- School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
University of Kent
Chatham Maritime
Kent ME4 4AG, UK
- Sociology, Economic Sociology, Sociology of Work, Visual Sociology, Work and Labour, Gender and Work, and 10 moreSociology of Everyday Life, Qualitative Methodology (Sociology), Sociology of Food, Sensory Ethnography, Cultural Geography, Social Geography, Rhythmanalysis, Rhythm, Urban Sociology, and Sociology of Timeedit
- My research is in the sociology of work, time and everyday life. My current research (supported by the British Acad... moreMy research is in the sociology of work, time and everyday life.
My current research (supported by the British Academy) is a study of the everyday experience of the ‘time’ of the pandemic. The collaborative project, A Day at a Time: https://research.kent.ac.uk/daat-coronavirus/, analyses Mass Observation diaries and uses the novel methodology of ‘feel tanks’ to capture the affective experience of pandemic time.edit
The COVID-19 pandemic has foregrounded the significance of time to everyday life, as the routines, pace, and speed of social relations were widely reconfigured. This article uses rhythm as an object and tool of inquiry to make sense of... more
The COVID-19 pandemic has foregrounded the significance of time to everyday life, as the routines, pace, and speed of social relations were widely reconfigured. This article uses rhythm as an object and tool of inquiry to make sense of spatio-temporal change. We analyse the Mass Observation (MO) directive we co-commissioned on 'COVID-19 and Time', where volunteer writers reflect on whether and how time was made, experienced, and imagined differently during the early stages of the pandemic in the UK. We draw on Henri Lefebvre and Catherine Régulier's 'rhythmanalysis', taking up their theorisation of rhythm as linear and cyclical and their concepts of arrhythmia (discordant rhythms) and eurhythmia (harmonious rhythms). Our analysis highlights how MO writers articulate (a) the ruptures to their everyday rhythms across time and space, (b) their experience of 'blurred' or 'merged' time as everyday rhythms are dissolved and the pace of time is intensified or slowed, and (c) the remaking of rhythms through new practices or devices and attunements to nature. We show how rhythm enables a consideration of the spatio-temporal textures of everyday life, including their unevenness, variation, and difference. The article thus contributes to and expands recent scholarship on the social life of time, rhythm and rhythmanalysis, everyday life, and MO.
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This article contributes to sociologies of futures by arguing that quotidian imaginations, makings and experiences of futures are crucial to social life. We develop Sharma's concept of recalibration to understand ongoing and multiple... more
This article contributes to sociologies of futures by arguing that quotidian imaginations, makings and experiences of futures are crucial to social life. We develop Sharma's concept of recalibration to understand ongoing and multiple adjustments of present-future relations, focusing on how these were articulated by Mass Observation writers in the UK during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. We identify three key modes of recalibration: fissure, where a break between the present and future means the future is difficult to imagine; standby, where the present is expanded but there is an alertness to the future, and; reset, where futures are modestly and radically recalibrated through a post-pandemic imaginary. We argue for sociologies of futures that can account for the diverse and contradictory ways in which futures emerge from and compose everyday life at different scales.
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This short article shares the innovative pedagogic practices I explored and developed to nurture temporal reflexivity in the classroom to engage students in the study of the sociology of time in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and a... more
This short article shares the innovative pedagogic practices I explored and developed to nurture temporal reflexivity in the classroom to engage students in the study of the sociology of time in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and a local strike. It takes the reader through the module as it was structured and delivered in two parts: from calendars to calibration; and from memory to procrastination. This is interspersed with details of the learning exercises we undertook in the classroom and the module assignments.
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This article uses Henri Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis as a foundational text for researching boredom, and offers a critical analysis of UK-based media commentaries about boredom and homeworking written during 2020 and 2021. We situate the... more
This article uses Henri Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis as a foundational text for researching boredom, and offers a critical analysis of UK-based media commentaries about boredom and homeworking written during 2020 and 2021. We situate the discussion within the rhythmic rupture caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and foreground rhythm as a lens for understanding reported experiences and reflections on boredom and work. For non-essential workers, lockdown offered an opportunity to reconfigure working lives away from the constraints of commutes and everyday work settings, yet our findings highlight the narrative representation and experience of a particular type of boredom and inertia known as acedia. The analysis discusses the presence of acedia and absence of rhythm across three themes: acedia and being stuck in time and space; embodiment, movement and rhythm; and the relationship between the present and the future. We conclude by considering what the experience of boredom might mean for how we reconceptualise our post-pandemic working lives.
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This collection brings together new and original research on the concept and practice of ‘rhythmanalysis’ in urban sociology as a means to analyse the relationship between the time and space of the city. It offers a context and... more
This collection brings together new and original research on the concept and practice of ‘rhythmanalysis’ in urban sociology as a means to analyse the relationship between the time and space of the city. It offers a context and introduction to rhythmanalysis and presents a range of studies which use it to analyse – and animate - urban life across Europe and the Americas.
Originally proposed by French philosopher and urban scholar, Henri Lefebvre and his collaborator, Catherine Régulier, in the twentieth century, rhythmanalysis continues to capture the attention of urban scholars today. This volume includes in-depth analyses of the rhythms of place-making from the City of London to the Caminito of Buenos Aires. It explores the production of rhythm on the move – in cars and on the street - in relation to urban atmospheres and the implications of mobility for climate emergency. It considers what happens when everyday urban rhythms are disrupted and reconfigured, as in the extended disaster of an earthquake or through tourism and migration. And it delves into the mobilisation of the body, materials and technologies to make and detect rhythm whether in the spontaneous interactions of arts festivals in the UK or a multi-ethnic dance space in Germany.
The collection seeks to spark new interest in using rhythmanalysis as a mode of sensing and making sense of the complex entanglements of time and space at the heart of everyday urban life. It will be of interest to scholars and students in urban sociology, social and cultural geography, mobilities studies, and the sociology and philosophy of time.
Originally proposed by French philosopher and urban scholar, Henri Lefebvre and his collaborator, Catherine Régulier, in the twentieth century, rhythmanalysis continues to capture the attention of urban scholars today. This volume includes in-depth analyses of the rhythms of place-making from the City of London to the Caminito of Buenos Aires. It explores the production of rhythm on the move – in cars and on the street - in relation to urban atmospheres and the implications of mobility for climate emergency. It considers what happens when everyday urban rhythms are disrupted and reconfigured, as in the extended disaster of an earthquake or through tourism and migration. And it delves into the mobilisation of the body, materials and technologies to make and detect rhythm whether in the spontaneous interactions of arts festivals in the UK or a multi-ethnic dance space in Germany.
The collection seeks to spark new interest in using rhythmanalysis as a mode of sensing and making sense of the complex entanglements of time and space at the heart of everyday urban life. It will be of interest to scholars and students in urban sociology, social and cultural geography, mobilities studies, and the sociology and philosophy of time.
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This report is about the practice of decision making in a resident-led, place-based programme. It explores the operation of power within decision making, how decisions are made, by and with whom and in what contexts. It considers how... more
This report is about the practice of decision making in a resident-led, place-based programme. It explores the operation of power within decision making, how decisions are made, by and with whom and in what contexts. It considers how particular ideas gather appeal, how some voices are heard more than others, and how beliefs in ‘the right way’ to make decisions matter and can have unintended consequences of limiting agendas and imagination. Finally, it identifies ways to strengthen decision making in a community-led programme by developing new forms of participation and sharing power among all sections of the community.
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This chapter is concerned with place-making at work, with particular attention to the role of rhythm. It discusses how certain workspaces come into being as places and what kinds of workplaces are produced. The analysis draws on Henri... more
This chapter is concerned with place-making at work, with particular attention to the role of rhythm. It discusses how certain workspaces come into being as places and what kinds of workplaces are produced. The analysis draws on Henri Lefebvre's (2004) ideas of rhythm and rhythmanalysis as a conceptual and methodological means for tracing how work and workplaces take shape in space and time combined with Edward Casey's (2001) formulation of places as 'thick' and 'thin'. The chapter is based on empirical material collected through an audiovisual ethnography of London's Billingsgate fish market.
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The street has long been a key laboratory for studies of social life, from the roots of urban sociology in the ethnographies of the Chicago School to the diverse range of contemporary studies which consider the performative, affective and... more
The street has long been a key laboratory for studies of social life, from the roots of urban sociology in the ethnographies of the Chicago School to the diverse range of contemporary studies which consider the performative, affective and non-representational nature of street etiquette and encounter. For all this, the street remains only loosely defined in many studies, and sometimes disappears from view entirely, with social action often privileged over material and environmental context. This Special Issue is intended as a spur to take the street more seriously in contemporary sociology, and explores the importance of the street as a site, scale and field for sociological research. Recognising that the street is both contradictory and complex, the Introduction to this Issue draws out emerging themes in the shifting sociologies of the street by highlighting the specific contribution interdisciplinary work can make to our understanding of streets as distinctive but contested social ...
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This article documents, shows and analyses the everyday rhythms of Billingsgate, London's wholesale fish market. It takes the form of a short film based an audio-visual montage of time-lapse photography and sound recordings, and a textual... more
This article documents, shows and analyses the everyday rhythms of Billingsgate, London's wholesale fish market. It takes the form of a short film based an audio-visual montage of time-lapse photography and sound recordings, and a textual account of the dimensions of market life revealed by this montage. Inspired by Henri Lefebvre's Rhythmanalysis, and the embodied experience of moving through and sensing the market, the film renders the elusive quality of the market and the work that takes place within it to make it happen. The composite of audio-visual recordings immerses viewers in the space and atmosphere of the market and allows us to perceive and analyse rhythms, patterns, flows, interactions, temporalities and interconnections of market work, themes that this article discusses. The film is thereby both a means of showing market life and an analytic tool for making sense of it. This article critically considers the documentation, evocation and analysis of time and space in this way.
** Direct link to article and film here: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/21/3/12.html **
** Direct link to article and film here: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/21/3/12.html **
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This short ethnographic film about the everyday life of the wholesale fish market in Cagliari, Sardinia (Italy) immerses the viewer in the material, sensory and affective atmosphere of the market space. It presents the broad temporal and... more
This short ethnographic film about the everyday life of the wholesale fish market in Cagliari, Sardinia (Italy) immerses the viewer in the material, sensory and affective atmosphere of the market space. It presents the broad temporal and spatial rhythms of the market. We see the fish arrive before daybreak, and later we watch as it is packed up and driven off to the next point of distribution or consumption. Within this narrative, the film focuses on the key social practices that underpin trade. At the beginning of the day, we witness the fish merchants’ labour of preparation and display – the act of ‘staging value’ - in readiness for exchange. Once the buyers arrive, they can be seen evaluating the fish with their ‘skilled vision’ or their touch. Negotiations are intense at times and happen in different emotional registers – challenge, anger, insult and humour (some of which appear to be embellished for the camera) – and through social relations which are animated by the market space and the alluring presence of the fish itself. Once trade is over, the remaining fish and the market space are the site of further care and work. The soundscape of the film is composed of multiple voices and the noise of actions and interactions but the film does not rely on language (with the exception of three subtitled exchanges with us), aiming instead to show how buyers and sellers of fish deploy their embodied knowledge and sensory perceptions in their everyday working lives.
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This article discusses the findings of the Imagine Sheppey project (2013-14) which studied how young people are ‘oriented’ towards the future. The aim and approach of the project was to explore future imaginaries in a participatory,... more
This article discusses the findings of the Imagine Sheppey project (2013-14) which studied how young people are ‘oriented’ towards the future. The aim and approach of the project was to explore future imaginaries in a participatory, experimental, and performative way. Working with young people in a series of arts-based workshops, we intervened in different environments to alter the space as an experience of change – temporal, material, symbolic. We documented this process visually and made use of the images produced as the basis for elicitation in focus groups with a wider group of young people. In this article we discuss young people’s future orientations through the themes of reach, resources, shape, and value. In so doing, we reflect on the paths that our young respondents traced to connect their presents to what is next, what we call their modes of present-future navigation. We explore the qualities and characteristics of their stances within a wider reflection about how young people approach, imagine and account for the future.
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Visual and arts-based methods are now widely used in the social sciences. In youth research they are considered to promote engagement and empowerment. This article contributes to debate on the challenges of using arts-based methods in... more
Visual and arts-based methods are now widely used in the social sciences. In youth research they are considered to promote engagement and empowerment. This article contributes to debate on the challenges of using arts-based methods in research with young people. We discuss the experience of a multidisciplinary project investigating how young people imagine their futures – Imagine Sheppey - to critically consider the use of arts-based methods and the kinds of data produced through these practices. We make two sets of arguments. First, that the challenges of participation and collaboration are not overcome by using apparently ‘youth-friendly’ research tools. Second, that the nature of data produced through arts-based methods can leave researchers with significant problems of interpretation. We highlight these issues in relation to the focus of this project on researching the future.
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The ‘Living and Working on Sheppey: Past, Present and Future’ project took its starting point from the research undertaken by Ray Pahl and his team three decades ago on the Isle of Sheppey. In 2009-11, we revisited some of Pahl’s archived... more
The ‘Living and Working on Sheppey: Past, Present and Future’ project took its starting point from the research undertaken by Ray Pahl and his team three decades ago on the Isle of Sheppey. In 2009-11, we revisited some of Pahl’s archived material, collected new (including some replicated) data and produced new materials, working collaboratively with community members of the Blue Town Heritage Centre on Sheppey. In this article, we examine the methodological challenges and opportunities of re-studying communities in this way, discuss the implications of community involvement in carrying out a re-study, and present some findings from one aspect of the re-study: young people’s imagined futures in 1978 and 2009-10.
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This article reflects on the experience of working with archived data in the Living and Working on Sheppey project which revisited material from Ray Pahl’s research on the Isle of Sheppey, published in the modern sociological classic,... more
This article reflects on the experience of working with archived data in the Living and Working on Sheppey project which revisited material from Ray Pahl’s research on the Isle of Sheppey, published in the modern sociological classic, Divisions of Labour (1984). The article considers the reasons for revisiting archived material and some of the opportunities and challenges of working with archived material. For this discussion, we focus on one particular element of the original research: a collection of essays written by school leavers in 1978, and the archived notes from Pahl’s preliminary analysis of these data. We also draw on interviews with Pahl about this aspect of his research, and our experience of repeating the essay-writing exercise. We conclude with some comments on the dynamic character of the archive.
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Abstract This article reflects on the possibilities and pitfalls of a website, No Way to Make a Living at: http://nowaytomakealiving. net, as a sociological space for exploring what work (paid or unpaid) is like in today's world. The... more
Abstract This article reflects on the possibilities and pitfalls of a website, No Way to Make a Living at: http://nowaytomakealiving. net, as a sociological space for exploring what work (paid or unpaid) is like in today's world. The site includes research projects, short thoughts ...
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The narratives of the migrant women interviewed in this research can be considered as maps of imaginary geographies, charted from their stories of mobility from Eastern Europe to Italy or the Netherlands. This chapter looks at these... more
The narratives of the migrant women interviewed in this research can be considered as maps of imaginary geographies, charted from their stories of mobility from Eastern Europe to Italy or the Netherlands. This chapter looks at these geographies, and especially at the migrant women’s images of ‘border-places’ and ‘home’, to analyse their relations and politics of belonging. In the analysis, these claims for belonging are connected to the dominant available ways to make sense of migrants’ social locations in contemporary Europe.
The theme of work 1 is a site through which migrant women negotiate their sense of self, and reflect on their social position. The heterogeneity of the interviewees of this research (see Appendix for details) means that they express a... more
The theme of work 1 is a site through which migrant women negotiate their sense of self, and reflect on their social position. The heterogeneity of the interviewees of this research (see Appendix for details) means that they express a range of relations to work, determined by their occupational and educational background, their social status and varying connections between work and other dimensions of their lives (sociality, communication, affective relationships, home, social recognition). This chapter focuses on the place of work in the development of forms of subjectivity arising through mobility and migration. 2 The women we interviewed are migrants in the context of global processes which make certain kinds of work available and desirable in certain locations (Sassen 1991; Scrinzi 2003). These global processes change the availability of work, its conditions, and its value (in monetary and social terms). At the same time, the women are subject to the norms and conditions of national and local labour markets, including, especially in Italy, informal and unregulated ones. There are some significant differences in the labour markets of Italy and the Netherlands. Notwithstanding these structural features, the sectors in which the interviewees tended to work were quite similar and we did not find major national differences expressed in their accounts, which are more strongly marked both by local conditions and by general problems in the two countries (e.g. childcare arrangements and the structure of the working day). Two-thirds of women are in the labour market in the Netherlands, where a central feature of women's employment is the high proportion who work part-time: three-quarters of those employed. 3 Whilst they enjoy a wide range
Women Migrants from East to West documents the contemporary phenomenon of the feminisation of migration through an exploration of the lives of women who have moved from Bulgaria and Hungary to Italy and the Netherlands. The research is... more
Women Migrants from East to West documents the contemporary phenomenon of the feminisation of migration through an exploration of the lives of women who have moved from Bulgaria and Hungary to Italy and the Netherlands. The research is based on the oral histories of eighty ...
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In March 2004 the French parliament controversially adopted legislation regulating the wearing of symbols indicating religious affiliation in public educational establishments. This note discusses several features of the new law... more
In March 2004 the French parliament controversially adopted legislation regulating the wearing of symbols indicating religious affiliation in public educational establishments. This note discusses several features of the new law indicating its origins, its rationale and its position within French constitutional discourse on religious freedom and secularity. It is based on a panel discussion held in April 2004 within the Gender Studies Programme at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence. Placing the French legislative initiative in the context of recent developments in national and European case law (suggesting clear limitations to freedom of religion), the note explores the complexity of issues of gender, identity and difference in the present debate, especially when considered in the light of reactions to the law in Islamic countries.