Awarded a PhD: Biotechnology and Cord Blood Banking

Many congratulations to Ros Williams for being awarded her doctorate.

Ros completed her thesis under the guidence of Nik Brown and funded by the White Rose Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) and based in the Science and Technology Unit (SATSU) within the Sociology Department.

Ros's research was part of the 'Rethinking the social production, locus and impact of bioscience' network focusing on the social, political and economic dimensions of the biotechnology industries with an emphasis on umbilical cord blood banking.

ESRC PhD funding available

The Department of Sociology holds funding for PhD's to begin 2016/17. 

Check out the link to the department website for more information.

Postgraduate News

Sociology Department PhD Student publishes on Male Rape

Aliraza Javaid is a PhD student at the Department of Sociology. His journal article “Feminism, Masculinity, and Male Rape: Bringing Male Rape ‘out of the Closet.’” has recently been published in the Journal of Gender Studies.

The paper critically examines feminism, masculinity and male rape collectively. It argues that, although feminist explanations of rape are robust and comprehensive, male victims of rape have largely been excluded from this field of research. As a result it contributes to current knowledge through critically evaluating the social constructions, stigma and phenomenological realities associated with male rape (by both men and women), arguing that there has been neglect in this area that functions to support, maintain and reinforce patriarchal power relations and hegemonic masculinities.

Aliraza’s PhD from which the article is drawn focuses on state and voluntary agencies’ responses to, and attitudes toward, male rape and the conception of hegemonic masculinity fundamentally underpins both the thesis and his publication. It helps to explain and understand why some societies, feminists, state and voluntary agencies are overlooking, disbelieving, or inadequately dealing with male rape victims. For instance, arguably, men are expected to be strong, powerful, invulnerable, unemotional, insensitive, heterosexual, tough, and self-reliant; but if you are none of these things, you are automatically frowned upon, not just by other men, but also by ourselves.

Aliraza has more plans to published including on whether the masculine police subculture influences the treatment that male rape victims get, and whether the Sexual Offences Act 2003 accurately reflects male rape victims’ experiences of rape.

PhD Student Lecture Series

After the PhD away day, it was decided amongst the PhD students that we should showcase our own research contributions to the department through a PhD lecture series. After approaching PhD students in our department, Alex Simpson, Piotr Maron and Holly Steel all offered to contribute to the first "PhD Open Lecture Series" which all are welcome to attend. We also intend to have all lectures chaired by PhD students. 

The point behind this was to try and give ourselves experience of giving lectures beyond the seminar experience we get through leading seminar groups. It also demonstrates to the department and the wider university how active, diverse and - most importantly - interesting our own research contributions are.

Depending on the success of this term's lecture series, it may be feasible to add extra lecture slots in. Currently, though, the endeavour is incorporated into the Sociology PhD curriculum along with our PhD seminars in which we spend time with academics in the department who offer advice on topics such as the REF, authoring articles, and preparing for Confirmations. 

I hope over the academic year that those PhDs involved more generally in social sciences across campus might like for their own work to be show-cased in the PhD Open Lecture Series. If they are interested, they can email me at rgw511@york.ac.uk.

International Sociological Association Congress 2014

Written by Ros Williams and Alex Simpson

In July the International Sociological Association (ISA) held its 2014 Congress in the port city of Yokohama, Japan. For one week the city hosted 6,087 sociologists who came from all of over the world to contribute to this global, quadrennial sociological event. As two PhD students who had been given the opportunity by the Department of Sociology to attend, it was hard to comprehend the sheer scale of the conference. Organised into ‘research committees’ which further divide into small panels on specific themes, the innumerable papers and sessions demonstrated the span of research being undertaken by sociologists from across the globe today. 

One hundred and four countries were represented and, because of this, there was incredible international scope. Examples from the Health and Clinical Sociology research committee included papers on the recent emergence of Clinical Sociology in Iran, to the governance of Thailand’s public health system. Within the Institutional Ethnography research committee, presentations explored the various uses of ethnography to explore institutional contexts within Chile, Canada, France and the United Nations. Papers also demonstrated wide methodological variety, including the use of visual sociology to better understand the embodied experience of disability as well as how ethnography can be used to understand the nuanced contexts of rural life. This incredibly wide tapestry of research meant there were innumerate opportunities to attend papers that either directly spoke to our own research or, equally valuable, to simply follow our interests as sociologists.

On the Saturday of the conference we both had to opportunity to present from two papers from our own, ongoing doctoral research projects. Ros’ paper on collaborative governance in provision of regenerative medicine was part of a panel organised by the Sociology of Health Research Committee. As a ‘distributed paper’, a written piece was produced to circulate and present. Along with this style of paper, there were various different presentation approaches, including traditional papers and round table sessions with groups of shorter papers. Alongside this, Alex’s paper explored how ethnography can be used to better understand the normative and cultural assumptions of market life within the City of London. As part of the ‘Institutional Ethnography’ research committee, this oral presentation was able to pool together some of the themes emerging from a preliminary data analysis and to gain invaluable feedback from others engaging in a similar field.

Presenting our PhD work at a conference of this size was a thoroughly worthwhile experience. Both papers were well received and new contacts made which will hopefully lead to the opening of further opportunities and outlets for our work. Beyond our presentations, attending the ISA gave us both the crucial professional opportunity to meet other sociologists working both within and outside our areas of research. Overall it was a hugely enjoyable and worthwhile experience and our deepest thanks go to the Department whose funding and support made all of this possible.

July Graduation Ceremony Photographs

Here are the photographs from the University of York Graduation Ceremony on Friday 18 July.

There are more general photographs available via the web page at http://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/about/news-and-events/news/2014/july-graduation (available late Monday evening after web update)

If you would like a higher definition photograph please let me know and I shall email one to you.  (Email: sociology-pg@york.ac.uk )

If you are still considering going onto further study we run 6 MA/MSc courses which may be of interest to you.  We continue to recruit until mid September so it isn't to late to apply:  http://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/postgraduate/