Born an only child and much taken with solitary endeavours I have now and again reflected on the implications of this for forming friendships. Maybe there’s a genetic element too. My father, not an only child but brought up with a brother nine years younger, was similarly attracted to solitude and to ‘standing and staring’.… Read More »
There is a long-established argument that from its origins in the long 16th century capitalism has had an inbuilt tendency to contradiction and fracture. Left to its own devices, Adam Smith confessed, the rich will get richer and the poor poorer. The compelling way in which Karl Marx revised the political economy of Smith and… Read More »
This blog address three issues that I think have attracted too little attention in sociological and political circles. The first involves the tension between Habermas’ ‘communicative’ and ‘strategic action’. Academic sociologists tend to be professionally socialised into an engagement with communicative action, or discussions and writings that look to produce evidence en route to a… Read More »
My presence at a conference in Trondheim organised by old friend Aksel Tjora has given me much pause for thought. In 2013 we published a co-edited book called ‘Café Society’, and ever since we have been thinking about a companion volume of ‘Bar Society’. It is my turn to take the lead on this and… Read More »
I have over the years visited Norway many times, in the process making a number of good colleagues and friends. February 2026 is no exception. Invited by Aksel Tjora to give a plenary presentation at a two-day conference on the topic of community, Annette and I travelled to Trondheim via Bergen for a bout of… Read More »
When Aksel Tjora asked me to read through a draft of a methods paper he was writing, I readily agreed. Its main focus was on the role of intuition in ethnographic and qualitative research in sociology. It made for fascinating reading. On the one hand, many researchers would doubtless equivocate about any role being ascribed… Read More »
In the process of drafting a book on stigma I have expanded on my idea that in post-1970s rentier capitalism the concept stigma and the practice of stigmatising (enacted stigma), denoting shame and shaming, have often been ‘weaponised’ via an appending of the concept of deviance and the practise of sanctioning/punishing (enacted deviance), denoting blame… Read More »
Even in my 20s I enjoyed writing books. I was not really into articles. I was as content to publish novel data and ideas in books and chapters as to submit them to journals. And this even though I was always employed in medical schools where only articles – and in high impact journals at… Read More »
The ‘Epstein scandal’ has understandably and rightly led to a focus on the sexual abuse of young women. But there is more to say about this – if I might deploy a technical term once more – ‘greedy bastard’. There will be more information leaked later I’m sure, but we already have some to be… Read More »
I am gender critical. In other words I accept the biological distinction between the sexes. Does this mean I want to ‘other’, ‘reject’ or that I ‘hate’ the trans community. Of course not. Nor do I accept charges of bigotry. If anyone actually reads the UK Supreme Court judgement affirming the salience of biological sex… Read More »