Seminar: The challenges of regulating ‘big pharma’

Emily Jackson from Department of Law, London School of Economics

19th May 2011

At 16:00 in Room 6.345, Colchester Campus and afterwards in the Sociology Common Room.

Abstract: It is important to recognise that the way in which companies behave is shaped, at least in part, by the regulatory framework within which they operate. This presentation will focus on a number of criticisms that have been made of the pharmaceutical industry, and will examine the role of regulation as an enabler or facilitator of undesirable, as well as desirable practices.

Seminar: Gender Equality and Work-Family Reconciliation – Balancing Market Income and Non-market Production?

Michael Bittman, School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New England, Australia

27 January 2011

At 16:00 in Room 6.345 and afterwards in the Sociology Common Room.

Abstract: Generally social welfare since World War II has been approached as a question of income security and state or market provision of caring services. This presentation argues this is a limited perspective on welfare because it ignores the parts of the economy where goods and services are produced but no money changes hands. The presentation draws on more than a decade of research using time-use surveys to study trends in care that is provided through non-market economy. In the middle of last century the traditional sexual division of labour – male breadwinner/ female homemaker – tacitly acknowledged the importance of the non-market economy while simultaneously treating it as distinct from ‘work’.

Researcher needed to work with Mark Harvey on comparative study of the economic sociology of bottled water

ESRC funded Senior Research Officer in the Department of Sociology needed to undertake comparative research on consumption practices of bottled water in Europe, Mexico and India. The post has arisen as part of the formation of the Sustainable Practices Research Group, led by the University of Manchester, a programme of research on sustainability and consumption. The appointed researcher will work under the direction of Professor Mark Harvey, Director of the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation (CRESI).

For more information see http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ACC425/senior-research-officer/

Mark Harvey’s new edited collection ‘Markets, rules and institutions of exchange’ published

This book, edited by Mark Harvey is about how to understand the huge variety of markets and market organisation in contemporary economies through a dialogue between a group of UK and French scholars. It presents a critique and development of institutional views of markets, and ‘puts markets in their place’ in a wider political and social context.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis in markets, the book makes a topical and significant contribution on the importance of the rules and regulations that constitute markets, and their broader political and legal frameworks. Moreover, the disruption of markets brings to the fore their interconnection with the broader economy, with production, distribution and consumption in a way often ignored at the height of market bubbles.

Miriam Glucksmann wins €810k to study “Consumption Work and Societal Divisions of Labour”

Prof. Miriam Glucksmann has secured a €810k grant from the highly competitive and prestigious European Research Council Advanced Investigator scheme.

The project, “Consumption Work and Societal Divisions of Labour” aims to radically revise the foundational concept of ‘the division of labour’ by situating traditional understandings of the technical allocation of tasks within an expanded theoretical framework.

Seminar: From Agents of the Press to Makers of Commercials: Advertising Agencies and the Challenge of TV Advertising, 1951-69

Sean Nixon from the Department of Sociology, University of Essex

Date: Thursday 18th March 2010.

At 16:00 in Room 6.345 (Department of Sociology).

In his work with Meadel & Rabeharisoa on the ‘Economy of Qualities’,  Michel Callon gave prominence to a group of commercial practitioners he called ‘professionals of qualification’ and the role they played in shaping the relationship between buyers and sellers. ‘Professionals of qualification’ included all those market professionals like designers, market researchers and advertising practitioners who worked both to establish the character and qualities of goods so that they could circulate and be exchanged and who acted to bring together the worlds of consumers and producers.

Seminar: Work after globalisation

Professor Guy Standing from University of Bath, UK, and Monash University, Australia

Thursday 19th November

At 16:00 in Room 6.345.

Guy Standing is Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath and Associate Director of the Work and Employment Rights Research Centre, Monash University, Melbourne. He is also a founder member and co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), a non-governmental organisation that promotes a citizenship income for all.

His latest book Work after Globalization: Building Occupational Citizenship (2009) “explains that

Seminar: Towards a social ontology of market systems

Dave Elder-Vass from Department of Sociology, University of Essex

Date: Thursday 5th November 2009

At 16:00 in Room 6.345.

Abstract:

This paper outlines a research project currently being planned by the author. The proposed project aims to theorise some core elements of the relation between the economic and the social by constructing a realistic ontological analysis of market systems, developed using a critical realist methodology. Market systems, it will argue, are ontologically dependent upon

Book: Public or Private Economies of Knowledge: Turbulence in the biological sciences

Mark Harvey and Andrew McMeekin’s book “Public or Private Economies of Knowledge: Turbulence in the biological sciences” has just been published by Edward Elgar.

Talk: Capitalism as multi-modal economic process: a neo-Polanyian approach

On June 17th CRESI’s Mark Harvey will be giving an Invited Lecture to the Centre for Globalisation and Governance, University of Hamburg.