Beverley Skeggs
Encyclopedia
Beverley Skeggs was born in Middlesbrough
and studied at University of York
(BA), Keele University
(PGCE, PhD). She has worked at Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education (Research Fellow), Worcester College of Higher Education (Sociology), University of York
(Education and Women's Studies). From 1996 to 1999 she was Director of Women's Studies at Lancaster University
(with Celia Lury). In 1999 she was appointed to a Chair in Sociology at the University of Manchester
, where she was Head of Department from 2001 - 2004. Since 2004 she has been Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. During 2007 she was the Kerstin Hesselgren Professor in Gender Studies at Stockholm University. In 2003 she was elected as an Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.
. In Feminism After Bourdieu, co-edited by Skeggs and Lisa Adkins, feminists address Bourdieu's ideas on reflexivity, emotional capital, the self and the social and their relation to gender.
Her methodological approach was first elaborated in Feminist Cultural Theory: Production and Process(1995), an edited collection that brings together feminists from across disciplines (literature, film, design, media, law, sociology) to discuss how they went about producing their classic texts in cultural studies
. In 1998 at Lancaster University, a group of feminists (of which Beverley Skeggs was a part) organized an international conference on feminist theory. The resulting book Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism (edited with Sara Ahmed
, Celia Lury, Jane Kilby and Maureen McNeil) includes chapters by Lauren Berlant
, Gayatri Spivak, Donna Haraway
, Elspeth Probyn
, Lisa Adkins and Vikki Bell. The conference also spawned Routledge's 'Transformations' series, which includes a wide range of volumes on feminist theory, including the works of Kirsten Campbell, Breda Grey, Ann Cronin and Steph Lawler. A large scale government funded ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) research project with Professor Leslie Moran on the sustainability and experience of gay space resulted in the book Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety. The book explores how violence can be used as a resource in political claims-making, thus challenging many theories on violence. The idea of gender and sexuality as resources that can be deployed, fixed or attached is developed in the article 'Uneasy Alignments, Resourcing Respectable Subjectivity'http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_lesbian_and_gay_studies/v010/10.2skeggs.html.
Numerous publications were generated from the sexuality project (see below). Another large research project was conducted by Beverley Skeggs (with Helen Wood, de Montfort University) between 2005-2007 on reality television and the making of the moral economy, Making Class and Self through Televised Ethical Scenarios. This project brings together many of the threads already apparent in Professor Skeggs' research, including the making of the exchange-value self, the emphasis that is placed on performing and telling one's self as a source of value and the class and race based challenges that are made through the construction of an alternative moral value system. This research project was part of a much larger research programme, 'Identities,' a £7million investigation into identity construction in contemporary Britain. http://www.identities.org.uk/ Professor Skeggs delivered one of the inaugural lectures for the programme. http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/identities/pdf/new_formations_of_spectatular_selves.pdf
A significant methodological contribution was made by this project, which utilized a multi-method approach that combined textual analysis with audience research, but which also showed how class relations are made in the research encounter when women authorize their own speech through recourse to cultural resources such as 'taste' and maternal authority (this is developed in their article on method in the 2008 European Journal of Cultural Studies and the ESRC research report).
Beverley Skeggs has also appeared in contributions to popular debates, such as the 1998 Channel 4 TV programme on 'Things to Come', exploring (with a comic twist) the future role of women.http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/programmes/analysis/transcripts/04_12_03.txt The BBC's Thinking Allowed radio programme also covered her work in 2003 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed_20030507.shtml) and again in 2008 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/thinkingallowed_20080917.shtml)
Julie Burchill interviewed Beverley Skeggs for the Sky TV programmes, 'Chavs' (2005); and 'Girl Power' (2007) (see You Tube).
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...
and studied at University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
(BA), Keele University
Keele University
Keele University is a campus university near Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as an experimental college dedicated to a broad curriculum and interdisciplinary study, Keele is most notable for pioneering the dual honours degree in Britain...
(PGCE, PhD). She has worked at Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education (Research Fellow), Worcester College of Higher Education (Sociology), University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
(Education and Women's Studies). From 1996 to 1999 she was Director of Women's Studies at Lancaster University
Lancaster University
Lancaster University, officially The University of Lancaster, is a leading research-intensive British university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established by Royal Charter in 1964 and initially based in St Leonard's Gate until moving to a purpose-built 300 acre campus at...
(with Celia Lury). In 1999 she was appointed to a Chair in Sociology at the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
, where she was Head of Department from 2001 - 2004. Since 2004 she has been Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. During 2007 she was the Kerstin Hesselgren Professor in Gender Studies at Stockholm University. In 2003 she was elected as an Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.
Key Studies
Beverley Skeggs is the author of the influential study Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable (1997), a longitudinal ethnography of subjectivity across the lives of women as they move from 'caring courses' to work and family, into sexuality and how they negotiate living class in the UK.http://www.sagepub.co.uk/booksProdDesc.nav?currTree=Subjects&level1=E00&prodId=Book206065 Translations of this work have appeared in Swedish and Finnish. The understandings of class in Formations were developed in Class, Self, Culture (2004), which explores the different ways class circulates as a form of value as it attaches to different bodies.http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=io7nS7BiXccC&dq=class,+self,+culture&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result Examining spaces for the production of values, such as the IMF, popular culture and academic theory, it puts to the test sociological theories which suggest that class is in decline. Her understanding of how the self is classed is developed through engagement with the works of Pierre BourdieuPierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...
. In Feminism After Bourdieu, co-edited by Skeggs and Lisa Adkins, feminists address Bourdieu's ideas on reflexivity, emotional capital, the self and the social and their relation to gender.
Her methodological approach was first elaborated in Feminist Cultural Theory: Production and Process(1995), an edited collection that brings together feminists from across disciplines (literature, film, design, media, law, sociology) to discuss how they went about producing their classic texts in cultural studies
Cultural studies
Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...
. In 1998 at Lancaster University, a group of feminists (of which Beverley Skeggs was a part) organized an international conference on feminist theory. The resulting book Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism (edited with Sara Ahmed
Sara Ahmed
Sara Ahmed is an Australian and British academic working at the intersection of feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory and postcolonialism. She was born in Salford, England to a Pakistani father and English mother, and emigrated to Adelaide, Australia with her family in 1973...
, Celia Lury, Jane Kilby and Maureen McNeil) includes chapters by Lauren Berlant
Lauren Berlant
Lauren Berlant is the George M. Pullman Professor of English at the University of Chicago, where she has been teaching since 1984. Berlant received her Ph.D. from Cornell University...
, Gayatri Spivak, Donna Haraway
Donna Haraway
Donna J. Haraway is currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States...
, Elspeth Probyn
Elspeth Probyn
Elspeth Probyn is the Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. She received her Doctorate in Communications from Concordia University, 1989. She lectures and publishes in fields including cultural studies, media studies and sociology, with a particular focus on food,...
, Lisa Adkins and Vikki Bell. The conference also spawned Routledge's 'Transformations' series, which includes a wide range of volumes on feminist theory, including the works of Kirsten Campbell, Breda Grey, Ann Cronin and Steph Lawler. A large scale government funded ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) research project with Professor Leslie Moran on the sustainability and experience of gay space resulted in the book Sexuality and the Politics of Violence and Safety. The book explores how violence can be used as a resource in political claims-making, thus challenging many theories on violence. The idea of gender and sexuality as resources that can be deployed, fixed or attached is developed in the article 'Uneasy Alignments, Resourcing Respectable Subjectivity'http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_lesbian_and_gay_studies/v010/10.2skeggs.html.
Numerous publications were generated from the sexuality project (see below). Another large research project was conducted by Beverley Skeggs (with Helen Wood, de Montfort University) between 2005-2007 on reality television and the making of the moral economy, Making Class and Self through Televised Ethical Scenarios. This project brings together many of the threads already apparent in Professor Skeggs' research, including the making of the exchange-value self, the emphasis that is placed on performing and telling one's self as a source of value and the class and race based challenges that are made through the construction of an alternative moral value system. This research project was part of a much larger research programme, 'Identities,' a £7million investigation into identity construction in contemporary Britain. http://www.identities.org.uk/ Professor Skeggs delivered one of the inaugural lectures for the programme. http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/identities/pdf/new_formations_of_spectatular_selves.pdf
A significant methodological contribution was made by this project, which utilized a multi-method approach that combined textual analysis with audience research, but which also showed how class relations are made in the research encounter when women authorize their own speech through recourse to cultural resources such as 'taste' and maternal authority (this is developed in their article on method in the 2008 European Journal of Cultural Studies and the ESRC research report).
Beverley Skeggs has also appeared in contributions to popular debates, such as the 1998 Channel 4 TV programme on 'Things to Come', exploring (with a comic twist) the future role of women.http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/programmes/analysis/transcripts/04_12_03.txt The BBC's Thinking Allowed radio programme also covered her work in 2003 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed_20030507.shtml) and again in 2008 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/thinkingallowed_20080917.shtml)
Julie Burchill interviewed Beverley Skeggs for the Sky TV programmes, 'Chavs' (2005); and 'Girl Power' (2007) (see You Tube).