In episode three, we welcome Michel Wieviorka, Professor of Sociology at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris, France); and president of the International Sociological Association (ISA Webpage). 

This interview was conducted ahead of his recent seminar at Goldsmiths College, University of London; the title of which was 'What should sociology look like in the 21st century?'. 

The seminar was convened by Professor Kevin McDonald (departmental webpage).  Video from the event will shortly be uploaded onto the Goldsmiths Sociology departmental webpage, and will be linked to via this blog.

During the conversation, Professor Wieviorka address some key contemporary issues in global Sociology, including;

*Globalisation & Individualism.

*Research 'languages' and disciplinary cultures.

*The importance of interdisciplinary exchange.

*Cosmopolitanism and subjectivity.

*The relationship between natural events and social conditions.

The podcast was produced, edited, and interview conducted by Mike Bracher, for the BSA PG Forum.

A transcript of this episode can be downloaded here

Postgraduate Forum e-Newsletters

The BSA PG Forum Newsletter brings together news and announcements relevant to the PG community, including:

* PG Profiles and special announcements

* Forthcoming events at a glance, including calls for papers

* Full details of Events & Calls for Papers.

* Funding Opportunities/Job opportunities/Prize awards

* Publications: Introducing new journals and calls for journal submissions

* Other News

Postgraduate members of the association are automatically enrolled onto a distribution list to receive monthly copies of the forum e-Newsletter.  If you know of any sociological event that would be of interest to postgraduate members, then do contact the co-convenors - pgforum@britsoc.org.uk

You can download the latest copy of the newsletter or browse the archive by clicking the link button below:

http://www.britsoc.co.uk/students/PGNewsletter.htm

As previously advertised, Prof. Michel Wieviorka (President of the International Sociological Association) will be speaking at Goldsmiths College, University of London on 26/11/2009 on the topic 'What should sociology look like in the 21st century? Critical challenges facing the discipline today.' (see link below).

http://pgforum.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=549937

Mike Bracher (co-convenor, BSA Postgraduate Forum) will be giving a short 10 minute presentation ahead of this, setting out some of the issues, ideas and topics that matter to PG sociologists today.  This will form the opening to a discussion which Prof. Wieviorka will then expand and develop in his seminar.

To inform this presentation, the PG Forum is asking for input from the PG community - what are the issues and ideas in PG sociologists are engaging with, or would like to see more of an engagement with from the discipline?  What challenges do we face as a discipline?  How can sociologists contribute to wider debates and social issues in the contemporary world?

You can submit your comments by clicking the 'comments' button at the bottom of this post - we look forward to receiving your contributions!

A seminar with Michel Wieviorka
President of the International Sociological Association (ISA), Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris)

Thursday 26 November 2009
4.00-6.00pm
Richard Hoggart Building, Room 137

A major French sociologist, Michel Wievorka has published over 40 books exploring key dimensions of contemporary social life, from violence and terrorism, social movements, multiculturalism, racism and anti-semitism, to the contemporary financial crisis. Professor Wieviorka is also President of the International Sociological Association, and is deeply engaged in debates around what sort of sociology needs to be constructed to respond to the contemporary globalized world.  

This seminar is an opportunity to engage in dialogue and debate around the future of sociology, with research students and young sociologists especially encouraged to participate.

This event is free - to reserve a place please email (sociology@gold.ac.uk)

The BSA President and Chair invite members, as individuals, to support their colleagues by signing the petition against the closure of the Department of Sociology at Birmingham.

SIGN THE PETITION TO KEEP SOCIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keepsociologyatbirmingham

READ THE CAMPAIGN WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION:

http://www.keepsociologyatbirmingham.com

In 2002, despite wide spread condemnation and protest, the University of Birmingham decided to close the Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology.  Subsequent to the closure a new Department of Sociology was re-opened in 2004 with a long term view to developing Sociology at Birmingham – staff were told that the University had a 10-year ‘strategy for success’. Following a recent review of this department’s teaching and research activities, the Head of the College of Social Sciences, Professor Edward Peck, is recommending to Senate and Council that the University should once again close Sociology (and its associated Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Culture)

The Department is not in deficit and its programmes are popular with students – for example, its undergraduate degree in Sociology is ranked 4^th out of 84 in the Guardian league tables, while its undergraduate degree in Media, Culture and Society is ranked 5^th out of 79. When the Department was established in 2004 the Chair of the group that reviewed its research strategy, Professor Judith Petts (now PVC in charge of Research and Knowledge Transfer), wrote that,

“the University needs to recognise that the outcome of 2008 may be modest relative to the leading departments. The panel cannot emphasise strongly enough that should this be the case, the University must hold its nerve and continue to support the department.”

Indeed, 13 out of the 18 members of staff submitted were in their first RAE. The department has also provided evidence that, once ‘selectivity’ is taken into account (that is, the number of eligible staff submitted), the performance of Sociology is on a par with other Departments in the College. For example, all staff in Sociology were selected for submission in the RAE, while other departments had proportionately much less.

The review recommendations include transfer of the sociology degree to the School of Social Policy, with severely reduced entry, along with redundancies which will substantially decrease the number of staff employed to deliver existing degree programmes and carry out sociological research. The report recommends retaining 3 members of staff from the department (reduced from 16 full-time staff and 3 full-time Research Fellows a year ago when the review was first proposed). In contradiction of University ordinances and the protocol for previous reviews, no staff redeployments are being offered to staff.

Members of the department are worried that the major reduction in the presence of Sociology at the University being proposed poses a significant threat to the education of both undergraduate and postgraduate students and to university research activities. The University proposes that 3 members of staff are sufficient to deliver a single honours undergraduate degree programme in sociology, with most of the modules being taken from courses delivered within other degree programmes.

It is believed that this closure will have negative consequences for the reputation of the University and will be perceived as indicative of managerial inadequacy, deriving from the recent history of Sociology at Birmingham. The local community, a significant stakeholder served by the University, will also be impacted negatively by the proposed closure.

In a recent letter to the Times Higher Educational Supplement (29th October) the Council of the British Sociological Association states that “It is inconceivable that any serious university with a mission to serve its region and wider society can abandon a commitment to high-quality and high quantity sociology” and urges “the relevant decision-makers at Birmingham” to re-evaluate its decision.

The University and College Union have criticised the University’s review processes for a lack of openness, transparency and accountability. In particular the methodology in the Sociology review is identified as having serious shortcomings, “The Department of Sociology appears to have had little input into the information and documentation used by the review panel, no members of the Department have been included on the review panel, the external assessors on the panel appear to have had no opportunity to meet with staff and students from the department”. Of the four academics on the review panel, all were members of the University and College Executive Boards.

The Union has stated that if reviews “are not conducted objectively and fairly with proper and open involvement of staff and unions, such reviews can appear to be cynical ploys misused by management to force through reductions in staffing levels and even compulsory redundancies without proper consideration and discussion”.

The Department of Sociology is now calling for the review recommendations to be rejected and for the University to initiate a fully transparent and comprehensive review that is inclusive of all relevant stakeholders.

The University Senate meets on 18^th November, and Council meets on 26^th November.

We urge you to sign the petition calling for the recommendations to be rejected and for a proper review to be conducted

We also request individuals to e-mail the Vice-Chancellor, Professor David Eastwood

d.eastwood@bham.ac.uk

Please copy any e-mails to:

Professor Adrian Randall (PVC Academic Quality and Students), Professor Judith Petts (PVC Research and Knowledge Transfer), Professor Edward Peck (Head of College of Social Sciences), Brigid Jones (Guild of Students and Member of Council)

Please also copy to Mr Lee Sanders, Registrar to the University, requesting that your e-mail be made available to members of Senate and Council:

a.j.randall@bham.ac.uk; j.i.petts@bham.ac.uk; e.w.peck@bham.ac.uk; l.sanders@bham.ac.uk; b.jones@guild.bham.ac.uk

You are also requested to blind copy keepbirminghamsociology@live.co.uk so that we can keep a log of all traffic.

Suggested text of e-mail for individuals to adapt as thought fitting:

“Dear Professor Eastwood,

I am writing to you to express my concern about the proposed closure of the Department of Sociology and its associated Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Culture.

While I recognise that Universities must make decisions in the light of local circumstances, I am concerned about the implications of this decision for current students in the Department and for the opportunities for prospective students in the West Midlands region.

I am aware that the Department at the University of Birmingham had been established only in 2004, following the closure of the Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology in 2002. It would seem that the present Department has been given no time to establish itself before being closed once again. Birmingham is also the second city of the UK, with the largest ethnic minority population in the country, but it will now have no University with a dedicated Department or significant concentration of expertise in sociology. The University of Birmingham is the UK’s first ‘civic university’ and I find it difficult to understand how it can execute its civic mission without a strong sociology presence.

In the light of these concerns, I should like to ask your Senate and Council to reconsider this decision. I have copied this e-mail to Mr Lee Sanders, Registrar, so that it can be communicated to Senate and Council”

In this second episode of PG Focus, Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos (plenary speaker at the 2009 BSA Annual Conference) is interviewed by Lucy Mayblin (PhD researcher, University of Warwick).  The discussion focuses on themes such as;

*Popular knowledges and new epistemologies.

*Intercultural human rights vs. universal human rights.

*Hegemonic discourses, neo-liberalism & the 2008-9 financial crisis.

*The status of stateless peoples, refugees and undocumented migrant workers.

*Cultures of democratic participation across the world.


Professor de Sousa Santos holds a chair at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) as well as a directorship of the Centre for Social Studies; and is a Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA).  He is also Global Legal Scholar at the University of Warwick (UK).

Lucy Mayblin is a PhD student at the University of Warwick, where she is funded through an ESRC studentship.  Her research interests are in Political Sociology with particular attention to the areas of human rights, asylum and immigration, citizenship, and the relationship between identity and nation state territory.

This episode was produced, edited and hosted by Mike Bracher, for the BSA PG Forum.

A transcript of this episode can be downloaded here

We are pleased to announce that the PG Focus podcast is now live on the iTunes service.  This means that if you use iTunes as your media player, or to manage content on your iPod/portable media device, you can subscribe to the podcast. 

When you subscribe, iTunes will automatically search for new episodes and download them as they become available - you can then set your iPod/portable media device to automatically pick up the new content when you connect it to your computer, or drag and drop manually within iTunes.

If you have iTunes already installed:

Click the link below and you will automatically be taken to the subscription page within iTunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=339855447

If you do not have iTunes already installed:

Go here to download and install iTunes for your operating system:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

When you have installed it, click the link below and you will automatically be taken to the subscription page within iTunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=339855447

Don't forget that you can still listen to the podcast on the website, via direct download, or by feeding the following link into your podcast management software:

http://pgforum.libsyn.com/rss

Welcome to PG Focus - the podcast series brought to you by the British Sociological Association Postgraduate Forum.  This series brings together a variety of content; including interviews, news, and workshops relevant to the PG community.  It will also serve to showcase PG innovation in research, teaching, and events.

We hope that you enjoy the podcast, and welcome your feedback and/or suggestions for future episodes.  You can leave comments on the podcast page, or email the PG Forum convenor team at PGForum@britsoc.org.uk

The convenor team is:

-Allison Hui (PhD Researcher & Sociology Tutor; University of Lancaster, UK)

-Mark Doidge (PhD Researcher; University of Exeter, UK)

-Mike Bracher (PhD Researcher; University of Southampton, UK)

-Yiu Tung Suen (PhD Researcher; University of Oxford, UK)

The series is produced, edited & hosted by Mike Bracher.

Thanks for listening!