radar

Maximising Impact through Research Methods:
a View from Early British Sociology

Lecture by Prof. John Scott
(University of Plymouth)
Discussant: Prof. Les Back (Goldsmiths)

19th February 2010, 16:00-19:00
Goldsmiths University London
Organised by Nirmal Puwar at the Methods Lab, Sociology Department, Goldsmiths University London

The Methods Lab, based within the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths is calling on our inter-disciplinary resources and traditions to critically inhabit the space of social intervention and social impact. This initiative hopes to build a laboratory to stimulate creative debate about the ways in which the practice of sociology is changing, what social research should look like today, and how sociology can best respond to the demands of users of social research. The Lab is intended to provide a space for us to question and develop our own methods of sociological reasoning, to be open to the possibilities of practicing a sociological imagination in a world in which the fundamental co-ordinates of social life are held to be undergoing change.

In the context of the current growth in visual methods, John Scott will deliver a lecture on how early British sociologists used dramatisation & film documentary alongside mass observations surveys to offer resourceful methodologies, as well as ways of speaking to publics beyond the academy.

A sound recording of this lecture can be listened to here:
Sound file of talk by John Scott [mp3]

John Scott’s new book is Social Theory: Central Issues in Sociology, an overview of historical and contemporary debates. His previous books include, A Matter of Record: Documentary Sources in Social Research (1990), Who Rules Britain? (1991), Social Network Analysis (Second Edition, 2000),Poverty and Wealth (1994), Sociological Theory (1995), Stratification and Power (1996), Corporations, Classes and Capitalism (1985), Corporate Business and Capitalist Classes (1997), and Power(2001).