Research

"Beyond the workfare state" explores equality, discrimination and human rights in relation to employability and 'welfare-to-work' policies bringing together a wide and distinctive range of illustrative studies that gives voice to a variety of potentially marginalised groups.

The turn to biographical methods in social science is invigorating the relationship between policy and practice. This book shows how biographical methods can improve theoretical understanding of professional practice, as well as enrich the development of professionals, and promote more meaningful practitioner - service user relationships.

This volume focuses on the place of biographical research in social futures and its creative applications in the new unprecedented societal circumstances, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

What does mothering mean in different cultures and societies? This book extensively applies biographical and narrative research methods to mothering from international perspectives. Considering self-care, rapport, trust and self-reflection, the collection advances methodological practice in the study of mothers, carers and childless women’s lives.

Throughout Europe, standardised approaches to social policy and practice are being radically questioned and modified. Beginning from the narrative detail of individual lives, this book re-thinks welfare predicaments, emphasising gender, generation, ethnic and class implications of economic and social deregulation.

This sociological collection advances the argument that the concept of a "turning point" expands our understanding of life experiences from a descriptive to a deeper and more abstract level of analysis.

This outstanding work examines black mothers’ engagements with attachment parenting and shows how it both undermines and reflects neoliberalism. Unique in its intersectional analysis, it fills a gap in the literature, drawing on black feminist theorizing to examine intensive mothering practices and policies.

This is the first detailed criminological account of the role of blame in which the authors present a novel study of the legal process of blame attribution, set in the context of criminalisation as a social and political process. It will also be of wider interest to anyone wishing to discover the role of blame in modern society.

This timely book critically examines the capabilities and limitations of new areas of biology, especially epigenetics and neuroscience, that are used as powerful arguments for developing social policy in a particular direction, exploring their implications for policy and practice.

Analysing the plasma of paid Mexicana/o donors in the US, airport vomit in Ebola epidemics, and the semen of soldiers with genitourinary injuries, this book shows how security practices focus upon governing bodily fluids and, as a result, perpetuate inequalities.

Lily Hamourtziadou’s important analysis of the scale and causes of civilian deaths in Iraq since the US-led coalition’s 2003 invasion sheds new light on the War on Terror. From early fighting to the departure and return of troops and the rise of ISIS, she tracks the cost of conflict and constructs an insightful human security approach to war.

The Greek island of Lesvos is frequently the subject of news reports on the refugee ‘crisis’. Drawing on her experiences as an activist in Lesvos refugee camps, Iliadou considers the impacts of EU deterrence policies and highlights the global responsibility for safeguarding refugees’ human rights.