The genealogy of the academic paper that changed my career

In 2003 I was working for Oxfam. I had just completed an MSc in Applied Social Research in Bristol and I had a forthcoming interview for 3 year PhD bursary. At the time I was reading a new collection of essays - The Civilized Organization: Norbert Elias and the future of organization studies - and I decided to base my interview presentation on a chapter in the book. The chapter by Tim Newton - Elias, organisations and ecology - fused insights from Actor Network Theory (ANT) with Figurational Sociology in what he called an Interdependency Network Perspective (INP).

I was offered the bursary but dropped the theoretical model during my PhD for a pure figurational approach. Yet I was always intrigued by the fusion of ideas and I continued to use an INP in talks and presentations. During 2007 and 2008, I worked on a project of Ian Smith's, which set out to explore how planners and built environment professionals changed the ways they worked in order to meet the challenges of New Labour's Knowledge and Skills Agenda on the building of sustainable communities. I decided that an INP framework offered a useful way to present our findings and we subsequently submitted a paper to a prominent planning journal. This was the start of a long and at times tortuous process. In general, academic planners were keen on ANT, but not so keen on Figurational Sociology - this did not sit easily with me.

The ideas next resurfaced in my first post doc position at Cardiff, where I developed a greater knowledge and understanding of ANT through work with Mara Miele. In 2009, I presented a paper - Farmers vs. animal scientists: an assessment of welfare quality - based on an INP at the British Sociological Association Annual Conference in Cardiff. Still frustrated by my continuing inability to get the ideas into print, in 2010 I sent the origional paper to a new colleague for review, who subsequently used the ideas (if not the theory) to get a paper published. This increased my determination to get our initial paper published.

In subsequent years, Ian adopted the approach for teaching purposes. Work pressures meant that he also took the lead on the first paper and Mara and I began the process of fusing our ideas in various publications. But we still had no luck getting the original paper into print. Earlier this year, with my new job as a lecturer in sustainability at the University of Huddersfield in sight,  I decided to give the paper another go. The final published version is available here.

No Return, No Asylum: Destitution as a way of life?

Over recent years considerable evidence has emerged from agencies working with asylum seekers in Bradford that significant numbers of those refused asylum are destitute. A new report launched today by Destitution Concern Bradford examines the extent and impact of this destitution. Whilst adding to a growing body of research on destitution amongst asylum seekers in a number of UK cities, the report by Dr John Lever (www.jblresearch.org) presents important new evidence about the length of time that individuals, families and children are experiencing destitution. Read the full report 'No Return, No Asylum: Destitution as a way of life' here.

What generates a participatory disposition in non-governmental actors?

A new paper in the Voluntary Sector Review provides a timely exploration of the contextual factors that underpin the participation of non-governmental actors in partnership work with state actors: 

Abstract: This paper examines developments in governance and non-governmental public action in three diverse contexts. It is based on comparative international research that examined the role of non-governmental actors (NGAs) involved in partnership working with state actors in Bulgaria, Nicaragua and the United Kingdom. The paper draws on Crossley's (2003) development of Bourdieu's (1977) 'theory of practice' to examine the contextual factors that influence the participation of NGAs in 'new governance spaces'. It highlights three very different responses to the 'opportunities' that governance offers, which illustrate how historical processes mould civil society relation's vis-à-vis the state in highly significant ways. Although governance presents many obstacles to change, the paper concludes that the new forms of participation that are appearing in these spaces may be the foundations from which more significant change emerges. Key Words: Civil Society; Capital; Habitus; Non-Governmental; Participation

Urban regeneration and partnership working under New Labour

Lever, J. (2011) ‘Urban regeneration partnerships: a figurational critique of governmentality theory’, in Sociology 45 (1)

Abstract: This article provides a critique of governmentally inspired accounts of urban regeneration and partnership working. Drawing on the work of Norbert Elias and prominent figurational sociologists, it discusses the changes taking place within andthrough the many partnerships set up by New Labour around the notion of ‘community safety’. Although recognizing the important insights provided by accounts of urban regeneration emerging through studies of governmentality, the article argues that such accounts fail to adequately consider the impact of partnership working on the individuals, communities and organizations involved. While urban regeneration partnerships have the potential to be the motor of the civilizing process in the manner identified by figurational sociologists, the article concludes that they are not currently living up to this civilizing potential.

Key Words: Civilizing process; community safety; Elias; Foucault; governmentally; partnership working; urban regeneration.