PRG Annual Conference - CFP: (extended 25 March 2019) Beyond Fluid Identities? New Sensitivities in the 21st Century

PGR Conference
CFP Deadline: (extended) 25 March 2019
Event: Thursday 20 June 2019

Department of Sociology, University of York

Keynote Speaker: Dr Steph Lawler, University of York
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

‘Identity’ exists as a key question not only in academic research, but also in our social and personal lives. Who we are and how we came to be continues to be challenged and interrogated on individual and global scales. The importance of research in this field endures not only as a site of academic intrigue, but as political, social and personal phenomena.

We welcome abstracts from postgraduate researchers across the social sciences for 15 minute talks which address the conference theme of fluid identities, and how this manifests in light of new sensitivities in the 21st century. This includes, but is not limited to:

• The construction of the self in the contemporary world
• New tensions in the construction of identities
• The sensitive world and identity
• Identity and power in national crisis
• Going beyond Identity Politics
• Gender and sexuality; LGBTQ identities, feminisms and masculinities
• Social class, poverty and inequality
• Race, ethnicity and identity
• Belonging and migration; global and local identities
• Representations of identity; media, discourse and culture

Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to bfi-conference@york.ac.uk no later than 25 March 2019. Please also include your name, institution and your stage of study. Applicants will be informed of our decision in April 2019.

Further information on registration and attendance will be released in March 2019. There will be a nominal charge of £5.

Any questions can be sent to: bfi-conference@york.ac.uk

‌‌The York Dead Good Festival

‌‌10-19 May 2019
Various locations in York

The York Dead Good Festival is a coordinated by the Death and Culture Network (DaCNet) and St Leonards Hospice, York during Dying Awareness week 10-19 May 2019. Lots of free public events will be running during the festival ranging from theatrical performances to will writing to thinking about death in science fiction and pet grief.

When it comes to conversations about death, it always seems too early until it's too late. As a society, we're not particularly good at talking about these things. The festival aims to encourage people to be more open about dying, death and bereavement.

The festival will encourage people to express themselves in different ways, whilst giving advice and support on a number of practical matters. Join us for events throughout York including performances, informative talks, crafts, discussions and more, many of which are free.

Programme to follow
www.yorksdeadgoodfestival.co.uk  
https://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/research/death-and-culture/ 

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Locked out of Social Platforms: An iCS Symposium on Challenges to Studying Disinformation

(27-28 October 2018), The IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

After years of exalting rhetoric praising the democratisation of public discourse with the diffusion of the internet, informed observers have sounded a note of alarm about the scope for the distortion of electoral processes in democratic countries. The Brexit campaign, along with recent elections in the US and France have been linked to disinformation, misinformation or propaganda campaigns seeking to strategically diffuse content that heightens partisanship and erodes the general trust in democratic institutions.

In the run-up to the 2018 US mid-term elections,  the aftermath of the Irish abortion referendum and the Italian general elections, this two-day symposium aims to address the topical question of how independent, ethical research on dis/misinformation in political communication can be conducted in a corporate environment that favours platform ‘lockdowns’ and the throttling of API access in response to the strategic use of data analytics, bots, trolls, fake news, and dis/misinformation operations in electoral politics, public information campaigns, and activist communication.

What are the challenges for independent academic research examining these developments? How can researchers investigate disinformation in a context of narrowing access to trace data?  How can these challenges be met, and what meaningful ways can be imagined for making social media platforms more accountable to the democratic constituencies where they operate? How is such disruptive communication designed, executed, with what effects and how are these measured? What data policies can be envisaged to strike a balance between safeguarding privacy and enabling academic research into the impact dis/misinformation or propaganda campaigns have on social media and beyond, in the attitudes and behaviours of their users?

We encourage submissions that address but are not limited to the following aims:

• reflect on the structural and contextual factors that have acted as fertile ground for dis/misinformation and propaganda;
• determine the scope and intricacies of dis/misinformation and propaganda campaigns;
• explore the relationship between dis/misinformation and the polarization of public opinion;
• consider the weaponization of social media platforms and discuss the interdependencies among the vast plurality of newsmakers operating in the current hybrid media ecosystem;
• reflect on the political, cultural or socio-economic costs of distortive communication, the relevance of such research to industry and public policy and the ethical implications attendant to such studies;
• untangle technological design choices and ideological leanings that shape platform communication, enable dis/misinformation and propaganda and their bearing on independent research;
• examine the implications for academic research of controlled access by private owners of data produced in public communication spaces such as the Facebook page of a political candidate, and methodological solutions for sustaining the investigation of these topics;
• consider the changing social media research landscape as the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force in May 2018;

A selection of papers presented at the symposium will be published in a special issue of the journal Information, Communication & Society (iCS). 

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/current

Registration opens early August

https://blogit.itu.dk/ics2018/

Death & Culture II Conference

Thursday 6 September 2018, 9.00am to 7 September 2018

Speaker(s): Professor Dina Khapaeva Professor Dorthe Refslund Christensen Professor Joanna Bourke Professor Stephen Regan 

This biennial conference focuses on the impact of mortality on culture, and the ways in which the very fact of death has shaped human behaviour, evidenced through thought, action, production and expression. The conference, in its second iteration, seeks to continue engaging with the study of mortality as an academic enterprise, supported by evidence and framed by theoretical engagement. This truly interdisciplinary event brings together death scholars, including postgraduates, as well as those who might not consider themselves death scholars whose work that overlaps with death and the dead.

The conference will cover topics such as:

• Governance of mortality
• Death in the popular imagination
• Death and the digital realm
• Work in the death industry
• Mass death in the age of individualism
• Artistic death

Location: University of York, Alcuin B Block

Registration: CLOSED

Email: death-and-culture@york.ac.uk

Conference Website

Medical Sociology Through Another Lens - Visitors from Drexel University

17 April 2018
11:45-1:00pm
Department of Sociology
W/222


On 17 April we are delighted to be welcoming our Sociology colleagues Susan Bell, Kelly Joyce and Kelly Underman from Drexel University, USA. They will be giving an exciting series of talks at the interface of STS and Medical Sociology (chaired by Daryl Martin). All Welcome! (W/222 11:45-13:00)


Contact Sarah.shrive-morrison@york.ac.uk to register your place

Decision-making During Childbirth Study

Interactional Practices of Decision Making During Childbirth in Maternity Units
Clare Jackson, Vicky Land, Lyn Brierley-Jones

Plain English Summary - Background and study aims

Government policy states that women in labour should be involved in decisions about their care and treatment. It is known what is said during labour matters for how women experience birth. However, policy recommendations to staff about how to communicate with women in labour are not based on evidence about what actually happens in birth. This is because most existing research is based on interviewing or surveying women some weeks after birth, so the details of what was said in labour are lost. Research is needed that provides details of actual talk about decisions during labour. The details of talk matter because as other studies of communication in medical settings have shown, even small changes in use of words can make a difference to what happens in healthcare e.g. one study in a GP setting showed that changing from ‘is there anything else?’ to ‘is there something else?’ increased the
number of reported symptoms told to the doctor. The aim of this study is to find out how decisions are reached and communication through the talk that happens between staff, women in labour and their birth partners when giving birth in maternity units. It also aims to provide staff and women with detailed information about the effects of talk during labour in order to inform and empower staff, women and birth partners.

Who can participate?
Women , their birth partners and health care practitioners.

What does the study involve?
Participants who consent to taking part in the study are video or audio recorded during labour and birth. This is to establish how decisions are made during labour and birth. Participants are also asked to complete an ante-natal and a post –natal questionnaire at 35 weeks and 6 weeks post birth respectively to assess the relationship between their expectations before birth, their birth experience and their satisfaction post-birth.

What are the possible benefits and risks of participating?
There are no direct risks or benefits to those taking part in the study.

Where is the study run from?
1. University of York (UK)
2. Calderdale Royal Hospital (UK)
3. Sheffield Royal Hallamshire Hospital (UK)

When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for?
May 2017 to March 2020

Who is funding the study?
National Institute for Health Research (UK)

Who is the main contact?
1. Professor Ellen Annandale (Scientific)
ellen.annandale@york.ac.uk
2. Dr Lyn Brierley-Jones (Public)
lyn.brierley-jones@york.ac.uk

Imagining the History of the Future: Unsettling Scientific Stories (3 Days) Registration Open

Tuesday 27-29 March 2018, 9.00 am - 5:00 pm

Speakers:Professor Sherryl Vint (University of California, Riverside, USA)
Professor Charlotte Sleigh (University of Kent, UK)

The future just isn’t what it used to be… not least because people keep changing it. Recent years have seen a significant growth of academic and public interest in the role of the sciences in creating and sustaining both imagined and enacted futures. Technological innovations and emergent theoretical paradigms gel and jolt against abiding ecological, social, medical or economic concerns: researchers, novelists, cartoonists, civil servants, business leaders and politicians assess and estimate the costs of planning for or mitigating likely consequences. The trouble is that thinking about the future is a matter of perspective: where you decide to stand constrains what you can see.

With confirmed plenary speakers Professor Sherryl Vint (University of California, Riverside, USA) and Professor Charlotte Sleigh (University of Kent, UK) this three-day conference will bring together scholars, practitioners, and activists to explore ways in which different visions of the future and its history can be brought into productive dialogue.

Focused on the long technological 20th Century (roughly, 1887-2007) and looking particularly at the intersections between fictional/narrative constructions of the future, expert knowledge, and institutional policy development, the themes of the conference will include but are not limited to:

• The relationship between lay and expert futures, especially futures produced by communities marginalised in public dialogue by ethnicity, gender, sexuality, species or political orientation
• How have different forms of fiction (novels, films, games, comics) created different visions of what’s to come? How have their audiences responded to and shaped them?
• The role of counterfactuals/alternate histories, as well as factional accounts and popular science: how have different forms of writing positioned the future?
• What’s the relationship between past and present scenario planning in government or commerce? How have they fed into wider cultural conceptions of impending developments?
• Disciplinary influences: how have different academic disciplines – sciences, humanities, arts, social sciences – fed into developing futures? Has this changed over time?
• The role of futures past: how can we recover them, and what do they tell us about futures present? What are the forgotten or marginalised sites of future-making
• How have different themes – time, the apocalypse, the individual, among others – changed over the last century of future-thinking?

Website: http://unsettlingscientificstories.co.uk/imagined-futuresTwitter: @UnSetSciStories #ImaginedFutures

Registration: http://store.york.ac.uk/product-catalogue/sociology/imagining-the-history-of-the-future-unsettling-scientific-stories

Location: Ron Cooke Hub, University of York
Registration: NOW OPEN
Email: unsettling-science@york.ac.uk

Future Sociology – PhD at York (2)

Daniel Robins on Necro-Waste

I am just approaching the end of my first year as a Sociology PhD student here at York. I have two fantastic supervisors: Ruth Penfold-Mounce and David Beer, whom I have been working closely with to develop my project on necro-waste. I did not start with the concept; it just found me about two months in. It affirmed to me that a PhD is always in progress, always amenable to change.

My research focuses on this idea of necro-waste, which is essentially the analogy of corpse parts as waste. By drawing on theories of value, I am exploring the value attached to and generated out of necro-waste as it passes through the UK Death Industry. It’s highlighted at three stages.  The first of these is the gatekeeping stage. This is where the necro-waste is prepared for disposal by the funeral director. Two methods of disposal are then explored; disposal through cremation and disposal through natural burial. This is because these produce two different types of waste; dry waste and wet waste. Each of these offers the opportunity for the necro-waste to be commemorated. As such, the third stage focuses on the artists that reuse cremated remains in these commemorative rituals. This stage also explores what becomes of the natural burial ground.

In the background, I have also been writing through some ideas. I recently published a piece for Discover Society, where I conceptualise Ian Brady’s remains as akin to radioactive waste, otherwise known as ‘toxic necro-waste’. The SATSU department here at York also provides PhD students with a lot of opportunities. I was able to extend these thoughts and write them on the SATSU Threshold blog. Each of these encouraged me to write an article on the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, where I discuss toxic necro-waste further. I understand it as a concept that can be used to further extend the study of necro-waste.

Writing these has helped me as a PhD student in a couple of ways. First, as the PhD is always in progress, it’s helped me to develop some of the ideas in my thesis. Second, it’s provided content, along with my research, to discuss at conferences through both talks and networking with fellow death researchers. Last, it's helped build my confidence as an academic and develop my writing.

I am trying to treat my PhD as an apprenticeship and am actively seeking as many opportunities as I can. I am on the board of studies, and am working with other Sociology PhD students to develop this year’s York Sociology Postgraduate Conference on ‘embodiment’. I also teach two seminar classes on the first year undergraduate module ‘Introducing Social Psychology’, which I really enjoy. So, it’s been a busy, but excellent year.

Future Sociology – PhD at York (1)

Bethany Robertson on Women in Farming

As a farmer's daughter I've always been interested in the position of women in agriculture which led to understanding the gender identities of women farming in Norfolk for my undergraduate dissertation. For my PhD studies, I'm widening the scope beyond Norfolk by making comparison to the Yorkshire region. Hopefully, this will help understand the experiences of women working in a variety of agricultural contexts including arable and livestock based. Growing up on a farm inspired me to pursue this research and offers a means of contributing to rural communities other than by working on my family’s farm.

My PhD research considers the diverse experiences of women in farming beyond the assumption of a ‘farmer’s wife’ by speaking to women who farm and are from a variety of backgrounds, ages and farm types. We tend to think of farmers under the rubric of the 'family farm' but I will learn about the experiences from new entrants or those who have entered the sector as a career change too. I hope to build up a picture of women’s involvement in farming land and livestock which challenges the stereotypical view and considers how the identity of farmers has changed. The rationale for my PhD research is summed up in a piece I wrote for The Conversation recently.

I’m in the second year of my PhD, and working on the most exciting but scary part of the process: fieldwork. In my case, this means literally getting out into the fields as I travel across Norfolk and Yorkshire to interview women who farm. It’s one of my favourite parts of sociological research; going out to listen to people’s stories. It’s especially important in terms of my PhD topic as part of my motivation is to make the social issues affecting rural communities heard in a university culture that seems to prioritise ‘the urban’.

On the days when I want a break from my PhD, I get involved with some of the other activities going on in the department to develop my related interest of human-animal relations. For example, I’ve recently spoken at Thresholds symposium and will be leading a reading group session about pet death soon. I’m also a seminar tutor for first year students which is not only a great experience in learning the mechanics of university teaching, but immerses me in areas of sociology which aren’t part of my PhD.

You can read more about my interests from the sociological snippets on my blog: http://snippetsofasmilingsociologist.blogspot.co.uk/