Professor of Sociology and Social Psychology.
About Me
A sociological educator, writer and creative practitioner.
Educator: I teach both sociology and social psychology and curate the Sociological Laboratory. My sociological orientation is towards ‘practice’. This is rooted in the Millsean /Jephcottian ideas of sociology as ‘craft and skills’ (see Goodwin 2016). Being a sociologist requires specific skills; the best way to develop them is to enact them continually. This approach is also informed by the sociology of Norbert Elias (the best sociological understanding is offered by examining long-term historical, social processes) and by those who work with auto\biography, such as Liz Stanley, and data reanimation and archival research, such as Rachel Thomson. My interests in social psychology centre on the work of Milgram and Zimbardo. In my writings, I have also drawn on Elias (psychogenesis and sociogenesis—Elias was one of the first to teach social psychology at Leicester), C. Wright Mills (biography and history/character and social structure), and Jephcott (situations versus predispositions).
Writer: My current writing focuses on archival research, autoethnography, collaborative autoethnography, visual studies, data reanimation, and poetic inquiry.
Creative practitioner: Sociology is the most creative social science, offering a wealth of opportunities to explore the social world through imaginative, artistic, and Innovative practices. I write poetry, take photographs and utilise discarded ephemera in my work. I am a long-term advocate of ‘slow sociology’ such as using old photographic equipment as a way of slowing down fieldwork (see Goodwin 2023). I curate the Sociological Laboratory at Leicester – a space for sociologists to learn and share creative techniques and approaches.
Research
I am currently using autoethnographic writing and research to examine social class through storytelling and collaborative autoethnography to explore fieldwork experiences.
Beyond this, I have a broad range of research interests, including (i) Youth. This includes transitions and past studies of ‘troubled’ youth. (ii) The sociology of Pearl Jephcott, Norbert Elias and C Wright Mills. The social psychology of Milgram and Zimbardo; (iii) Auto/biographical methods and analysis (correspondence film photographs, biography, art etrc); (iv) The ‘reuse’ of data and of the value of ‘non-standard’ forms of data; and (v) sociological understandings of space linking the individual to the cosmos.
Creative Sociology
