Author Archives
Mark Carrigan is doing a part time PhD in Sociology at the University of Warwick while also working as a private tutor and freelance researcher. The common theme which unites his research interests is the desire to understand the difficulties which late modern society poses for the innate human need to forge a meaningful life out of conditions which escape our control. Details about his work and other projects he is involved in can be found on his ePortfolio.
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The Truth of the Apple iPad Behind Foxconn’s Lies
I find it difficult to know what to do with the fact that I first watched this video on an iPad mini and am now writing this post on a MacBook Air. The company also apparently makes the Kindle, Wii… Read More ›
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Two approaches to understanding normativity
The Causal Power of Social Structures Dave Elder-Vass, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010, £50.00, 240pp. Explaining the Normative Stephen Turner, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2010, £18.99, 240pp. Normativity is a concept with a contentious history. While most would accept its centrality to… Read More ›
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What are you doing tonight? I’m going out to commit some sociology…
In the wake of a foiled terrorist attack in Canada, recent comments have offered a fascinating insightinto mindset of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Now is not the time to “commit sociology,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday in the wake of a foiled terrorist… Read More ›
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Interested in Asexuality Studies? Everything you need to get started contained within
This is the outline for the special theme issue of Psychology & Sexuality which I edited with Kristina Gupta and Todd Morrison. It was published in March 2013. The editorial and the ‘virtual discussion’ are open access (i.e. freely available… Read More ›
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In retrospect it was never very likely I’d finish my PhD during a daily commute
Some thoughts prepared for the Sociologists Outside of Academia panel discussion at #BritSoc13 I felt slightly nervous about this panel prior to it because of the change that I’d undergone inbetween originally being invited and the actual BSA conference itself…. Read More ›
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Think Tanks In America
Given the ubiquity of think tanks within contemporary politics, it is easy to forget that their current influence is a relatively recent phenomenon. Yet without an understanding of their history, it is difficult to understand either their role within public… Read More ›
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“Oh! There are other people just like me? I’m not so weird after all”: the transformation of identity in the digital age
The internet was integral to the formation of the asexual community. While the details are slightly messier than such an account suggests, the sociologically important aspects of its history can be summarised as follows: Individuals who don’t experience sexual attraction are made to feel… Read More ›
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Do you find social media taking up too much of your time?
Do you find social media taking up too much of your time? If so then IFTTT could be incredibly useful for you. It allows different social media channels to be connected up using statements of the form IF [x] THEN [Y] - where X is… Read More ›
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What is Digital Sociology?
Though it is a hugely exciting trend, the growth of digital research methods risks becoming a narrow specialism. It is crucial that we don’t fall into the digital dualist trap of assuming that ‘online’ and ‘offline’ constitute distinct realities, as doing so… Read More ›
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Why do people believe what they believe?
I’ve always been fascinated by the question of why people hold the political beliefs they do. In part this is because of how badly most people handle this question. From across the political spectrum, there is a pervasive tendency to explain away the… Read More ›
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The Arrogance of Publishers vs. Academic Culture – Why the Outcome Is Virtually Certain
“Technologists also believe that publishing is transportable — anyone can be a publisher. All you need are some basic skills, access to a blogging platform, and some determination. While for certain forms of expression this can be true — this… Read More ›
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An introduction to Margaret Archer’s under-appreciated work on culture
The term ‘culture’ carries considerable intellectual baggage yet is rarely subject to extensive conceptual scrutiny. Our use of it is simultaneously everyday and abstract, concrete yet nebulous and, as a consequence, operationalizing it within the context of research necessitates a… Read More ›
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Prayers for Bobby
If you had asked me a few days ago, I would have assumed it was obvious that a film about gay teen suicide could not also be morally inspiring. Yet this is precisely what Prayers for Bobby achieves. It tells the… Read More ›
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It’s tough being a man these days…
We first meet Detective Tommy Craven greeting his daughter at Boston station. He’s clearly a loving but overprotective father, a man subtly ill at ease with the modern world. His daughter chides him for ‘always’ being early, and on the… Read More ›
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Review of Precious
A word of warning: this is not an uplifting film. It is however one of the rare films worthy of the epithet “unmissable”. Set in 1987, it tells the story of Claireece Precious Jones (usually known simply as Precious): a 16… Read More ›
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The cultural significance of asexuality
Until people started calling themselves homosexual, it didn’t make much sense for anyone to refer to themselves as heterosexual. Up until that point, it had simply been taken for granted and, as such, escaped scrutiny either by individuals or by society more widely. As… Read More ›
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Podcast: late capitalism and a/sexual culture
The next sexual revolution…?