Social Research Methods

Today I'm talking with Alice Abrey. Alice graduated from Cardiff University in the summer of  2020. Her dissertation, 'Wellbeing Wednesdays: An Ethnographic and Visual Methods Exploration of Agency and Embodied Wellbeing in a SEND School's 'Health and Wellbeing' Initiative' was awarded the School's prize for best qualitative dissertation. In this podcast, I try not to be a proud mama/supervisor, while Alice talks about using Lego as a method and the journey through her undergraduate degree. 

Today I’m talking with Gareth Thomas, a sociologist interested in medicine, disability, stigma, reproduction, and technology. His book, Down’s Syndrome Screening and Reproductive Politics: Care, Choice and Disability in the Prenatal Clinic, is an ethnography of Down’s syndrome screening in two UK clinics. In it, he identifies how and why screening is successfully routinised and how it is embroiled in both new and familiar debates surrounding pregnancy, ethics, choice, diagnosis, care, disability and parenthood.

Today I’m talking with Paul Atkinson. Paul is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Cardiff, and has written a quartet of books on ethnographic research published by SAGE: For Ethnography (2014), Thinking Ethnographically (2017), Writing Ethnographically (2019) and Crafting Ethnography (forthcoming).

Today I’m talking with Ryan Davey, a social anthropologist interested in the lived realities of large-scale transformation. Ryan’s research focuses on household debt, class inequality, gender, power relations, and human subjectivity, and his work contributes to interdisciplinary conversations in sociology, anthropology and critical policy studies.

Today I’m talking with Kate Moles. Kate’s research and writing explores the relationships between everyday practices of memory, heritage, mobility and place, which she engages with through ethnographic and mobile methods.

Today I’m talking with Roser Beneito-Montague, a sociologist interested in digital social research, online interactions and emotions, and older people and social media.

Today I’m talking with Rachel Hurdley. Rachel’s research focuses on everyday relations between people, things, space and time, examining how identity, power and culture happen as small processes and in small places, including mantelpieces and corridors.

Today I’m talking with Robert Evans. Rob’s research focuses on the nature and use of expertise – this translates into questions about the sorts of knowledge needed to make decisions, who possesses it and how it is shared and acted upon.

Today I’m talking with Robin Smith, a sociologist and ethnographer interested in membership categorisation practices and everyday mobilities. His projects have included an ethnography of urban outreach work with the street homeless and studies of mobile interaction and spatial categorisation practices in cycling and walking. Today he’s going to talk with us about his current project – an ethnography of mountain rescue.