Jamie L Powell
Biographic Data
| ID | 227952 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jamie L Powell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jamie L |
| FAMILY NAME | Powell |
| SIGNATURE | POWELL J L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Liverpool |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9828-0877 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 45 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 75 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Globalization and Global Welfare: A Critical Excursion
Aging in Europe: Implications and Possibilities
Aging in Europe: Implications and Possibilities
New Perspectives on Health and Social Care
Sociology of Aging and Death
Comparative Aging and Qualitative Theorizing
The principal aim of this argument is to analyze the swift expansion in the proportion of older people across the globe, and to highlight the main social and economic forces causing this through methodological challenges especially through the lens of qualitative methodology. We recognize the enormity of the task. Drawing from a range of qualitative research studies provides enriched meanings about aging identity that can be used to shed light on…
Introduction To The Special Issue: Researching Aging and Comparative Reflections
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Financescapes
Globalization has created a phase in the social history of accelerating populational projections, with a dual tension between nation‐state‐based solutions which has brought a new nationalism through the election of President Donald J. Trump in 2016 in the United States and the alleged problems formulated by global institutions. Globalization is defined here as the social practice whereby nation‐states are influenced (and sometimes undermined) by …
The Irish Conflict” and the experiences of female ex-combatants in the Irish Republican Army: Power, resistance and subjectivity
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Irish Conflict, colloquially known as “The Troubles” and outline key moments of resistance for female political prisoners during their time at Armagh jail. The paper will situate the analysis within a Foucauldian framework drawing on theoretical tools for understanding power, resistance and subjectivity to contextual…
Rethinking Risk and Ageing: Extending Working Lives
This paper critically examines the development of recent policy and theoretical issues concerning the ‘extension of working lives’ for older people in the United Kingdom. It grounds its analysis in ideas from the ‘risk society’ thesis (Beck, 1992) to explore how the matrix of population ageing, job and pension changes impinge on the shifting emphasis on increasing the retirement age, coupled with individualising pensions from state provision to a…
The third sector and the global economic recession
This special issue puts the social policy spotlight on the third sector and the global economic recession. The array of seven papers explores this inter-relationship and levels of impact on different nation states across the world. Since 2008 to the present and given the complex nature of the world in which we live the economic crises has had a lasting legacy. The articles presented give intimation to the complexity of the crises and impact at di…
Power
Like all concepts in social science, power is a complex term. The literature on power is marked by a deep disagreement over the basic definition of power. Some theorists define power as getting someone else to do what you want them to do (power over), whereas others define it more broadly as an ability or a capacity to act (power to). Thomas Hobbes's definition of power as a person's “present means ... to obtain some future apparent Good” is a cl…
Physical Activity Patterns of Latina Immigrants Living in Alabama
Retracted: Social work, power and performativity
In recent years, there have been a number of epistemological developments in social work. Further, there have been a number of theoretical approaches that have attempted to ground the concept of ‘power’ to understand organizational practice such as Marxist thought. At the same time, the insights of French social theorist Michel Foucault have been captivating to the disciplinary development of social work in illuminating power relations and subjec…
The social and economic forces of global ageing in a global society
As we look forward into the mid-twenty-first century, demographers have forecasted quite remarkable increases in the general population of the globe, which will also be reflected in increasing ageing populations. This paper explores how globalisation and its structural economic and social forces throws into flux the policies and practices of individual nation-states to address social, economic and political issues for older people focusing on pen…
Foucault, Discourses of Death, and Institutional Power
This article is concerned with understanding the relationship of discourses of death with the social philosophy of Michel Foucault. Foucault's theoretical tools “make sense” of discourses of death in institutions such as care homes. While our responses to death and dying would seem to be very personal and therefore individually determined, they are, in fact, greatly influenced by the beliefs of individuals and “experts” who work in institutions p…
Doctoring Medical Governance: Medical Self-Regulation in Transition
Chamberlain, J.M . Doctoring Medical Governance: Medical Self-Regulation in Transition . New York : Nova Science Publishers , 2009 $79.00 (hbk ) 166 pp ISBN : 978-1-60876-119-7 There has been a raft of new books of late on the sociology of medicine. These have fallen into two main expositions: theory and practice; a demarcation of the ‘thinkers’ and the ‘doers’ of social research in relation to medical sociology. It would be fair to say that ther…
The Welfare State in Post-Industrial Society: A Global Perspective
Global ageing in comparative perspective: A critical discussion
Purpose The aims of this paper are to summarise the rapid expansion in the proportion of the elderly across the globe and to highlight the main factors causing this. Specific areas of the globe will be focused on in more detail before the authors discuss some of the key challenges and consequences of global ageing for global society. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a literature review of major trends and implications of population ageing…
Power and Social Work in the United Kingdom: A Foucauldian Excursion
This article explores relations of power in social work using insights drawn from the critical 'toolkit' emanating from work of French philosopher, Michel Foucault. The article discusses the relationship between Foucault's conceptual tools of 'knowledge and power', the emergence of 'the modern subject' and the concept of 'governmentality'. Despite ongoing pressures, professional expertise persists as a core element of neo-liberal government in th…
Social theory and emotion: Sociological excursions
Purpose Using the distinction between “private problems” and “public issues” derived from Mill's “sociological imagination”, this paper aims to assess how diverse social theory approaches problematise and define the ways in which social life is shaped and organised with regard to “emotions”. Design/methodology/approach The paper's approach is theoretical and novel in the interpretation of an under‐development theme in social theory, namely, that …
Understanding old age and victimisation: A critical exploration
Purpose The purpose of paper is to shine light on the under‐theorised relationship between old age and victmisation. In classical criminological studies, the relationship between “age”, victimisation and crime has been dominated by analysis of younger people's experiences. This paper aims to address this knowledge deficit by exploring older people's experiences by linking it to the social construction of vulnerability. Design/methodology/approach…
Power, Surveillance and Social Work in the United Kingdom
Understanding risk and old age in western society
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of “risk” in relation to old age. Ideas are explored linked with what has been termed as the “risk society” and the extent to which it has become part of the organizing ground of how we define and organise the “personal” and “social spaces” in which to grow old in western modernity. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical paper in three parts, including: an introduction to the relevanc…
Power Elite
As a concept, “power elite” can be defined as a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of power, wealth, and privilege and access to decision‐makers in a political system. In a pathbreaking book, Mills (1956) claims that the US power elite consists of elite members of society characterized by consensus building and the homogenization of viewpoints. This power elite has historically dominated the three major sectors of US soci…
Power and Social Work in the United Kingdom: A Foucauldian Excursion
This article explores relations of power in social work using insights drawn from the critical 'toolkit' emanating from work of French philosopher, Michel Foucault. The article discusses the relationship between Foucault's conceptual tools of 'knowledge and power', the emergence of 'the modern subject' and the concept of 'governmentality'. Despite ongoing pressures, professional expertise persists as a core element of neo-liberal government in th…
Performativity and helping professions: Social theory, power and practice
Drawing on Judith Butler's conception of ‘performativity’, we would argue that the notion has important implications for contemporary debates in international social welfare over agency, subjection and ‘resistance’. Professional social workers embedded in discursive institutions function according to particular expectations around performativity. In addition, this organisational context is complex with multiple demands. In light of technologies o…
Global ageing in comparative perspective: A critical discussion
Purpose The aims of this paper are to summarise the rapid expansion in the proportion of the elderly across the globe and to highlight the main factors causing this. Specific areas of the globe will be focused on in more detail before the authors discuss some of the key challenges and consequences of global ageing for global society. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a literature review of major trends and implications of population ageing…
Rethinking Risk and Ageing: Extending Working Lives
This paper critically examines the development of recent policy and theoretical issues concerning the ‘extension of working lives’ for older people in the United Kingdom. It grounds its analysis in ideas from the ‘risk society’ thesis (Beck, 1992) to explore how the matrix of population ageing, job and pension changes impinge on the shifting emphasis on increasing the retirement age, coupled with individualising pensions from state provision to a…
Ageing in the ‘Risk Society’
This article explores the concept of ‘risk’ that is both an epistemological tool and major facet of “late modernity” (Delanty, 1999). During the 1970s, the use of the notion ’risk’ was mainly confined to ‘natural sciences’, when the concept was used to analyse and improve the ‘security’ of technological systems (Giddens, 1990). According to Delanty (1999) it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that social science based ‘disciplines’ discovered the …
Trust”, professional power and social theory: Lessons from a post‐Foucauldian framework
Purpose This paper sets out to examine the relationship between trust and professional power in the context of post‐Foucauldian social theory. Understood in its micro‐political terms and conceived as impacting on individual identity and agency at a number of levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, organisational and macro levels. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual and theoretical approach. Findings The findings illustrate that the con…
Ageing, technologies of self and bio‐medicine: A Foucauldian excursion
This paper unravels the conceptual and theoretical insights of Foucault’s later work on technologies of self in order to understand Bio‐medicine which impinges on the social construction of ageing. The article attempts to show how Foucault’s theoretical insights allows scholars of sociology and social policy to provide a critical appraisal of ageing. The paper also examines the relationship between ageing and self‐care in three contextual domains…
Retracted: Social work, power and performativity
In recent years, there have been a number of epistemological developments in social work. Further, there have been a number of theoretical approaches that have attempted to ground the concept of ‘power’ to understand organizational practice such as Marxist thought. At the same time, the insights of French social theorist Michel Foucault have been captivating to the disciplinary development of social work in illuminating power relations and subjec…
Understanding risk and old age in western society
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of “risk” in relation to old age. Ideas are explored linked with what has been termed as the “risk society” and the extent to which it has become part of the organizing ground of how we define and organise the “personal” and “social spaces” in which to grow old in western modernity. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical paper in three parts, including: an introduction to the relevanc…
Unpacking performativity: A case study of patriarchy and the elderly in China
Purpose To analyse the relationship between China, patriachy, ageing, and social theory grounded in Judith Butler's notion of performativity. Design/methodology/approach This is a novel theoretical framework to examine instances of patriachal identities by using China as a case study. Findings Performativity, we suggest, offers productive insights into the processes of subjection and the nature of power relations that may be usefully incorporated…
Risk and youth: A critical sociological narrative
This paper considers the concept of risk as applied to an understanding of the nature and changing relationship between social welfare and youth in the United Kingdom. The paper begins by drawing on the sociological work of Ulrich Beck (1992) in order to examine how changes in modern society have led to what has been coined the “risk society”. An assessment is then made of historical narratives of social welfare which positioned younger individua…
The third sector and the global economic recession
This special issue puts the social policy spotlight on the third sector and the global economic recession. The array of seven papers explores this inter-relationship and levels of impact on different nation states across the world. Since 2008 to the present and given the complex nature of the world in which we live the economic crises has had a lasting legacy. The articles presented give intimation to the complexity of the crises and impact at di…
The social and economic forces of global ageing in a global society
As we look forward into the mid-twenty-first century, demographers have forecasted quite remarkable increases in the general population of the globe, which will also be reflected in increasing ageing populations. This paper explores how globalisation and its structural economic and social forces throws into flux the policies and practices of individual nation-states to address social, economic and political issues for older people focusing on pen…
Social theory and emotion: Sociological excursions
Purpose Using the distinction between “private problems” and “public issues” derived from Mill's “sociological imagination”, this paper aims to assess how diverse social theory approaches problematise and define the ways in which social life is shaped and organised with regard to “emotions”. Design/methodology/approach The paper's approach is theoretical and novel in the interpretation of an under‐development theme in social theory, namely, that …
Understanding old age and victimisation: A critical exploration
Purpose The purpose of paper is to shine light on the under‐theorised relationship between old age and victmisation. In classical criminological studies, the relationship between “age”, victimisation and crime has been dominated by analysis of younger people's experiences. This paper aims to address this knowledge deficit by exploring older people's experiences by linking it to the social construction of vulnerability. Design/methodology/approach…
Aging and Family Policy: A Sociological Excursion
The contemporary focus on family policy and old age has become increasingly important in social discourses on aging both within the discipline of Sociology and social policy practices of welfare institutions that attempt to define later life. Using the United Kingdom as a case study, sheds light on wider current trends associated with aging in United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. Social welfare is a pivotal domain where social discourses …
The Bio‐Medical Model and Ageing: Towards an Anti‐Reductionist Model
Anti‐reductionist social theory is a relatively ‘new’ but methodically eclectic body of theory which analyses the complexity of the tripartite theory, policy and practice. The work of Roger Sibeon (1996, 1999 and 2004) has contributed to a sensitising frame work in regard to a sociology of knowledge: generating epistemic narratives for theoretical construction and re‐construction, contrasting to a substantive sociology for knowledge based upon me…
Modernist’ Sociology in a ‘Postmodern’ World
This article looks at the problems Sociology has in theorising modern discourses in the light of the rise and consolidation of Postmodernism. The paper begins with an historical sketch of the emergence of Enlightenment and how its values helped to engender intellectual curiosity amongst the precursors of modernist sociological theorising. Indeed, the paper analyses how Sociology faces up to enlightenment thought and legacy via a critical analysis…
Disciplining Old Age: The Formation of Gerontological Knowledge
Towards a Globalization of Aging
This article locates an understanding of comparative grounding of aging through the theory of globalization. It reviews the trends of aging in various countries across the continents and points out important policy issues facing nation states with decreasing sovereignty in the face of various challenges brought about by globalization. The need to reconsider theorizing aging by exploring and integrating theories of globalization is highlighted
Disciplining Old Age: The Formation of Gerontological Knowledge
A Foucauldian Analysis of Old Age and the Power of Social Welfare
It is argued that the question of social welfare is a key, if often overlooked, component in the construction of power relations and identities in later life that can take its place next to debates on bioethics and consumer lifestyle. Foucault's (1977) claim, that identities are kept in place through the deployment of integrated systems of power and knowledge and a routine operation of surveillance and assessment, is critically examined in this c…
Surveillance and Morality: Revisiting the Education Reform Act (1988) in the United Kingdom
Recently, there has been an increased interest in British educational provision arising form the consequences of the Education Reform Act (1988). The ERA was pivotal insofar as it precipitated what has been a relentless neo-liberal political campaign to legitimise 'choice' for parents and place 'power' within Schools. However, the use of school technologies that focus on 'assessment' and 'inspection', can, in this policy climate, become a means o…
Risk and youth: A critical sociological narrative
This paper considers the concept of risk as applied to an understanding of the nature and changing relationship between social welfare and youth in the United Kingdom. The paper begins by drawing on the sociological work of Ulrich Beck (1992) in order to examine how changes in modern society have led to what has been coined the “risk society”. An assessment is then made of historical narratives of social welfare which positioned younger individua…
Ageing, technologies of self and bio‐medicine: A Foucauldian excursion
This paper unravels the conceptual and theoretical insights of Foucault’s later work on technologies of self in order to understand Bio‐medicine which impinges on the social construction of ageing. The article attempts to show how Foucault’s theoretical insights allows scholars of sociology and social policy to provide a critical appraisal of ageing. The paper also examines the relationship between ageing and self‐care in three contextual domains…
Older people and carceral institutions in the UK: A Foucauldian excursion
Drawing from Foucault’s methodological terms of archaeology and genealogy this article critically engages with understanding the inter‐relationship between old age and prison life.We draw out the relevance of a Foucauldian paradigm for investigating how penal discourses and actual prisoners experiences exemplify issues of power, knowledge and surveillance in institutional settings. We draw out how violence impinges on the lives of older people in…
"For Caesar's I Am": Henrician Diplomacy and Representations of King and Country in Thomas Wyatt's Poetry
This article reexamines the long-established connection between Thomas Wyatt's poetry and his experience as a diplomat in France and Italy in 1526 and 1527 and at the court of Emperor CharlesV between 1537 and 1540. Two diplomatic incidents-one from Wyatt's experience and another from the period of Henry VIII's divorce-are discussed in relation to the use of reported and ventriloquized speech in the performance and correspondence of Henrician dip…
Aging and Family Policy: A Sociological Excursion
The contemporary focus on family policy and old age has become increasingly important in social discourses on aging both within the discipline of Sociology and social policy practices of welfare institutions that attempt to define later life. Using the United Kingdom as a case study, sheds light on wider current trends associated with aging in United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. Social welfare is a pivotal domain where social discourses …
Reforms, rights or wrongs? A foucauldian exploration of the new mental health bill in the United Kingdom
This article deconstructs the hagiography surrounding British mental health policy and provides a critical analysis of the ‘New Labour’ Government reforms of the Mental Health Act 1983 grounded in Foucauldian insights. Smart (1985) suggests that a Foucauldian perspective deconstructs “common sense assumptions” that lie at the heart of policies formulated by the State. A cogent discussion grounded in Foucault’s work can illustrate how surveillance…
The Bio‐Medical Model and Ageing: Towards an Anti‐Reductionist Model
Anti‐reductionist social theory is a relatively ‘new’ but methodically eclectic body of theory which analyses the complexity of the tripartite theory, policy and practice. The work of Roger Sibeon (1996, 1999 and 2004) has contributed to a sensitising frame work in regard to a sociology of knowledge: generating epistemic narratives for theoretical construction and re‐construction, contrasting to a substantive sociology for knowledge based upon me…
Ageing in the ‘Risk Society’
This article explores the concept of ‘risk’ that is both an epistemological tool and major facet of “late modernity” (Delanty, 1999). During the 1970s, the use of the notion ’risk’ was mainly confined to ‘natural sciences’, when the concept was used to analyse and improve the ‘security’ of technological systems (Giddens, 1990). According to Delanty (1999) it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that social science based ‘disciplines’ discovered the …
Modernist’ Sociology in a ‘Postmodern’ World
This article looks at the problems Sociology has in theorising modern discourses in the light of the rise and consolidation of Postmodernism. The paper begins with an historical sketch of the emergence of Enlightenment and how its values helped to engender intellectual curiosity amongst the precursors of modernist sociological theorising. Indeed, the paper analyses how Sociology faces up to enlightenment thought and legacy via a critical analysis…
Performativity and helping professions: Social theory, power and practice
Drawing on Judith Butler's conception of ‘performativity’, we would argue that the notion has important implications for contemporary debates in international social welfare over agency, subjection and ‘resistance’. Professional social workers embedded in discursive institutions function according to particular expectations around performativity. In addition, this organisational context is complex with multiple demands. In light of technologies o…
Trust”, professional power and social theory: Lessons from a post‐Foucauldian framework
Purpose This paper sets out to examine the relationship between trust and professional power in the context of post‐Foucauldian social theory. Understood in its micro‐political terms and conceived as impacting on individual identity and agency at a number of levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, organisational and macro levels. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual and theoretical approach. Findings The findings illustrate that the con…
Unpacking performativity: A case study of patriarchy and the elderly in China
Purpose To analyse the relationship between China, patriachy, ageing, and social theory grounded in Judith Butler's notion of performativity. Design/methodology/approach This is a novel theoretical framework to examine instances of patriachal identities by using China as a case study. Findings Performativity, we suggest, offers productive insights into the processes of subjection and the nature of power relations that may be usefully incorporated…
Understanding risk and old age in western society
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of “risk” in relation to old age. Ideas are explored linked with what has been termed as the “risk society” and the extent to which it has become part of the organizing ground of how we define and organise the “personal” and “social spaces” in which to grow old in western modernity. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical paper in three parts, including: an introduction to the relevanc…
Power Elite
As a concept, “power elite” can be defined as a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of power, wealth, and privilege and access to decision‐makers in a political system. In a pathbreaking book, Mills (1956) claims that the US power elite consists of elite members of society characterized by consensus building and the homogenization of viewpoints. This power elite has historically dominated the three major sectors of US soci…
Gerontology
Gerontology can be defined as the scientific and social analysis of aging. The discipline of gerontology is concerned with understanding age and aging from a variety of perspectives and integrating information from different social science and human science disciplines such as psychology and sociology. The concern of gerontology is in the definition and theorization of age. In western societies a person's age is counted on a chronological or nume…
Power
Power is an “essentially contested and complex term” (Lukes 1974: 7) that cuts right across social science disciplines. The literature on power is marked by a deep disagreement over the basic definition of power. Some theorists define power as getting someone else to do what you want them to do (power over), whereas others define it more broadly as an ability or a capacity to act (power to). Thomas Hobbes's (1985 [1641]: 150) definition of power …
"Trust" and Professional Power: Towards a Social Theory of Self
Trust" and Professional Power: Towards a Social Theory of Self This paper sets out to delve into the relationship trust and professional authority in the context of health care. Understood in its micro-political terms and conceived as impacting on individualorganisational levels and the socio-political; this relationship stands at the interface of competingpressures working to produce the increasing complexity of social life. “Trust” is inextrica…
Social Theory, Performativity and Professional Power—A Critical Analysis of Helping Professions in England
Social Theory, Performativity and Professional Power—A Critical Analysis of Helping Professions in England Drawing from interviews and ethnographic research, evidence is provided to suggest a sense of "anxiety" and "regret" amongst state social workers and case managers working on the "front-line" within local authority social service departments. There have been a number of theoretical approaches that have attempted to ground the concept of "pow…
Social theory and emotion: Sociological excursions
Purpose Using the distinction between “private problems” and “public issues” derived from Mill's “sociological imagination”, this paper aims to assess how diverse social theory approaches problematise and define the ways in which social life is shaped and organised with regard to “emotions”. Design/methodology/approach The paper's approach is theoretical and novel in the interpretation of an under‐development theme in social theory, namely, that …
Understanding old age and victimisation: A critical exploration
Purpose The purpose of paper is to shine light on the under‐theorised relationship between old age and victmisation. In classical criminological studies, the relationship between “age”, victimisation and crime has been dominated by analysis of younger people's experiences. This paper aims to address this knowledge deficit by exploring older people's experiences by linking it to the social construction of vulnerability. Design/methodology/approach…
Power, Surveillance and Social Work in the United Kingdom
Sociology (37 works) · Political science (32 works) · Law (26 works) · Law (21 works) · Epistemology (19 works) · Politics (18 works) · Social science (15 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Medicine (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works)