To see what our 2018/19 Post-Doctoral Fellows did during their fellowships, and what they are doing now, please click on their names.

Dr Natalie Bowling

SeNSS Pathway: Psychology

SeNSS university: University of Sussex

Primary mentor: Professor Jamie Ward, Department of Psychology, University of Sussex

Second mentor: Professor Michael Banissy, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London

Research topic title: Awareness of the bodily self in vicarious perception

Research project description:

In my research I investigate the sense of the bodily self and its relation to vicarious perception of touch and pain. I am particularly interested in an experience known as mirror-sensory synaesthesia, in which people literally feel a sensation of touch or pain on their own body when watching somebody else being touched or in pain. Preliminary work from my PhD indicates that these individuals may also exhibit broader differences in bodily self-awareness.

During the fellowship I will examine several aspects of bodily self-awareness in mirror-sensory synaesthesia, including the stability of implicit and explicit body representations, interoception (the perception of internal bodily states) and symptoms of depersonalisation (a feeling of detachment from the bodily self). To do so I will use behavioural techniques as well as electroencephalography (EEG).

I am passionate about science communication, and during the fellowship I will organise a number of events with the aim of promoting public engagement in my research area and in science more broadly.

Publications:

  • Botan, V., Bowling, N. C., Banissy, M. J., Critchley, H., & Ward, J. (in press). Individual differences in vicarious pain perception linked to heightened socially elicited emotional states. Frontiers in Psychology.
  • Bowling, N. C. & Banissy, M. J. (2017). Modulating vicarious tactile perception with non-invasive brain stimulation. European Journal of Neuroscience, 46(8), 2355-2364.
  • Bowling, N. C. & Banissy, M.J. (2017). Emotion expression modulates perception of animacy from faces. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 71, 83-95.
  • Gillmeister, H.G., Bowling, N., Rigato, S. & Banissy, M.J. (2017). Inter-individual differences in vicarious tactile perception: A view across the lifespan in typical and atypical populations. Multisensory Research, 30(6), 485-508.
  • Holle, H., Banissy, M.J., Wright, T., Bowling, N. & Ward, J. (2011). “That’s not a real body”: Identifying stimulus qualities that modulate synaesthetic experiences of touch. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(3), 720-726.

Contact details:

Email address: n.bowling@sussex.ac.uk

Twitter: @ncbowling

Dr Matthew Hall

SeNSS Pathway: Politics and International Relations

SeNSS university: Royal Holloway, University of London

Primary mentor: Professor Ben O’Loughlin, School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London

Research topic title: Surveillance Studies

Research project description:

My project uses the conception of freedom as non-domination from republican literature to articulate new harms technologies like surveillance and Artificial Intelligence (AI) may bring to individuals and societies.

Beyond privacy and liberty, Republicans tell us that we are dominated if we are exposed to arbitrary power – which is power that is beyond our control or comprehension. To be free we must be free from exposure to such arbitrary power, which produces harmful behavioural impacts such as self-censorship and anxiety. My project connects this conception of freedom with the intuitive problems produced by opaque and powerful new technologies such as AI surveillance systems beginning to permeate society. If we cannot restrain the power of, or even understand, algorithmically and data driven technologies, the problem does not importantly hinge on privacy violations, but instead on domination.

This will be communicated to academic audiences, government and practitioners such as machine engineers, AI developers and privacy advocacy groups through the production of three journal papers, four academic conference papers, a report document and a monograph.

WorkPlan

Journal Papers

  • How Surveillance Incapacitates the Right to Protest - Key Milestone Submit to Political Studies for review by 04/01/2019
  • Authoritarian Realism and the Protest Pen - Key Milestone Submit to Political Theory for review by 26/02/2019
  • Realism and Robots - Key Milestone Submit to AI and Society by 30/05/2019

Articles

  • Domination and Despondency’ for OpenDemocracy - Key Milestone Submit to OpenDemocracy 24/03/2019

Monograph

  • “Liberal Democracy under Surveillance” - Key Milestone Submit to ‘Digital Politics’ Book Series editor – Professor Andrew Chadwick – by 20/09/2019

Conference Papers

  • Spring/Summer of 2019 (Some dates yet to be confirmed by conference organisers)
  • Conference Paper: The Imbalance of the Privacy Debate: Domination, Illegitimacy and Resistance to Surveillance
  • Key Milestone -The International Privacy and Security Conference – February 2019 date TBC
  • Annual Surveillance Studies Network Conference – date TBC
  • Conference Paper: Technology, Domination and Legitimacy
  • Key Milestone - AI Now Symposium – date TBC; Future of Life Institute Annual Conference - date TBC
  • Key Milestone – Report document for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) - 30/07/2019

Contact details:

Email address: matthew.hall.2012@live.rhul.ac.uk

Dr Ella Harris

SeNSS Pathway: Sociology

SeNSS university: Goldsmiths, University of London

Primary mentor: Rebecca Coleman, Reader in Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London

Research topic title: Re-imagining Crisis: Pop-up Cultures and Precarious Lives in Austerity London

Research project description:

Londoners today inhabit a period of ‘crisis-ordinary’. Under on-going austerity measures, poverty and inequality are rising. The housing crisis is worsening and more people are being pushed into precarious labour. It has been argued that this state of crisis is being perpetuated because stakeholders refuse to entertain solutions that contest the neoliberal model (Elledge, 2017). With this in mind, my project examines efforts at re-imagining precarious conditions to present them as positive. Drawing on my existing doctoral and postdoctoral research, as well as through the development of new case studies, I am producing a monograph that examines how precarious ways of working and living in London are being branded positively. Specifically, I examine the importance of “pop-up” culture and its spatial and temporal imaginaries in normalising and glamorising precarity.

If crisis has a particular spatiotemporality, defined, for example, by uncertainty, instability, fractures and gaps, then I conjecture that, through pop-up, a set of more positively framed logics have arisen that correspond to, but optimistically reimagine, these same spatial and temporal conditions. I argue that pop-up, which emerged directly from conditions of recession, has been welcomed by a wide variety of stakeholders because of its ability to rebrand the spatial and temporal markers of precarity, replacing, for example, instability with flexibility or diminishment with the micro. The book traces the development and impact of seven key spatiotemporal logics; immersion, flexibility, interstitiality (in-between-ness), secrecy, surprise, the micro and the meantime.

As well as the monograph, my project involves the creation of a project website, which invites contributions from others working on similar topics, and a stakeholder event about the implications of pop-up for urban futures.

Publications:

Papers

  • Harris, E. Brickell, K and Nowicki, M. (Under Review) “Temporary Fixes: Compensatory and Defiant Homemaking in Pop-up and Rapid Build Housing in Dublin and London” Antipode
  • Nowicki, M. Harris, E and Brickell, K (Under Review) “The hotelisation of the housing crisis: Experiences of family homelessness in Dublin hotels” The Geographical Journal
  • Harris, E. and Nowicki, M. (2018) “Cultural Geographies of Precarity”. Introduction to special issue of Cultural Geographies, 25(3), pp. 387-391 “Cultural Geographies of Precarity” (ed. Harris, E. and Nowicki, M.)
  • Harris, E. Brickell, K. and Nowicki, M. (2018) “On edge in the Impasse: Inhabiting the Housing Crisis as Structure of Feeling”; Invited contribution to special issue of Geoforum, (available online) (ed. Chris Philo, Hester Parr, Ola Soderstrom)
  • Harris, E. (2016) “Exploring Pop-up Cinema and the City: Deleuzian Encounters with Secret Cinema's Pop-up screening of The Third Man”. Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, 3(1), pp. 113-133. Invited Contribution to the special issue ‘Cinematicity: Cinema and the city after Deleuze’ (ed. Clarke, D. and Doel, M.)
  • Harris, E. (2016) “Introducing I-Docs to Geography: Exploring Interactive Documentary’s Nonlinear Imaginaries” Area 49(1), pp.25-34
  • Harris, E (2015) “Navigating Pop-up Geographies: Urban Space-Times of Flexibility, Interstitiality and Immersion”. Geography Compass, 9(11), pp. 592-603.

Special Issues (organised and edited)

  • Harris, E and Nowicki, M. (eds). 2018, Cultural Geographies of Precarity, Cultural Geographies

Book chapters

  • Harris, E. (2018) “Encountering Urban Space Live at The Floating Cinema”. Invited contribution to the edited book Live Cinema: Cultures, Economies, Aesthetics, Bloomsbury (eds. Sarah Atkinson and Helen Kennedy)
  • Harris, E. (2018) “Crafted places/places for craft: Pop-up and the Politics of the ‘Crafted City’” Invited contribution to The Craft Economy, Bloomsbury Academic (eds. Susan Luckman and Nicola Thomas)

Reports

  • Forthcoming, Harris, E. Brickell, K and Nowicki M. Temporary Homes, Permanent Progress? Resident Experiences of PLACE/Ladywell
  • 2017 “Home at Last: Everyday life in Dublin’s Rapid Build Housing”. Commissioned report for Dublin City Council (with Katherine Brickell and Mel Nowicki)

Book Reviews

  • Harris, E. (2016) “Mutations of the Container Principle: Containerization Stage Two” on The Container Principle (Alexander Klose) Journal of Science as Culture (Published online May 31st) (invited review essay)
  • Harris, E. (2015) Review of “In the Meantime” (Sarah Sharma) Society and Space (online) (invited review essay)
  • Harris, E. (2015) Review of “Urban Interstices: the aesthetics and the politics of the in-between” (Ed. Andrea Mubi Brighenti). Urban Research and Practice 8(1), pp 136-138.

Other information:

In addition to my individual scholarship I run a collaborative project with Dr Mel Nowicki exploring “Precarious Geographies.” Our outputs have so far included a special issue on Cultural Geographies of Precarity, a film screening and discussion of Nightcrawler, an article for Guardian Cities and several conference sessions. In my spare time I compete nationally and internationally as an amateur boxer.

Contact details:

Email address: E.Harris@gold.ac.uk

Twitter: @CrisisCultures

Website/blog: www.crisiscultures.com

Dr Aravinda Kosaraju

SeNSS Pathway: Socio-Legal Studies

SeNSS university: University of Kent

Primary mentor: Dr Julie McCandless, Kent Law School, University of Kent

Second mentor: Dr Marian Duggan, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent

Research topic title: Crimes of child sexual exploitation in England – A socio-legal project promoting effective approaches to investigation and prosecution

Research project description: The 2012 national inquiry into child sexual exploitation (CSE) in gangs and groups by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England and Wales reported 2409 ‘confirmed victims’ of child sexual exploitation during the 14-month period from August 2010 to October 2011 and further 16,500 children as at risk of child sexual exploitation between April 2010 and March 2011. Although many high profile investigations, such as Operation Retriever (Derby), Operation Span (Rochdale), Operation Bullfinch (Oxford), Operation Central (Rotherham) and Operation Sanctuary (Newcastle) since 2009 have resulted in the prosecution of CSE cases, the numbers of prosecutions are not proportionate to those being reported. This project builds on the learning developed through Aravinda’s doctoral research exploring attrition in cases involving crimes of CSE. Attrition refers to the process where cases get dropped at various stages of the criminal justice system. Aravinda’s thesis developed a nuanced understanding of how attrition occurs in these cases particularly during investigation and prosecution charging stages and highlighted areas within policy and practice that requires critical reflection. This project takes that understanding to a wider audience through publication of research findings and through engaging with key stakeholders. It aims to develop a user-friendly guide for practitioners who are working in the area of CSE such as police officers; child and public protection units; social care workers; health and education teams; young people and family support workers within the voluntary sector; as well as those involved in supporting victims and witnesses. It also aims to publish shorter pieces targeted at service providers, policy makers and general public and to disseminate the learning through presentations at practitioners’ forums and conferences. Through engaging with practitioners this project works towards bridging a significant gap between academic research and practice in the investigation and prosecution of crimes of CSE.

Publications:

  • Kosaraju, A. “Foucauldian Feminist Approach to interrogating child sexual exploitation and the challenges to engaging sexually exploited children in Research – A probe” in (eds) Marjan Ivković, Gazela Pudar Draško , Srđan Prodanović, Engaging Foucault Volume 2 (University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory 2016).
  • Kosaraju, A Grooming: Myth and Reality of Child Sexual Exploitation, ChildRight (2008) 246, 14-17.
  • Kosaraju, A Trafficking in our midst – Briefing paper, CROP (2006)
  • Kosaraju, A Parents, Children and Pimps: Families speak out about sexual exploitation – Research Report, CROP (2005)
  • Kosaraju, A National Roundtable on Police Reforms– A report (2002), CHRI, New Delhi.

Other information: Aravinda worked for 7 years as the Policy and Research Officer for Parents against Child Sexual Exploitation (PACE), a UK national charity working to support families of sexually exploited children. As a consultant to the Lawyer’s Collective/UNIFEM funded project titled Trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, she coordinated research into the socio-legal aspects of prostitution in two of Asia’s largest red light districts of Mumbai and Delhi during 2001-03. She advocated for police reforms in India in her role as Project Officer for the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, an international non-governmental organization working to promote human rights across the Commonwealth. Aravinda has extensive experience of developing training for criminal justice practitioners and also teaches modules in law and criminology. She is the founding member of Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds and a former director of National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Children and Young People.

Contact details:

Email address: a.kosaraju@kent.ac.uk

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/aravinda-kosaraju-3788b853

_Twitter: https://twitter.com/a_kosaraju_

Dr Greta Morando

SeNSS Pathway: Economics

SeNSS university: Royal Holloway, University of London

Primary mentor: Professor Arnaud Chevalier, Department of Economics, Royal Holloway, University of London

Research topic title: Human capital accumulation and skills formation among natives and migrants in the UK

Research project description: My project investigates the impact of migration on human capital accumulation and skills formation of the migrant and the native population.

Contact details:

Email address: greta.morando@rhul.ac.uk

Website/blog: https://gretamorando.weebly.com/

Dr Jessica Sklair

SeNSS Pathway: Social Anthropology

SeNSS university: University of Sussex

Primary mentor: Dr Dinah Rajak, Departments of Anthropology and International Development, University of Sussex

Second mentor: Dr Beth Breeze, Director: Centre for Philanthropy School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research University of Kent

Research topic title: From philanthropy to impact investment: Private sector initiatives for development in Brazil and the UK

Research project description: My PhD explored the work of philanthropic foundations and trusts in Brazil and the UK. It examined the growth of ‘philanthrocapitalism’, which attempts to make philanthropy more ‘businesslike’ and strategic, and the intersections between this global philanthropic trend and localised relationships between wealth elites and third sector organisations in Brazil and the UK, which have shifted in accordance with the changing political landscapes of both countries over recent decades. In parallel, I explored the role played by philanthropy in the creation of ‘socially responsible’ identities of wealth, and the building of historical narratives of corporate social responsibility within family businesses.

During my SeNSS/ESRC postdoctoral fellowship, this doctoral project will be developed through further research on the emerging practice of impact investing among philanthropic investors and development agencies in Brazil and the UK. Impact investing sees investment into social businesses, in pursuit of both financial return and social impact. I will examine how impact investors use metrics and indicators to measure social impact, and how impact investing fosters collaboration between private sector and state actors, shaping development policymaking and practice.

During my fellowship, I will disseminate the findings of my doctoral project and this further research through an academic monograph and journal articles, and the presentation of my research at conferences in the UK, Brazil and elsewhere. I will conduct a research trip to Brazil, and convene a group of scholars to work on a funding proposal for a collaborative project on private financing initiatives for development in diverse geographies. In addition, I will disseminate my research among practitioners in the fields of philanthropy and social investing, through industry publications and presentation of my research in the sector. Finally, I will pursue opportunities for knowledge exchange and impact activities with philanthropists and impact investors in Brazil and the UK.

Publications:

Book

  • Sklair, Jessica. 2010. A Filantropia Paulistana: Açoes sociais em uma cidade segregada. [Philanthropy in São Paulo: Social projects in a segregated city.] São Paulo: Editora Humanitas.

Book Sections

  • Sklair, Jessica. (Accepted, publication due February 2019) Direitos e responsabilidades: Filantropia e a provisão de serviços de saúde em uma favela paulistana. [Rights and Responsibilities: Philanthropy and the provision of healthcare in a São Paulo shanty town]. In: Frúgoli Jr., H., Spaggiari, E. and Aderaldo, G. (eds.) Title tbc. São Paulo: Editora Gramma (Coleção Antropologia Hoje).
  • Frúgoli Jr., Heitor and Sklair, Jessica. 2013. O bairro da Luz (São Paulo) e o Bairro Alto (Lisboa) nos entremeios de mudanças e permanências. [The Luz district and the Bairro Alto district: Caught between change and permanency]. In: Fortuna, C. and Leite, R., (eds.) Diálogos Urbanos: Territórios, culturas, patrimónios. Coimbra: Almedina, 75-103.

Peer Reviewed Articles

  • Gilbert, P. R. and Sklair, J. 2018. Introduction: Ethnographic Engagements with Global Elites: Mutuality, Complicity & Critique. Focaal - Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 81, 1-15.
  • Sklair, J. 2018. Closeness and critique among Brazilian philanthropists: Challenges for a critical ethnography of wealth elites. Focaal - Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 81, 29-42.
  • [For theme section: Gilbert, P. & Sklair, J. (eds.) Mutuality, Complicity & Critique in the Ethnography of Global Elites.]

Other Articles

  • Sklair, Jessica. 2016. Philanthropy as Salvation: Can the rich save the world and should we let them try? Voices from Around the World (Online Journal of the Global South Studies Center Cologne), Jan. 2016 Issue.
  • Frúgoli Jr., Heitor and Sklair, Jessica. 2009. O Bairro da Luz em São Paulo: Questões antropológicas sobre o fenômeno da gentrification. [The Luz District in São Paulo: Anthropological questions on the phenomenon of gentrification] Cuadernos de Antropología Social (Argentina), 30, pp. 119-136.

Other information: I was awarded my PhD in the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths (University of London) in 2017, and held a Stipendiary Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Institute of Latin American Studies (School of Advanced Study, University of London) from Nov 2017 to April 2018. Prior to my PhD, I worked for six years in Brazil and the UK as a documentary filmmaker, and completed my Masters degree in Anthropology at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. During my doctoral fieldwork, I worked part time as Director for Research at the Institute for Philanthropy in London. I am also a board member of Sound and Fair, a UK based social business supplying FSC certified timber from community-managed forests in Tanzania to the global musical instrument market.

Contact details:

Email address: j.sklair@sussex.ac.uk

LinkedIn: Jessica Sklair

_Twitter: @jessiesklair