University of Kent

Faculty Member, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research

Senior Lecturer in Sociology

About

My interests concern social suffering, the politics of compassion, the sociology of health, the sociology of risk and social theory. I study the ways in which people struggle to make the experience of suffering productive for thought and action. I am particularly interested in occasions where problems of suffering amount to forces of cultural innovation and social change. I attempt to understand how traditional problems of theodicy manifest themselves in today’s world as problems of ‘sociodicy’. I aim to gather insights into the social and cultural constitution of human suffering and the character of events and experiences where too much suffering is perceived to take place. This involves me in the task of understanding how people come to understand that there is an excess of suffering in the world, and how this in turn shatters the bounds of normative expectation so as to create demands for social restitution. It draws analytical attention to the transformations that take place in cultural worldviews, social behaviours and institutional arrangements in contexts where people experience and/or respond to acute problems of suffering. The theoretical dimension of this project draws on elements of classical sociological theory and also engages with contemporary vistas of inquiry into the social character of emotions, the social dynamics of embodied experience and the political economy of health. In a more policy orientated and practical direction, it concerns the ways in which people’s collective imagination for the suffering of others has an incisive bearing upon moral, political and institutional responses to human affliction and social need.


Current Research Projects

I am Director of the Centre for the Study of Philanthropy, Humanitarianism and Social Justice (CPHSJ). In this capacity, I am involved in various funded projects relating to the social contexts and consequences of charitable giving. The  interrelationship between contemporary expressions of philanthropy, the politics of humanitarianism and the activities of international non-governmental organisations is of particular interest to me here.


I am updating and revising my work on ‘social suffering’. Amongst other things, this involves a critical appraisal of the relevance of Max Weber’s studies of theodicy for understanding contemporary instances of ‘sociodicy’. I engage with debates concerning the standing of ‘critical humanism’ within contemporary sociology and wider domains of social science. I also analyse the forms of critical praxis that feature within research and writing on problems of social suffering.

I am writing a new book with Arthur Kleinman which is provisionally entitled 'A Passion for Society: Essays on Social Suffering'. This provides a critical history of social science with a focus on problems of 'social suffering'. It also outlines a model of the practice of social inquiry in contexts where problems of social suffering are treated as a core concern.

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