Programme full

Stream Plenaries and Special Sessions
THURSDAY 15 APRIL 2015 09:30-10:30
mixed race/ethnicity children, including considerations of whether and how things have changed over the past half a
century and developing new agendas to take forward in thinking about mixedness and mixing. Another strand of her
research has documented/tracked the meanings, experiences and flows of prescribed (sibling) and chosen
(friendship) relationships for children and young people, and how these relate to their sense of self as their individual
and family biographies unfold. Rosalind is also currently developing an historical comparative analysis around family
issues Drawing on this body of work, her plenary talk will address the overall conference theme of Societies in
Transition: Progression or Regression?
Law, Crime and Rights
A005, GOVAN MBEKI BUILDING
VIOLENCE AGAINST SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN
In this Stream Plenary President of the International Sociological Association (ISA), Professor Margaret Abraham,
from New York, will speak on her research centred on violence against South Asian women. Margaret’s work lends
itself to the theme of ‘societies in transition: progression or regression’ since gender based violence is such an
important part of debates about progress or regress. There are major debates as to whether violence against women
is increasing as a result of either backlash or the crisis; or whether the evidence of a significant decline is robust.
Positioning this issue of gendered progress or regress in the context of transnational debates offers a major
contribution to the conference.
Medicine, Health and Illness
C236, CHARLES OAKLEY BUILDING
PUBLIC HEALTH, NEO-LIBERALISM AND HEALTH INEQUALITIES
In this talk, Paul Bissell reflects on the one of the ironies of contemporary public health policy and practice in its
engagement with form of evidence around the social shaping of unequal health outcomes. Public health, with its
epistemological roots in the discipline of social epidemiology, now increasingly privileges explanations for the social
gradient in health with reference to evidence of the extent of social inequality, particularly income inequality. Whilst the
mobilization of this evidence has been highly successful in terms of galvanising public debate about the deleterious
health and social impacts of inequality, it comes at a time when there is relatively little engagement between social
epidemiology and the discipline of medical sociology, which historically and currently has much to offer those
interested in understanding how inequality shapes health. In particular, there is now growing interest and scholarship
in medical sociology on how neo-liberal practices discourses and practices might differentially impact the body.
Paul Bissell summarises this literature and argues for greater rapprochement between epidemiology, public health
and medical sociology. Drawing on some recent work exploring shame and dependency, he explores some of the
avenues for critical dialogue – and the tensions – that a focus on neo-liberal practices and discourses may bring to
debates about the causes of health inequalities.
Why Everyday Life Matters
Back, L.
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Sociology Special Issue 2015 Event
W622, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
SOCIOLOGIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Migrant Urbanisms: Ordinary Cities and Everyday Resistance
Hall, S.
(London School of Economics and Political Science)
BSA Annual Conference 2015 36
Glasgow Caledonian University