News and events archive - 2011

Behind the Salford riots: 'the kids are angry' (the Guardian Online, Sept 2011)

Hannah Jones, former PhD student and sociologist here in the Sociology Department, has written a short piece on the recent riots which has been included in the Guardian online. Click here to take a look.

Locating the Social: 1st International Social Science and Humanities Conference on HIV, Durban, South Africa 11th – 13th June, 2011.

This conference was initiated and chaired by staff member Marsha Rosengarten with Mary Crewe, University of Pretoria, South Africa and Susan Kippax, University of New South Wales, Australia to support and develop the capacity of the social sciences as it engages with increasingly challenges posed by the HIV epidemic. The aim was to provide a forum in which social scientists and humanities scholars would review the nature and status of HIV empirical research and seek out novel strategies for tackling otherwise seemingly intractable challenges. The conference attracted an extraordinary high number of 350 delegates, drawn from throughout sub-Saharan Africa, from South and North America, Europe and the Pacific region of Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand. Many participants remarked on the quality of presentations and subsequent discussions that were able to take place, giving impetus for new theoretical and methodological approaches as well as providing opportunities for new networks of exchange and collaboration.

Travelling to South Africa with other Goldsmiths PhD candidates, representing the Sociology department, as well as the Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Reading Group on HIV and Innovation, and presenting a paper was a momentous experience. The broad spectrum of the conference program, including both presentations and discussions, assured me that my research is of theoretical, empirical and methodological value to the field. Furthermore, I was able to form a better understanding of the diverse ways the HIV epidemic is approached and conceptualized by a range of international scholars from various disciplines. All in all the four days spent in Durban South Africa have been invaluable to my future carrier as a researcher within the field. Ulla McKnight PhD student Sociology

The paper I wrote for the conference was on the process of gaining formal ethical approval for researching children and HIV. The session was on ethics and HIV more generally and all of the presentations fitted together well, sparking discussion for the need for a more specialised, social science specific approach to ethics and social research in HIV.  In addition to this, the conference allowed me to engage with other projects and discussions around the world that research children with HIV. Issues ranged from orphanhood, homelessness family support and disclosure in schools, although each account came from different and diverse locales it gave me a contact base where ideas, similarities and differences can be shared.  More generally, the discussions of HIV and social sciences that took place allowed me to identify and begin to place my work within a larger community of scholars working on social issues and HIV.

For our Goldsmiths based reading group of PhD students working on HIV, we collectively managed to promote the group, and identify a larger number of people internationally working on PhDs.  For instance, we discovered a similar Parisian group of 4 PhD students that would be interested in developing further exchanges between our groups. Therefore, I am very grateful for the opportunity to have taken part, and the trip has many exciting implications for the future development of my project. Richard Boulton, PhD student Sociology

Being a part of the international conference that brought together social scientists working in the field of HIV was a real honour. As a student commencing my PhD, I recognise it as an experience which cannot be overestimated. The conference created a great opportunity to learn about current debates and projects, exchange ideas and receive feedback on my own work. Many discussions were provocative, inspiring, and potential for enriching my own work. In addition, the conference facilitated a dialogue among researchers and students who are interested in developing a further exchange of ideas and literature relevant to each other's work. As my research will be conducted in Poland, the country that is rarely mentioned in debates on the global epidemic, I highly value connections made with researchers working in Eastern Europe. I believe that they will result in a further stimulating exchanges. Finally, the organisation of the conference let me enjoy every moment of the event, fully and in comfort. Agata Pacho  MA  student Sociology

Goldsmiths Sociology Masters Alumni Group on Facebook

We've created a Goldsmiths Sociology Masters Alumni Group on Facebook. You can join the group by clicking here. We will keep the page up-to-date with events and news from the Department. A great chance to keep in touch with us and your friends. You will need to have an account with facebook in order to join the group.

New MA/MSc in Digital Sociology launched

Digital Sociology - now recruiting for 2011-2012

Cities in Conflict

[Download this poster] [Download the programme]

Alberto Toscano reviews Inside Job and Draquila two new films which are, on different scales, both investigations of what Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism.”

http://www.filmquarterly.org/2010/12/london-notebook-disaster-movies/

Peake Teaching Award Nominations

We have just been told that a really impressive number of members of staff in our department were nominated by students for a Peake teaching award this year 2010-11. They were:

AbdouMaliq Simone, Alison Rooke, Brett St Louis, Brian Alleyne, David Hirsh, David Oswell, Nirmal Puwar, Pam Odih, Bev Skeggs,Vikki Bell, Yasmin Gunaratnam, along with our teaching assistants:  Alex Rhys Taylor, Liam Berriman, Spyros Papaioannou and Thomas Zacharias, which goes to show that even through we are a top research department we are also dedicated to our teaching.

Digital Sociology from our 3rd Year Undergraduates

Please visit the Social Theory website to view an example of some experimental Digital Sociology from our Undergraduate students in the department.