Dr Linsey McGoey

University of Essex

Lecturer

http://www.essex.ac.uk/sociology/staff/profile.aspx?id=1954

Research Interests

Linsey McGoey works as a lecturer in sociology at the University of Essex. Her research is focused on three broad areas. First, the sociology of ignorance and the usefulness of strategic unknowns in asserting expertise, evading liability and consolidating authority in daily and organizational life. Second, the politics of “philanthrocapitalism,” and a study of how new philanthropic players such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are reshaping the fields of global health and education delivery in US and global contexts, often with unintended or unspoken consequences. Finally, a third, nascent project is focused on the politics of abundance, exploring how a range of theorists, from Sen to Bataille, have reconfigured notions of scarcity, excess and surplus wealth.

Each project relates to an overarching interest in the history of economic thought and practice; the study of the mundane and revolutionary capacities of new medical and scientific developments, and a normative interest in economic justice and theories of redistribution.

Recent Publications

McGoey, L. The Gates Effect: the problem with good intentions (under contract, MIT Press).

McGoey, L. 2012. Strategic unknowns: towards a sociology of ignorance. Introduction to special issue of Economy & Society, 41(1).

Davies, W and McGoey. 2012. Rationalities of ignorance: On financial crisis and the ambivalence of neo-liberal epistemology. Economy and Society, 41(1).

McGoey, L, Reiss, J and Wahlberg, A. 2011. The Global Health Complex. BioSocieties, 6(1), pp. 1-9.

McGoey. 2011. Police reinforcement: the anti-politics of organizational life. In Reading Rancière, edited by Paul Bowman and Richard Stamp. New York, NY: Continuum.

McCoy, D. and McGoey. L.  2011. Global Health and the Gates Foundation – In Perspective. In Partnerships and Foundations in global health governance, edited by Williams and Rushton, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

McGoey, L. 2010. Profitable failure: Antidepressant drugs and the triumph of flawed experiments. History of Human Sciences, 23(1), pp/ 58-78.

McGoey, L. and Jackson, E. 2009. Seroxat and the suppression of trial data: Regulatory failure and the uses of legal ambiguity. Journal of Medical Ethics, 36(2), pp. 107-112. 

McGoey, L. 2009. Pharmaceutical Controversies and the Performative Value of Uncertainty. Science as Culture, 18(2), pp. 151-164.

McGoey, L. 2007. On the will to ignorance in bureaucracy. Economy and Society, 36(2), pp. 212-235.

Wahlberg, A and L. McGoey.2007. An Elusive Evidence Base: The Governance and Construction of Randomized Controlled Trials. BioSocieties, 2, pp. 1-10.