Goldsmiths - University of London

Yasmin Gunaratnam BSc MSc PhD

Body, care, health and illness, death, race, gender, methodologies.

I joined the Department in 2008. Before that I was involved in research, teaching and training in Higher Education and in the voluntary sector. I have worked for the Open University, Southampton University and the University of Central Lancashire. My undergraduate degree in sociology is from the London School of Economics, where I also completed my PhD (Department of Social Policy). I am particularly interested in knowledge transfer and participative methodologies as they relate to both research and teaching (giving recognition to what we learn and how from students and colleagues).

Teaching

I teach across all levels of the undergraduate curriculum and have expertise in the areas of research methods, culture and representation, race and gender.  I currently convene ‘Researching Society and Culture’, and I co-teach Vision, Truth and Knowledge, and Culture, Representation and Difference (with Mariam Motamedi Fraser). I co-convene the BA Media and Sociology Programme with Liz Moor (Media and Communications).

At a Masters level I convene Introduction to Feminist Theory, and The Body and Affect (MA Gender, Media and Culture) and teach on the MA Social Research. I convene the MA Gender, Media and Culture.

I received a Peake Award for teaching in 2010 (awarded by Goldsmiths for excellence in teaching).  

Areas of supervision

I supervise 3 doctoral students; one of whom is investigating racial intermixture. The 2 students whom I co-supervise with Nirmal Puwar are working on projects in the areas of value and measure with regard to student experience, and on Palestinians in exile. I am interested in supervising students in the broad areas of health and illness, race, gender, and stories and narrative.

Keynote lectures

• 2009 Narrative methods in researching ageing and ethnicity: methods, emotions and ethics. Oxford Institute of Ageing, Oxford University.
• 2008 The Art and Science of Experience, Narratives and Story Telling in Palliative Care – Research and Creative Practice, King’s College (London), St Christopher’s Hospice, 2008
• 2006 The Production of Difference in Qualitative Research, ESRC Methods Festival. University of Oxford, 2006
• 2005 Unlocking the Future, But Who Holds the Key? AGM Association of Palliative Care Social Workers. Help The Hospices Anniversary Conference, Harrogate.
• 2003 Anti-racist methodologies’, Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland. Edinburgh University.
• 2003 ‘Researching the Ruins’, Researching the Research Conference. Glasgow Anti-Racist Alliance.

Research interests

My theoretical concerns and empirical research coalesce around three inter-related themes: corporeal vulnerability, care and social research methodologies. My engagement with social theory has included my monograph ‘Researching race and ethnicity: methods, knowledge and power’ (2003) that examined the history and development of epistemic regimes, social scientific values and methodological practices in researching race. My empirical research includes an early ethnographic study of dying migrants in a London hospice (1999); participatory action research with cancer patients in identifying patient priorities for cancer research (the Macmillan ‘Listening Study’, 2006); and a recent study using narrative interviews and psychoanalytic infant observation to examine and theorise identity transition amongst first-time mothers (Open University, 2008). A hallmark of my current work has been the pursuit of practices, sites and methods that bring into closer dialogue the worlds of theory, policy and practice. The productive interrelations between these worlds can be seen in my co-edited collection ‘Narrative and Stories in Health Care’ (2009), which was shortlisted and ‘Highly Commended’ in the British Medical Association Book Awards 2010.

Research Projects

2006-9 - Involving people of diverse ethnicities in cancer research: An exploration of experiences, attitudes and barriers, with Dr David Wright, Macmillan Research Unit, Southampton University, funded by Macmillan Cancer Support.

2005 - Older people, ethnicity and palliative care dissemination project. Managed by the Policy Research Institute on Ageing and Ethnicity and funded by the Department of Health.

2002-5 - ‘Stories That Matter’- a narrative project on older people, ethnicity and palliative care. Managed by the Policy Research Institute on Ageing and Ethnicity and funded by the Department of Health.

2001 -  ‘Race’, gender and professional identity amongst mental health nurses. With Dr Gail Lewis (Psychology, Open University), funded by Research Development Committee, Open University.

Selected publications

Books

2003 Researching Race and Ethnicity: Methods, Knowledge and Power. London: Sage. ISBN 0 7619 7286 2. http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books/Book217580

 

2009 Gunaratnam, Y. and Oliviere, D. (Eds) Narrative and Stories in Health Care: Illness, Dying and Bereavement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978–0–19–954669–5

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199546695.do

 

 In Preparation: Mortal Cartographies: Transnational Dying and Care (Bloomsbury Academic, planned publication 2012)

 

Chapters in Edited Books

 

2009 Elliott, H, Gunaratnam, Y., Hollway, W. and Phoenix, A. Practices, Identification and Identity Change in the Transition to Motherhood. In M.Wetherell (Ed) Theorizing Identities and Social Action. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.19-37. ISBN 978-0-230-20500-0.

 

2009 What Difference Does Our Difference Make in Researching Infertility?  In L. Culley, N. Hudson and F. Rapport (Eds) Marginalised Reproduction: Ethnicity, Infertility and New Reproductive Technologies. Earthscan: London.  pp.80-94. ISBN 978-1-84407-576-8

 

2009 Where is the Love? Art, aesthetics and research.  In P. Chamberlayne and M. Smith (Eds) Art, Creativity and Imagination in Social Work Practice. London: Routledge pp. 13-29. ISBN 978-0-415-46508-3.

 

2009 Narrative Interviews and Research. In Gunaratnam, Y. and Oliviere, D. (Eds) Narrative and Stories in Health Care: Illness, Dying and Bereavement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 47-62.  ISBN 978–0–19–954669–5

 

2008 Ethnicity, Difference and Care. In J. Corner and C. Bailey (Eds) Cancer Nursing - Care in Context. Blackwell Publishing. pp. 620-37. ISBN 0-632-03998-1

 

2007 Complexity and Complicity in Researching Ethnicity and Health. In J. Douglas, S. Earle, S. Handsley, C. Lloyd and S. Spurr (Eds) A Reader in Promoting Public Health: Challenges and Controversy. Basingstoke: Palgrave. pp.147-56. ISBN 978 1 4129 3074 1

 

2004 ‘Bucking and Kicking’: ‘race’, gender and embodied resistance in health care. In U. Apitzsch, J. Bornat, and P. Chamberlayne (Eds), Biographical Methods and Professional Practice: An International Perspective. pp.205-19. Bristol: Policy Press  ISBN 1 86134 492 9

 

2004 Skin Matters: 'Race' and Care in the Health Services. In J. Fink (Ed) Care: Personal Lives, Social Policy. Bristol: Polity Press. pp. 112-44.  ISBN 1 86134 519 4.

 

2003 More Than Words: dialogue across difference. In M.Sidell, J.Jones. J. Katz. A. Peberdy and J.Douglas (Eds) Debates and Dilemmas in Promoting Health: A Reader. Basingstoke: Palgrave. pp.112-121 ISBN0 1 4039 0228 3.  

 

2002 Whiteness and Emotions in Social Care. In B.Bytheway, V.Bacigalupo, J. Bornat, J. Johnson and S. Spurr (Eds), Understanding care, welfare and community: A reader. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 158-167  ISBN 0415 25860.  

 

1993 Breaking The Silence: Asian carers in Britain. In J.Bornat, C.Pereira, D.Pilgrim and F.Williams (Eds) Community Care – A Reader. pp.114-123. ISBN 0-333-5815-4.

 

 

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

 

2011 Cultural Vulnerability: A narrative approach to intercultural care,

Qualitative Social Work published online 29 December 2011

DOI: 10.1177/1473325011420323

http://qsw.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/09/28/1473325011420323.abstract?patientinform-links=yes&legid=spqsw;1473325011420323v1

 

2011 Cultural Vulnerability and Professional Narratives (2011), Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life Care, 7:1-12. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15524256.2011.623464?journalCode=wswe20

 

2009 Auditory Space, Ethics and Hospitality: ‘Noise’, Alterity and Care at the End of Life. Body and Society. 15(4): 1-19.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15524256.2011.623464?journalCode=wswe20

 

2008 Towards multi-sensory research: acoustic space, racialisation and whiteness Journal of Research in Nursing, 13 (2) 155-64. http://jrn.sagepub.com/content/13/2/113.abstract

 

2008 Care, artistry and what might be. Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care, 1 (1): 9-17. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1928825&show=pdf

 

2008 From Competence to Vulnerability: care, ethics and elders from racialised minorities. Mortality 13 (1) 24-41. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13576270701782969

 

2007 Wright, D., Corner, J., Hopkinson, J., Gunaratnam,Y. and Foster, C. The research attitudes, understanding and information seeking behaviour of cancer patients: an exploratory study: What do patients think about cancer research? British Journal of Cancer, 96, 875-81.

 

2007 Where is the Love? Art, aesthetics and research. Journal of Social Work Practice, 21(3) 271-287.

 

2001 ‘We mustn’t judge people….but’: Staff dilemmas in dealing with racial harassment amongst hospice service users, Sociology of Health and Illness, 23 (1) 65-83.

 

2001 Eating into Multiculturalism: Hospice staff and service users talk food, ‘race’, ethnicity and identities, Critical Social Policy, 21 (3) 287-310.

 

2001 Gunaratnam, Y. and Lewis, G. Racialising emotional labour and emotionalising racialised labour: anger, fear and shame in social welfare, Journal of Social Work Practice, 15(2) 125-142.

 

2000 VanDyke, R. and Gunaratnam, Y. Ethnic monitoring in higher education: some reflections on methodology, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 3 (4) 325-345.

 

Forthcoming:

Learning to be affected: Transnational dying, social suffering and total pain. Special Issue of Sociological Review, N.Puwar and L.Back (eds).  The issue will be published in 2012. 

Gunaratnam, Y. and Clark, N. Pre-Race Post-Race: Climate Change and Planetary Humanism. Special Issue of DarkMatter. The issue will be published in 2012. 

 

Articles in Journals and Magazines

 

2011 Precarious Street Life, Street Signs, Centre for Urban and Community Research, Spring, 24-26.

 

2010 Death in the City, Street Signs, Centre for Urban and Community Research, Autumn, 31-33.

 

2009 Elliott, H. and Gunaratnam, Y. Talking about breastfeeding: emotion, context and ‘good’ mothering. The Practising Midwife 12 (6) 2-6.

 

2007 Intercultural palliative care: do we need cultural competence? International Journal of Palliative Nursing, 13(10) 470-477.

 

2006 A Sweeter Palliative. Community Care, 28-4October:36-37.

 

2005 Awareness Differs by Ethnicity and Age. Practice Nursing, 16 (11): 528-530.

 

2000 Implications of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry for Palliative Care. International Journal of Palliative Nursing, 6(3) 147-149.

 

1998 Gunaratnam, Y., Bremner, I., Pollock, L. and Weir, C. (1998) Anti-discrimination, emotions and professional practice, European Journal of Palliative Care, 5(4): 122–4.

 

 

Briefing Papers and Information Resources (for public and professional audiences)

 

2008 Improving the quality of palliative care. Briefing Paper. London: Race Equality Foundation. http://www.raceequalityfoundation.org.uk/hsc/files/health-brief1.pdf

 

2007 Palliative Care – information and help for older people. Leeds: Policy Research Institute on Ageing and Ethnicity. ISBN 0 9537642 7 3

 

2006 Access to Hospice Care, Equality and Diversity: A Briefing Paper for Managers and Board Members. London: Help The Hospices. ISBN 10 871978 58 0 (Produced in hard copy but also available on-line)

www.helpthehospices.org.uk/EasySiteWeb/GatewayLink.aspx?alId=6403

 

1993 Checklist: Health and Race. London: Kings’ Fund. ISBN 10 1857170423.

 

1993 Design and Development of Carers' Support. Service Development Briefings for Social Services Departments. London: Kings Fund ISBN 10 185717044

 

1990 Call For Care. London: Health Education Centre/Kings Fund. Translated into Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu and Punjabi. ISBN: 1854481738

 

On-line writing

2007 Dr Terrorist. Dark Matter http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2007/07/30/dr-terrorist/

 

 

 

Poems and Creative Writing

 

2011 Secrets and Lives (for James) You are here, the journal of creative geography, XIV, 57-68.

 

2008 For Phyllis. In E.Earle and C.Bartholomew (Eds) Death, Dying and Bereavement: An Anthology. London: Routledge and Open University. pp.44. ISBN 978 1 84787 512 9

 

2008 Blind Date. In E.Earle and C.Bartholomew (Eds) Death, Dying and Bereavement: An Anthology. London: Routledge and Open University. pp. 45-6. ISBN 978 1 84787 512 9                                              

 

2005 The Bed. In Malone, C, Forbat, L. Martin, R. and Seden, J. (Eds) Relating Experience: Stories from Health and Social Care. London: Routledge and Open Universitypp.120-1. ISBN0 415 32657 5.