Programme full

Stream Plenaries and Special Sessions
FRIDAY 17 APRIL 2015 17:00-18:00
Discussant: Gary Pollock (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Chair: Helene Snee (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Sociology of Religion
M137, GEORGE MOORE BUILDING
RELIGION IN TRANSITION
In line with the conference theme ‘Societies in Transition: Progression or Regression?” we aim to emphasise the
important contribution made by the sociology of religion to our understanding and evaluation of societal change. Our
stream-plenary speaker is at the forefront of research on the changing role of religion in public and private life in
twentieth- and twenty-first century Britain.
Bruce, S.
(University of Aberdeen)
Professor Steve Bruce has been Professor of Sociology at Aberdeen since 1991, and was elected a Fellow of the
British Academy in 2003. He has published widely on the relationship between religion and politics in Britain and is a
leading theorist and historian of secularization. His recent books include Why are Women More Religious than Men?
(with Marta Trzebiatowska, OUP 2012), Politics and Religion in the United Kingdom (Routledge 2012) and
Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory (OUP 2011).
Theory
W110, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
THE CHALLENGE OF THE RICH: THEORISING THE POWER AND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ELITES AND
ELITE WEALTH
Sociologists have long been interested in theories of class. But have they paid sufficient attention to structural
changes in political economy that have led to an increasing gap between economic elites and the rest? Evidence
from the fields of geography, sociology and economics suggests that, in important ways, current inequality levels may
be rendering social life more akin to the 19th century in terms of class divides, increasingly meagre state support for
housing and subsistence needs, and growing ideological support for forced labour schemes. However, partly inspired
by Bourdieu’s work, sociological investigations of class in recent years have typically placed more emphasis on the
lived experience of class from a cultural perspective. This plenary is part of an attempt to rebalance debates by
focusing on the economic elites – the rich – and their role in promoting economic inequality. Our plenary speakers,
Professor Julie Froud and Professor Andrew Sayer, are thinkers who are working to rejuvenate the study of elites by
exploring how they generate their wealth, and the consequences of the inequality that results. The plenary talks will
explore issues such as how elite power involves a capture of the political agenda and how elite wealth is produced by
the control of resources which generate unearned income.
Froud, J.
(University of Manchester)
Sayer, A.
(Lancaster University)
BSA Annual Conference 2015 40
Glasgow Caledonian University