and statuses of ‘expert’ and ‘fan’ are articulated in relation to each other, technology and global trends in electronic music.

The guiding question for my PhD project is ‘What role does value play in coral reef science?’. I am focused specifically on efforts to regenerate coral reefs. My aim is to produce an empirically-informed sociological and philosophical account of the roles played by value in coral reef science and practice. As well as theoretical analysis of the relevant scientific literature, I am also conducting interviews with coral scientists. My aim is not only to produce insights into why coral reefs are regarded as so important, but also into how science operates when its objects of study are considered valuable by scientists. This is an interdisciplinary project, combining elements of Sociology, Philosophy, Science and Technology Studies, and Marine Sciences.

My research explores the history and function(s) of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), focussing specifically on the impact of EBM on psychiatry and mental health policymaking. I will be doing so by exploring the ongoing periods of consultation in response to the NICE Guideline on Depression in Adults. The purpose of the project is to push thinking on EBM beyond methodological considerations, to encompass its ideological and discursive functions. Key questions I am asking myself are: What gets to count as evidence? What does it mean to be evidence-based? Why is it better to be evidence-based than not? What is the relationship between EBM and diagnostic psychiatry? I am particularly interested in the history of psychiatry, scientific authority, sociology of health and illness, mad studies, and feminist epistemology.

The proposed Kvanefjeld mine in Greenland is estimated to be one of the largest Rare Earth Elements and uranium deposits in the world. Protests led by environmental NGOs emerged due to its potential impacts on the environment.

I will address the reasons why this mine gathered attention whereas similar projects have not: the role played by the uranium in the emergence of the conflict will be investigated.

Although contributing to the green economy, potential environmental impacts suggest that this green economy would be developed through ‘not so green practices’. I will question how the green economy is defined and address this paradox.

My research asks what the concealed British slaughterhouse can reveal about class, gender and race as we shift through the legislative transitions of Brexit. Through multisited ethnographic fieldwork, it aims to articulate the effects of policy, regulation and heritage economies as potentially amplifying social divisions, complicating notions of nationhood and perceptions of meat consumption and production. This will focus on issues of masculinity and articulations of craft and manual labour along the British meat commodity chain. Previous fieldwork, as part of my Masters in the Anthropology of Food at SOAS, London, included Smithfield meat market, smallholdings, artisanal producers and butcher shops.

My research focuses on the issues of identity and belonging for British converts to Islam explored through narratives. I relate this to multiculturalism frameworks and debates in the context of Britain and am interested in religious identity, Islamophobia and processes of racialisation and ethnicisation, and religion and secularism.