Helen Holmes
Biographic Data
| ID | 3692760 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helen Holmes |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helen |
| FAMILY NAME | Holmes |
| SIGNATURE | HOLMES H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4918-2007 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 220 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Towards a circular economy of plastic
This article draws on a three-year interdisciplinary project exploring UK household waste to illuminate the crucial yet underexplored role of the household in improving recycling rates. We highlight the complexities in the UK recycling system and how the burden of managing these falls to the consumer and the household. The article’s novelty lies both empirically in our micro-level focus on household plastic disposal but also conceptually in our c…
Fly-tipping and the sociology of abandonment
This article addresses a prominent gap in sociological studies of consumption and disposal. Whilst waste and disposal studies have traditionally focused on the production of waste or its subsequent treatment at municipal disposal facilities, little has focused sociologically on waste outside of these confines, such as littering and fly-tipping. Focusing on the latter, this article makes an original contribution by drawing on fly-tipping to demons…
Sociology of Everyday Life in the Past and Future Uses of the Mass Observation Project
This article, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Sociological Research Online, explores the sociological uses of the Mass Observation Project (MOP) for the study of everyday life. Mass Observation has been entangled with British sociology since the growth of the movement in the early 20th century, but has found most use as an archive for historians. After a hiatus in the mid-20th century, MO was renewed in the 1980s, with a new panel of responde…
Domestic 'Disposal Work' and Plastics Recycling - Unwrapping Everyday Entanglements of Practice, Roles, and Responsibilities
This article is about household plastics recycling in England. Rates of recycling have stagnated across the country over the past decade. Fitting with an individualisation of responsibility across industry and policy, households commonly get the blame. We bring this framing into question through a conceptualisation and exploration of the 'disposal work' undertaken by households. This concerns the bundle of practices involved in the identification…
If God is a DJ
In this article we explore the revival of rave music in the UK, reporting original research findings and focusing, in particular, upon two emergent themes: (1) the lived experience of the ageing raver, and its embodied and collective nature; and (2) the changing role of the DJ. The article draws upon 15 in-depth interviews with both music professionals and ordinary participants who were part of the rave scene in the 1990s and who are now either r…
Changing understandings of waste reduction and avoidance in moralities of thrift
Neighbours, neighbouring and acquaintanceship
In 2012, David Morgan gave a talk titled ‘Neighbours, neighbouring and acquaintanceship: some further thoughts’ at the University of Turku, Finland. In this article we engage in dialogue with Morgan’s talk, as well as his 2009 book Acquaintances , in particular the observations he made about the simultaneous closeness and distance that characterises neighbouring relationships. We suggest that using the metaphors of elasticity and stickiness inste…
Mundane Methods
Collections have been associated with special consumption, consisting of items separated off from use (Belk, 1995), and yet houses are full of collections of objects which are often everyday and include both the used and the unused (Woodward and Greasley, 2015). This chapter explores how exploring these everyday collections is an approach which allows us to understand the complexities of everyday consumption, as we are able to explore the relatio…
Mundane Methods
Lost Property and the Materiality of Absence
This article explores material loss and develops a new conceptual agenda. Synthesising and developing debates on the sociology of consumption and material culture in combination with those of the sociology of nothing, it argues that material loss is crucial to understanding people’s everyday relationships to the material world and to practices of consumption. Abstract notions of absence, nothingness and loss are becoming increasingly intriguing p…
Introduction
At a time when nationalist sentiment is on the rise, this special issue takes stock of how sociology can contribute to understanding the past, present and future of nationalism. In contrast to declarations of 'the end of history', which was also meant to herald increasing integration due to a lowering of cultural and national barriers, nationalism never went away. The articles in this collection engage with the question of nationalism at a theore…
Unpicking contemporary thrift
This article explores contemporary thrift. To date scholarly attempts to define thrift are always focused on consumption, centring upon household finances and how thrift revolves around the peaks and troughs of spending and saving. In this article the author argues that this financial focus ignores the myriad of thrifty practices which occur beyond the point of purchase but which are no less central to thrift. Instead, the author suggests that co…
Michael Banton and Sociology
Professor Michael Banton died in May 2018 aged 91. His long career involved a decade at the University of Edinburgh in the Department of Social Anthropology before spending the rest of his career at the University of Bristol. In Bristol he was Professor of Sociology (1965–1992) and subsequently Emeritus Professor, during which time he remained deeply engaged in scholarly research and publication (see Obituaries). It seems a fitting tribute, in th…
Material Affinities
This article explores how mundane objects are passed on through kinship networks and how these practices become part of the 'doing' of family and kinship. Using Mason's concept of affinities, I illuminate four strands of material affinities, each of which illustrates how passed on objects can reproduce, imagine and memorialise kin connections both biological and social, and in and through time. Crucially, I argue that it is everyday objects in us…
Opening Up the Participation Laboratory
How to embed reflexivity in public participation in techno-science and to open it up to the agency of publics are key concerns in current debates. There is a risk that engagements become limited to "laboratory experiments," highly controlled and foreclosed by participation experts, particularly in upstream techno-sciences. In this paper, we propose a way to open up the "participation laboratory" by engaging localized, self-assembling publics in w…
Self-time
This article explores the experiences of temporality. It argues that experience of time is a key and undervalued feature of practice; a feature that furthers understandings of how practice becomes normalised. Practice theory advocates that experiences of time are experiences of practice. This article does not wish to refute this claim, rather it aims to extend it by exploring the complexities of the relationship between practice and temporality. …
New spaces, ordinary practices
In Tribute to Anne Donchin (1930–2014)
Interrogating the circular economy
The concept of the circular economy has gained increasing prominence in academic, practitioner and policy circles and is linked to greening economies and sustainable development. However, the idea is more often celebrated than critically interrogated. Analysis shows the concept circulates as an idea and ideal, exemplified by industrial symbiosis and extended product life. Yet, its actual enactment is limited and fragile. Instead, circular economi…
Transient craft
This article joins with Richard Sennett's (2008) reclamation of the craft worker, but also extends it. Through a focus on craft as experience and repetitive practice, Sennett reveals how craft is a key facet of several contemporary professions. Using the example of hairdressing, this article moves beyond Sennett's conclusions, illuminating how craft is at work within female-dominated service professions. The article adds to the growing body of li…
Twenty years of FAB
H did Anne Donchin and I (“Becky”) dream up, invent, or rather, conceive, FAB? It’s a strange story. We first met each other in 1984 in Sweden at a meeting of FINRET, a group soon to change its name to FINRRAGE (the Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering). Anne came experienced in philosophy and women’s studies; I came with degrees in biology and the experience of directing the EIRTAW conference in 19…
DNA fingerprints and rape
A Feminist Medical Ethics
how our need to control things (and people), our sometime urge to lord it over others, our inclination, even, to boost ourselves at the expense of those who are down on their luck, our occasional wish (to push matters further) to get a kick or two out of those who are suffering long and hard, all have a bearing on how we behave-the thoughts we have, the things we say, the decisions we make. In a bold, candid, lucid manner this book challenges the…
Seeing Ourselves
Openness, Fatherhood, and Responsibility
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Interrogating the circular economy
The concept of the circular economy has gained increasing prominence in academic, practitioner and policy circles and is linked to greening economies and sustainable development. However, the idea is more often celebrated than critically interrogated. Analysis shows the concept circulates as an idea and ideal, exemplified by industrial symbiosis and extended product life. Yet, its actual enactment is limited and fragile. Instead, circular economi…
New spaces, ordinary practices
Material Affinities
This article explores how mundane objects are passed on through kinship networks and how these practices become part of the 'doing' of family and kinship. Using Mason's concept of affinities, I illuminate four strands of material affinities, each of which illustrates how passed on objects can reproduce, imagine and memorialise kin connections both biological and social, and in and through time. Crucially, I argue that it is everyday objects in us…
Transient craft
This article joins with Richard Sennett's (2008) reclamation of the craft worker, but also extends it. Through a focus on craft as experience and repetitive practice, Sennett reveals how craft is a key facet of several contemporary professions. Using the example of hairdressing, this article moves beyond Sennett's conclusions, illuminating how craft is at work within female-dominated service professions. The article adds to the growing body of li…
Unpicking contemporary thrift
This article explores contemporary thrift. To date scholarly attempts to define thrift are always focused on consumption, centring upon household finances and how thrift revolves around the peaks and troughs of spending and saving. In this article the author argues that this financial focus ignores the myriad of thrifty practices which occur beyond the point of purchase but which are no less central to thrift. Instead, the author suggests that co…
Opening Up the Participation Laboratory
How to embed reflexivity in public participation in techno-science and to open it up to the agency of publics are key concerns in current debates. There is a risk that engagements become limited to "laboratory experiments," highly controlled and foreclosed by participation experts, particularly in upstream techno-sciences. In this paper, we propose a way to open up the "participation laboratory" by engaging localized, self-assembling publics in w…
Introduction
At a time when nationalist sentiment is on the rise, this special issue takes stock of how sociology can contribute to understanding the past, present and future of nationalism. In contrast to declarations of 'the end of history', which was also meant to herald increasing integration due to a lowering of cultural and national barriers, nationalism never went away. The articles in this collection engage with the question of nationalism at a theore…
A Call to Heal Medicine
Authors in this special Hypatia issue seem called to heal ethics, medicine, and the new field — medical ethics. After explaining why feminists should feel this calling, I group authors” contributions as responses to questions: 1. Why hasn't medical ethics already healed medicine? 2. What role should “caring” play? 3. Must we first heal science? 4. Are we calling health a virtue? 5. Why haven't the many medical ethics books helped? 6. How do our s…
Changing understandings of waste reduction and avoidance in moralities of thrift
Self-time
This article explores the experiences of temporality. It argues that experience of time is a key and undervalued feature of practice; a feature that furthers understandings of how practice becomes normalised. Practice theory advocates that experiences of time are experiences of practice. This article does not wish to refute this claim, rather it aims to extend it by exploring the complexities of the relationship between practice and temporality. …
If God is a DJ
In this article we explore the revival of rave music in the UK, reporting original research findings and focusing, in particular, upon two emergent themes: (1) the lived experience of the ageing raver, and its embodied and collective nature; and (2) the changing role of the DJ. The article draws upon 15 in-depth interviews with both music professionals and ordinary participants who were part of the rave scene in the 1990s and who are now either r…
Neighbours, neighbouring and acquaintanceship
In 2012, David Morgan gave a talk titled ‘Neighbours, neighbouring and acquaintanceship: some further thoughts’ at the University of Turku, Finland. In this article we engage in dialogue with Morgan’s talk, as well as his 2009 book Acquaintances , in particular the observations he made about the simultaneous closeness and distance that characterises neighbouring relationships. We suggest that using the metaphors of elasticity and stickiness inste…
Michael Banton and Sociology
Professor Michael Banton died in May 2018 aged 91. His long career involved a decade at the University of Edinburgh in the Department of Social Anthropology before spending the rest of his career at the University of Bristol. In Bristol he was Professor of Sociology (1965–1992) and subsequently Emeritus Professor, during which time he remained deeply engaged in scholarly research and publication (see Obituaries). It seems a fitting tribute, in th…
DNA fingerprints and rape
Rights over One's Own Body
This article reviews several different areas in health care for women in which conceptual and ideological problems arise because of the nature of the health care system. Initial attention is directed to how the very language that is used in health care policymaking and discussion is patriarchal in its origin and implication. The philosophical stance of the authors is illustrated with examples from the chemical and surgical manipulations of womens…
Rights over One's Own Body
This article reviews several different areas in health care for women in which conceptual and ideological problems arise because of the nature of the health care system. Initial attention is directed to how the very language that is used in health care policymaking and discussion is patriarchal in its origin and implication. The philosophical stance of the authors is illustrated with examples from the chemical and surgical manipulations of womens…
A Feminist Agenda on Reproductive Technology
Book reviewed in this article: The Custom-Made Child? Women-Centered Perspectives. Helen B. Holmes, Betty B. Hoskins, Michael Gross, editors
Birth Control and Controlling Birth
Birth Control and Controlling Birth
Birth Control and Controlling Birth
Reproductive Technologies: The Birth of a Women-Centered Analysis.- Ethics of Contraceptive Development and Deployment.- Historical Styles of Contraceptive Advocacy.- Ethical Problems in Government-Funded Contraceptive Research.- Value Conflicts in Biomedical Research into Future Contraceptives.- Status of Contraceptive Technology Development.- Women-Controlled Research.- Woman-Controlled Birth Control: A Feminist Analysis of Natural Birth Contro…
Surrogacy with IVF Carries Biological Risks
Can Clinical Research Be Both Ethical and Scientific? A Commentary inspired by Rosser and Marquis
Problems with clinical research that create conflicts between doctors’ therapeutic and research obligations may be fueled by a rigid view of science as determiner of truth, a heavy reliance on statistics, and certain features of randomized clinical trials. 1 suggest some creative, feminist approaches to such research and explore ways to provide choice for patients and to use values in directing both therapy and science — to enhance the effectiven…
A Call to Heal Medicine
Authors in this special Hypatia issue seem called to heal ethics, medicine, and the new field — medical ethics. After explaining why feminists should feel this calling, I group authors” contributions as responses to questions: 1. Why hasn't medical ethics already healed medicine? 2. What role should “caring” play? 3. Must we first heal science? 4. Are we calling health a virtue? 5. Why haven't the many medical ethics books helped? 6. How do our s…
Man-Made Women
Does Hypatia Rock Boats
This is a reply to Esther Frances's comment, “Some Thoughts on the Content of Hypatia,” in which she makes specific reference to the special issue on “Feminist Ethics and Medicine” which I edited
A Feminist Medical Ethics
how our need to control things (and people), our sometime urge to lord it over others, our inclination, even, to boost ourselves at the expense of those who are down on their luck, our occasional wish (to push matters further) to get a kick or two out of those who are suffering long and hard, all have a bearing on how we behave-the thoughts we have, the things we say, the decisions we make. In a bold, candid, lucid manner this book challenges the…
Seeing Ourselves
Openness, Fatherhood, and Responsibility
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
DNA fingerprints and rape
Twenty years of FAB
H did Anne Donchin and I (“Becky”) dream up, invent, or rather, conceive, FAB? It’s a strange story. We first met each other in 1984 in Sweden at a meeting of FINRET, a group soon to change its name to FINRRAGE (the Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering). Anne came experienced in philosophy and women’s studies; I came with degrees in biology and the experience of directing the EIRTAW conference in 19…
In Tribute to Anne Donchin (1930–2014)
Interrogating the circular economy
The concept of the circular economy has gained increasing prominence in academic, practitioner and policy circles and is linked to greening economies and sustainable development. However, the idea is more often celebrated than critically interrogated. Analysis shows the concept circulates as an idea and ideal, exemplified by industrial symbiosis and extended product life. Yet, its actual enactment is limited and fragile. Instead, circular economi…
Transient craft
This article joins with Richard Sennett's (2008) reclamation of the craft worker, but also extends it. Through a focus on craft as experience and repetitive practice, Sennett reveals how craft is a key facet of several contemporary professions. Using the example of hairdressing, this article moves beyond Sennett's conclusions, illuminating how craft is at work within female-dominated service professions. The article adds to the growing body of li…
New spaces, ordinary practices
Opening Up the Participation Laboratory
How to embed reflexivity in public participation in techno-science and to open it up to the agency of publics are key concerns in current debates. There is a risk that engagements become limited to "laboratory experiments," highly controlled and foreclosed by participation experts, particularly in upstream techno-sciences. In this paper, we propose a way to open up the "participation laboratory" by engaging localized, self-assembling publics in w…
Self-time
This article explores the experiences of temporality. It argues that experience of time is a key and undervalued feature of practice; a feature that furthers understandings of how practice becomes normalised. Practice theory advocates that experiences of time are experiences of practice. This article does not wish to refute this claim, rather it aims to extend it by exploring the complexities of the relationship between practice and temporality. …
Unpicking contemporary thrift
This article explores contemporary thrift. To date scholarly attempts to define thrift are always focused on consumption, centring upon household finances and how thrift revolves around the peaks and troughs of spending and saving. In this article the author argues that this financial focus ignores the myriad of thrifty practices which occur beyond the point of purchase but which are no less central to thrift. Instead, the author suggests that co…
Michael Banton and Sociology
Professor Michael Banton died in May 2018 aged 91. His long career involved a decade at the University of Edinburgh in the Department of Social Anthropology before spending the rest of his career at the University of Bristol. In Bristol he was Professor of Sociology (1965–1992) and subsequently Emeritus Professor, during which time he remained deeply engaged in scholarly research and publication (see Obituaries). It seems a fitting tribute, in th…
Material Affinities
This article explores how mundane objects are passed on through kinship networks and how these practices become part of the 'doing' of family and kinship. Using Mason's concept of affinities, I illuminate four strands of material affinities, each of which illustrates how passed on objects can reproduce, imagine and memorialise kin connections both biological and social, and in and through time. Crucially, I argue that it is everyday objects in us…
Mundane Methods
Collections have been associated with special consumption, consisting of items separated off from use (Belk, 1995), and yet houses are full of collections of objects which are often everyday and include both the used and the unused (Woodward and Greasley, 2015). This chapter explores how exploring these everyday collections is an approach which allows us to understand the complexities of everyday consumption, as we are able to explore the relatio…
Sociology (27 works) · Political science (15 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Social science (8 works) · Aesthetics (7 works) · Economics (7 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Reproductive Health and Technologies (7 works)