Alex Simpson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3736208 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Simpson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Simpson |
| SIGNATURE | SIMPSON A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macquarie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2654-7058 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 68 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Sounds of fear
This article examines how sound shapes fear and perceptions of safety in the built environment, arguing for the integration of sonic dimensions into criminological research. Drawing on recontextualised qualitative data, supplemented by audio field recordings and photographs, we revisit participant-identified sites to explore how auditory cues mediate experiences of unease and security. Methodologically, the article advances an innovative, partici…
Gendering Place and Affect
I’ve seen people on the train, like really weird people’ hauntological reflections on the fear of crime
By exploring the hauntological dimensions of fear of crime, this article proposes that this phenomenon exists as an ontological absence that manifests through the spectacle of crime’s imaginary, shaping thoughts, emotions, and movements. In so doing, we highlight fear of crime’s alignment with Fisher’s concept of the eerie – a presence that at once indicates an absence and an object that points to nothing beyond itself. Building on this foundatio…
A relational approach to the ethnographic study of power in the context of the city of London
The immersive ethnographic tradition has strong potential to contribute to a deeper sociological understanding of the construction, maintenance and processes of powerful groups. However, ethnography as a method - and sociology as a discipline - has tended to focus more on developing techniques and toolkits for studying what Bourdieu and Wacquant call a "poverty population" rather than elites systems of power. In response, this article builds a mu…
Hauntological cinema
Through a hauntological analysis of Boots Riley's Afrosurrealist comedy, Sorry to Bother You (2018), we explore how fiction can empower sociologists to think beyond the limits of empiricism to better encounter experiences of erasure and senses of temporal disjuncture that characterise capitalist realism. The panoramic power of cinematic world-building enables representations of the ontologically reified but empirically elusive atmosphere of capit…
Harm Production and the Moral Dislocation of Finance in the City of London
‘All that is Solid Melts into Air’
Law, insecurity and risk control
As the title suggests, John Pratt’s latest work is about risk and its shifting, almost amorphic, role in Anglophone societies. By charting the emergence and development of neoliberal governance, fr
Data as Process
Adopting a strong process perspective, this chapter seeks to problematize the way in which data are typically conceived in the information sciences and in contemporary organizational discourse. Drawing on evidence from an ongoing multidisciplinary study of data reuse in acute healthcare we argue that, contrary to the prevalent conception of data as a fundamental, natural resource that exists “out there” in the world, data are constituted through …
Establishing a Disciplining Financial Disposition in the City of London
Examining the strategies, investments and values employed by finance workers in the City of London, this article draws on interview and ethnographic data to develop a culturally dominant 'financial disposition'. Manifesting as an overarching strategy of discipline, and identifying the interlocking performative values of resilience, speed and intelligence, the findings articulate how finance workers invest in a system of practical and cognitive so…
Embodying” dirty work
This article reviews the growing literature on dirty work, i.e., work that is seen as disgusting or degrading and argues for a more “embodied” understanding of such work. It points to a tendency in the literature to focus on the nature of the task or role and on social and moral dimensions of the work at the expense of its material and embodied aspects. The latter are discussed through three, interrelated themes: “embodied suitability” whereby fo…
Beyond the symbolic
Drawing on a relational approach and based on an ethnographic study of street cleaners and refuse collectors, we redress a tendency towards an overemphasis on the discursive by exploring the co-constitution of the material and symbolic dynamics of dirt. We show how esteem-enhancing strategies that draw on the symbolic can be both supported and undermined by the physicality of dirt, and how relations of power are rooted in subordinating material c…
Masculinity and Class in the Context of Dirty Work
Through an ethnographic study of ‘dirty work’ (refuse collection and street cleaning), this article explores how masculinity and class intersect — how, in a mutually constitutive sense, they produce attitudes and practices, strengths and vulnerabilities, which are shaped by shifting relations of privilege and power. We find resistance to class subordination through adherence to traditional forms of masculinity and through esteem‐enhancing social …
A Four-Step Process to Studying the Field through the City of London
Future avenues and challenges of exploring complex personhood
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer an account of the personal experiences of being involved with the journal of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management , to review the themes and issues stemming from the work that the authors think most pertinent, and to highlight those topics that the authors consider to contain the greatest future promise and potential. Design/methodology/approach – Reflective piece. Findings – The pie…
The use of ethnography to explore meanings that refuse collectors attach to their work
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to detail how the ethnographic approach can be usefully adopted in the context of researching dirty or undesirable work. Drawing on a study of refuse collectors, it shows how ethnography can enable a fuller social articulation of the experiences and meanings of a social group where conventional narrative disclosure and linguistic expression may be insufficient. Design/methodology/approach Viewing ethnography a…
Transporting Lazarus
In 1966, morticians provided 50 percent of ambulance services in the United States; today advanced care by trained medical professionals en route to the hospital is considered a basic standard of care. The creation of emergency medical services (EMS) provides an important case study for how physicians acting as "experts" helped to shape the creation of federal policy in the post-World War II years. This paper challenges a narrative of the develop…
Lessons from photoelicitation
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities of incorporating such visual methods as photoelicitation and photovoice into qualitative research, in order to retrieve something that, as a result of particular group socialisation, has been hidden, unspoken of or marginalised. Design/methodology/approach The research design combines 40 in‐depth verbal interviews with male butchers, with the use of photoelicitation and photovoice,…
Masculinity and Class in the Context of Dirty Work
Through an ethnographic study of ‘dirty work’ (refuse collection and street cleaning), this article explores how masculinity and class intersect — how, in a mutually constitutive sense, they produce attitudes and practices, strengths and vulnerabilities, which are shaped by shifting relations of privilege and power. We find resistance to class subordination through adherence to traditional forms of masculinity and through esteem‐enhancing social …
Beyond the symbolic
Drawing on a relational approach and based on an ethnographic study of street cleaners and refuse collectors, we redress a tendency towards an overemphasis on the discursive by exploring the co-constitution of the material and symbolic dynamics of dirt. We show how esteem-enhancing strategies that draw on the symbolic can be both supported and undermined by the physicality of dirt, and how relations of power are rooted in subordinating material c…
A Four-Step Process to Studying the Field through the City of London
Establishing a Disciplining Financial Disposition in the City of London
Examining the strategies, investments and values employed by finance workers in the City of London, this article draws on interview and ethnographic data to develop a culturally dominant 'financial disposition'. Manifesting as an overarching strategy of discipline, and identifying the interlocking performative values of resilience, speed and intelligence, the findings articulate how finance workers invest in a system of practical and cognitive so…
Transporting Lazarus
In 1966, morticians provided 50 percent of ambulance services in the United States; today advanced care by trained medical professionals en route to the hospital is considered a basic standard of care. The creation of emergency medical services (EMS) provides an important case study for how physicians acting as "experts" helped to shape the creation of federal policy in the post-World War II years. This paper challenges a narrative of the develop…
I’ve seen people on the train, like really weird people’ hauntological reflections on the fear of crime
By exploring the hauntological dimensions of fear of crime, this article proposes that this phenomenon exists as an ontological absence that manifests through the spectacle of crime’s imaginary, shaping thoughts, emotions, and movements. In so doing, we highlight fear of crime’s alignment with Fisher’s concept of the eerie – a presence that at once indicates an absence and an object that points to nothing beyond itself. Building on this foundatio…
Hauntological cinema
Through a hauntological analysis of Boots Riley's Afrosurrealist comedy, Sorry to Bother You (2018), we explore how fiction can empower sociologists to think beyond the limits of empiricism to better encounter experiences of erasure and senses of temporal disjuncture that characterise capitalist realism. The panoramic power of cinematic world-building enables representations of the ontologically reified but empirically elusive atmosphere of capit…
Lessons from photoelicitation
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities of incorporating such visual methods as photoelicitation and photovoice into qualitative research, in order to retrieve something that, as a result of particular group socialisation, has been hidden, unspoken of or marginalised. Design/methodology/approach The research design combines 40 in‐depth verbal interviews with male butchers, with the use of photoelicitation and photovoice,…
Transporting Lazarus
In 1966, morticians provided 50 percent of ambulance services in the United States; today advanced care by trained medical professionals en route to the hospital is considered a basic standard of care. The creation of emergency medical services (EMS) provides an important case study for how physicians acting as "experts" helped to shape the creation of federal policy in the post-World War II years. This paper challenges a narrative of the develop…
The use of ethnography to explore meanings that refuse collectors attach to their work
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to detail how the ethnographic approach can be usefully adopted in the context of researching dirty or undesirable work. Drawing on a study of refuse collectors, it shows how ethnography can enable a fuller social articulation of the experiences and meanings of a social group where conventional narrative disclosure and linguistic expression may be insufficient. Design/methodology/approach Viewing ethnography a…
Future avenues and challenges of exploring complex personhood
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer an account of the personal experiences of being involved with the journal of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management , to review the themes and issues stemming from the work that the authors think most pertinent, and to highlight those topics that the authors consider to contain the greatest future promise and potential. Design/methodology/approach – Reflective piece. Findings – The pie…
Masculinity and Class in the Context of Dirty Work
Through an ethnographic study of ‘dirty work’ (refuse collection and street cleaning), this article explores how masculinity and class intersect — how, in a mutually constitutive sense, they produce attitudes and practices, strengths and vulnerabilities, which are shaped by shifting relations of privilege and power. We find resistance to class subordination through adherence to traditional forms of masculinity and through esteem‐enhancing social …
A Four-Step Process to Studying the Field through the City of London
Beyond the symbolic
Drawing on a relational approach and based on an ethnographic study of street cleaners and refuse collectors, we redress a tendency towards an overemphasis on the discursive by exploring the co-constitution of the material and symbolic dynamics of dirt. We show how esteem-enhancing strategies that draw on the symbolic can be both supported and undermined by the physicality of dirt, and how relations of power are rooted in subordinating material c…
Embodying” dirty work
This article reviews the growing literature on dirty work, i.e., work that is seen as disgusting or degrading and argues for a more “embodied” understanding of such work. It points to a tendency in the literature to focus on the nature of the task or role and on social and moral dimensions of the work at the expense of its material and embodied aspects. The latter are discussed through three, interrelated themes: “embodied suitability” whereby fo…
Data as Process
Adopting a strong process perspective, this chapter seeks to problematize the way in which data are typically conceived in the information sciences and in contemporary organizational discourse. Drawing on evidence from an ongoing multidisciplinary study of data reuse in acute healthcare we argue that, contrary to the prevalent conception of data as a fundamental, natural resource that exists “out there” in the world, data are constituted through …
Establishing a Disciplining Financial Disposition in the City of London
Examining the strategies, investments and values employed by finance workers in the City of London, this article draws on interview and ethnographic data to develop a culturally dominant 'financial disposition'. Manifesting as an overarching strategy of discipline, and identifying the interlocking performative values of resilience, speed and intelligence, the findings articulate how finance workers invest in a system of practical and cognitive so…
Harm Production and the Moral Dislocation of Finance in the City of London
‘All that is Solid Melts into Air’
Law, insecurity and risk control
As the title suggests, John Pratt’s latest work is about risk and its shifting, almost amorphic, role in Anglophone societies. By charting the emergence and development of neoliberal governance, fr
Hauntological cinema
Through a hauntological analysis of Boots Riley's Afrosurrealist comedy, Sorry to Bother You (2018), we explore how fiction can empower sociologists to think beyond the limits of empiricism to better encounter experiences of erasure and senses of temporal disjuncture that characterise capitalist realism. The panoramic power of cinematic world-building enables representations of the ontologically reified but empirically elusive atmosphere of capit…
Gendering Place and Affect
I’ve seen people on the train, like really weird people’ hauntological reflections on the fear of crime
By exploring the hauntological dimensions of fear of crime, this article proposes that this phenomenon exists as an ontological absence that manifests through the spectacle of crime’s imaginary, shaping thoughts, emotions, and movements. In so doing, we highlight fear of crime’s alignment with Fisher’s concept of the eerie – a presence that at once indicates an absence and an object that points to nothing beyond itself. Building on this foundatio…
A relational approach to the ethnographic study of power in the context of the city of London
The immersive ethnographic tradition has strong potential to contribute to a deeper sociological understanding of the construction, maintenance and processes of powerful groups. However, ethnography as a method - and sociology as a discipline - has tended to focus more on developing techniques and toolkits for studying what Bourdieu and Wacquant call a "poverty population" rather than elites systems of power. In response, this article builds a mu…
Sounds of fear
This article examines how sound shapes fear and perceptions of safety in the built environment, arguing for the integration of sonic dimensions into criminological research. Drawing on recontextualised qualitative data, supplemented by audio field recordings and photographs, we revisit participant-identified sites to explore how auditory cues mediate experiences of unease and security. Methodologically, the article advances an innovative, partici…
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (10 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Ethnography (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Politics (5 works)