Written by Dr Preeti Raghunath (Courtesy: unsplash.com) Over the last few days, news of Kenyan workers calling for investigations into OpenAI’s exploitative work conditions has emerged, even as The Guardian called a recent ruling implicating Facebook to offer mental health support for its content moderators a “watershed moment”. A few months ago, Time broke a… Continue reading ‘Data Industries’: Towards tracing the Global Data Economy
Written by Nabila Cruz Organising Committee [credit: Myrtle Ziwei Zeng] On 14th June 2023, Sociological Studies hosted its annual postgraduate research conference, where students in the first year of their PhD gave presentations about their research. And not only that, but it was also fully organised by students ourselves. As co-chair of the organising committee,… Continue reading Inequalities, Resistance and Change – The 2023 PGR Conference
Written by Lucy Mayblin, Hannah Lewis, Rebecca Murray, Tom Nunn With special thanks to Rivka Shaw, Jo Wilding, Brian Dikoff, Kate Wisbach and Amanda Spalding. Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels On 20th April, at a collaborative event between South Yorkshire Refugee Law and Justice, and the University of Sheffield, participants discussed the woeful state… Continue reading Immigration legal aid: change needs to come from a meaningful commitment to equality of access to justice
Written by Hannah Lewis, Muetesim Abdel, Chloe Tuck, Asma Kabadeh University of Sheffield Image Credit: Smart Banda, Stand & Be Counted Theatre If there is one thing that researchers of all types can agree on, it is the principle of ‘do no harm’. But is this, and should this, be enough in our ethical commitments… Continue reading The world needs more of us! Creative knowledge exchange through arts for youth inclusion and leadership
Written by Olga Fuseini, University of Sheffield and Dr Lois Orton, University of Sheffield April 8 was declared International Roma Day at the first World Romani Congress, organised by the Comité International Rom (CIR) in London in 1971. The 1971 congress was the first Roma attempt at international cooperation, establishing the Roma flag and anthem.… Continue reading On International Roma Day we ask: who are Roma and why do they have a special day?
Siblings are the subject of much media fascination. From the big plot twist in Disney’s Frozen, where the act of ‘true love’ on which the story hinges is one of sisterly
Written by Dr Briony Hannell, University of Sheffield This post is published to mark the beginning of LGBT+ History Month. Photo by Cecilie Johnsen on Unsplash Over the past decade, few social media platforms have been as hypervisible in their ability to attract young queer (i.e. those broadly aligned under the LGBT+ umbrella) users as… Continue reading The queerest place on the internet?: Queer belonging on Tumblr
Written by Victoria Knowles, University of Sheffield Originally used by NFL-player Colin Kaepernick in 2016, the ‘take a knee’ gesture was born in protest of the police brutality faced by African-Americans and gained further prominence during the resurgent Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. The England men’s national team first used the gesture in September… Continue reading ‘Taking a knee’ in English football: the silent roar of the three lions
Written by Warren Pearce, University of Sheffield Photo by Aubrey Odom-Mabey on Unsplash: “Harvard Faculty Club” Claudia Schwarz-Plaschg’s story of sexual harassment and exclusion at the Harvard STS Program continues to reverberate within the global Science & Technology Studies (STS) community, and beyond into wider academia, in tweets, Zoom calls and corridor conversations. While… Continue reading It takes work: Building reasonable research cultures in STS
Written by Dr Laura Connelly, University of Sheffield and Dr Remi Joseph-Salisbury, University of Manchester Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism Cover Image Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism – published by Manchester University Press in late 2021 – was initially borne out of our frustrations as PhD students with an academia that we saw as being disconnected from the urgent issues of… Continue reading Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism: Pockets of possibility?
Sociological Studies Research 