// Archives

Winner of the 2nd Prize of the Enquire Blog Post Competition 2019: Renelle McGlacken-Having Conversations with the Past and the Present: Visiting an Archive

Near the end of 2018, I made the long trip down to Brighton from Nottingham. Was my visit borne from a longing for the sea after a year living in The Midlands? No, this was strictly business (and Storm ‘Diana’ made sure that any seaside fun I planned was at my own peril). I was …

Winner of the 3rd Prize of the Enquire Blog Post Competition 2019: Duncan Fisher-Recruiting for Care during Times of Austerity

From January to April 2019 the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) ran a media campaign aimed at increasing recruitment and retention levels in adult social care (ASC) employment in England.  Action is undoubtedly necessary: with over 110,000 vacancies and staff turnover at 30% (DHSC, 2019: 4) the sector urgently needs a boost to …

Maayan Niezna-Labour, Law, Control: Migrant Workers and Unfree Labour

My research project interrogates different legal frameworks addressing ‘unfree labour’ of migrant workers; it asks whether a ‘labour approach’ can better explain, and then help us to resolve, this phenomenon of economic exploitation. I address two aspects of this question – the conceptual and the contextual. By ‘unfree labour’ I refer to practices of exploitative, …

Jana Kujundžić-Legal and Political Context of Marital Rape in Croatia

In my doctoral research, I am focusing on marital rape in Croatia and its legal and political implications. The way in which the public and the legal system understands and treats marital rape also shows a wider cultural and societal understanding of gender roles, criminal legal system and power dynamics. I am focusing on marital …

‘Look like they may be in a gang’: (Track)Suits, Work and London’s Grime Artists

Last month, a segment entitled ‘Knife and Gun Crime Epidemic’ aired on Good Morning Britain, which centred on the rise of the police’s tactics of stop and search. Piers Morgan waded into the debate, with an inflammatory enquiry asking ‘what is wrong with stopping and searching young black youths who look like they may be …

The Viva

I was recently asked to speak at The School of Sociology and Social Policy at The University of Nottingham on my experience of the viva. When I started planning what I might say, I tried to think about how I conceptualised the viva prior to undertaking it. The first thing that I wrote down, without …

“I am Korean”: North Korean Defectors Negotiating Identity in London

In recent years, approximately 400-500 North Korean defectors have settled in New Malden, south-west London, living alongside a substantial and established community of over 10,000 South Korean immigrants.[1] A significant number of North Koreans decide to move to New Malden, London, where there is an established South Korean community, as English language barriers prevent them …

The 10th Enquire Conference: Identity, Belonging and Activism in the 21st Century

The next ENQUIRE conference will be held on Saturday 24 February 2018. This is an annual event showcasing postgraduate and early career research from a wide range of social science disciplines and academic institutions. We have a track record of providing a positive and encouraging environment for the presentation of research on a breadth of …

This is not an obituary

Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at The University of Leeds, one of the greatest sociologist of our times, died on the 9th of January 2017, aged 91. I did not know Bauman, and it would be inappropriate for me to write his obituary. Others have already done so, and these can be accessed via …