N Charles
Biographic Data
| ID | 41050 |
|---|---|
| NAME | N Charles |
| GIVEN NAMES | N |
| FAMILY NAME | Charles |
| SIGNATURE | CHARLES N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Warwick |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4242-017X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 64 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 567 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 64 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1914 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
What can visual methods tell us? A study of therapy dogs’ work with British university students
Visual methods have attracted considerable attention as a way of exploring animals’ ways of being in the world. This paper investigates the benefits of visual methodologies for researching human-animal relations and, in particular, understanding dogs’ therapeutic work. The discussion is situated in the context of Shukin’s argument that this work is made possible by dogs’ feeling power and that dogs are subjects of governmentality. In a small stud…
Carol Wolkowitz remembered
De-centring the human: Multi-species research as embodied practice
This article focuses on embodiment and the centrality of embodied methods to multi-species research. We argue that taking the body as our methodological starting point is essential to researching human-animal relations but that bodies engage with and are engaged by the research process in a multiplicity of ways. In this we follow Vinciane Despret's analysis of the partial affinities between animal scientists' bodies and the animals they are resea…
Basically He's a Pet, Not a Working Dog: Theorising What Therapy Dogs Do in the Workplace
This article takes the case of therapy dogs who visit hospitals, care homes, schools and universities in Britain and asks whether we should conceptualise what they are doing as work. Marx defined the capacity to work as what sets humankind apart from other animals, but more recent analysts see similarities between animals and humans in their capacity to work. Animal work is often defined through training and the acquisition of skills; for therapy…
Imagine you are a Dog: Embodied Learning in Multi-Species Research
Based upon a multi-species ethnography of companion dog training in the UK, this paper examines the training class as a site of inter-species communication through which dogs and their humans are mutually affected and transformed. We argue that dog training represents an important form of multi-species learning in which participants (human trainer, trainee and canine) shape one another, jointly if asymmetrically, through the performance of partic…
Dogs at Work: Gendered Organizational Cultures and Dog-Human Partnerships
This chapter draws on research into the way dog training constructs the relationship between dog and human to explore how different organizational cultures shape dog-human working relationships. Using a gendered lens, it addresses the idea of partnership and how it develops through training in two contrasting organizational contexts in the UK: the police and an assistance dog charity. Both organizations recognize the importance of the dog-human p…
Becoming with a police dog: Training technologies for bonding
To develop and illustrate the potential for visual methodologies in conducting multispecies ethnography, we present a case study of general‐purpose police dog training in the UK. Our argument is two‐fold: first, we draw on STS approaches and insights for looking at training activities as material and socio‐cultural devices that, we argue, constitute a training technology. Here we have been influenced by the work of Cussins and adopted her concept…
Mutual Knowledge, Power, and Pleasure in Dog Training
Working mothers, injury and embodied care work
In this article, we examine how mothers respond when injury interrupts maternal care, using the lens of embodied care, which we conceptualize as a form of ‘body work’. We draw on findings from a qualitative research project with two organizations in Australia that help people with injuries to return to work, examining the experiences of workers who are also mothers of dependent children. Mothers' inability to care for children during periods of i…
Bringing dogs onto campus: Inclusions and exclusions of animal bodies in organizations
Since the early years of the 20 th century, work organizations have largely been places where animal bodies are absent or invisible. Recently, US and UK universities have facilitated therapy dog visits to improve students' wellbeing. In this article we analyse data on therapy dog visits to a UK university library as a starting point for thinking about other than human animals in organizations and the gendered dimensions of their inclusion and exc…
New British feminisms, UK Feminista and young women's activism
Over the past few years we have witnessed a sharp resurgence in feminist activism as young women have become increasingly interested in feminist ideas as a means of making sense of their lives. This resurgence in feminist practice is evidenced by the formation of myriad groups and networks across Britain and the initiation of various feminist projects and campaigns, reported regularly and widely in local and national media. This article examines …
The animal challenge to sociology
In this article, we ask why is it that sociology has been slow to take up the animal challenge, and ask what would happen if it did. We argue that sociology's fraught relationship with biology, its assumptions about human exceptionalism and its emergence in the context of industrialization and urbanization are key to understanding its lack of attention to animals and contribute to a limited conceptualization of society. This can be remedied by vi…
The Structure of Political Thought: A Study in The History of Political Ideas
Originally published in 1963, this classic book is a rethinking of the history of Western political philosophy. Charles N. R. McCoy contrasts classical-medieval principles against the "hypotheses" at the root of modern liberalism and modern conservativism.In Part I, "The Classical Christian Tradition from Plato to Aquinas," the author lays the foundation for a philosophical "structure" capable of producing "constitutional liberty." Part II, "The …
I'm a feminist, I'm not ashamed and I'm proud’: Young people's activism and feminist identities in Estonia, Spain and the UK
Written and spoken words: Representations of Animals and Intimacy
In this paper I explore the differences in the ways people write and talk about their relationships with animals, focusing on those they regard as kin and with whom they live. I draw on responses to the Animals and Humans Mass Observation directive, which was sent out in the summer of 2009, and 21 in-depth interviews with people who share their domestic space with animals. I suggest that writing about relationships with animals produces a particu…
Post-Human Families? Dog-Human Relations in the Domestic Sphere
In this article I explore the ways in which dogs and other companion species become family members and engage with the argument that this indicates the emergence of post-human families. Using empirical data from responses to a Mass Observation directive on Animals and Humans and in-depth interviews with people who share their homes with companion animals, I explore the ways in which humans and dogs live with each other and the 'daily practices of…
Animals Just Love You as You Are: Experiencing Kinship across the Species Barrier
This article explores how affective relationships between humans and animals are understood and experienced. It argues that, although the context of close relationships with pets has changed, affective relationships between humans and animals have a long history. The affinities between people and their pets are experienced as emotionally close, embodied and ethereal and are deeply embedded in family lives. They are understood in terms of kinship,…
Doing Gender, Practising Politics: Workplace Cultures in Local and Devolved Government
This paper takes a workplace perspective to explore the ways in which institutional arrangements influence the doing of gender and the practising of politics. It compares the workplace culture of the N ational A ssembly for W ales ( NAfW ) with that of local government in W ales, showing that the culture of the NAfW is experienced as less masculinized than local government and that women, and men, are less constrained to perform an aggressive, co…
Feminist politics and framing contests: Domestic violence policy in Scotland and Wales
Devolution in the UK in the 1990s resulted in newly gendered political opportunity structures for feminists seeking to influence the political agenda and pursue ‘women-friendly’ policy outcomes. There is, however, little work that compares jurisdictions across the UK. This paper provides a preliminary comparison of the politics of a classic feminist issue – domestic violence – in Scotland and Wales. We examine how, and with what effect, devolutio…
Animals, Agency and Resistance
In this paper we develop a relational approach to the question of animal agency. We distinguish between agency and action and, using three examples of non‐human animal behaviour, explore how human‐other animal interactions might be understood in terms of action, agency and resistance. In order to do this we draw on the distinction between primary and corporate agency found in the work of M argaret A rcher, arguing that, while non‐human animals ar…
Families, Communities and Social Change: Then and Now
At the beginning of the 1960s, Colin Rosser and Chris Harris worked together on a community study in Swansea, south Wales, UK. It explored how families, in particular extended families, had been affected by social change since the early years of the 20th century. The re-study, which began in 2001, investigated the nature of social change and how it had affected extended families in the four decades since 1960. Research that is framed in terms of …
Community Re-Studies and Social Change
Exaggerated Femininity and Tortured Masculinity: Embodying Gender in the Horseracing Industry
Most of the young people enrolling on modern apprenticeships in the horse racing industry are women and many hope to become jockeys. The majority of those who realise these ambitions are, however, men. This paper explores this process of attrition, focussing on gendered embodiment and its relation to the development of the bodily hexis and habitus characteristic of the racing field. We argue that women engage in the bodily labour of engenderment …
Human-Animal Connections: An Introduction
It is often observed that there is an ambivalence at the heart of human relations with other animals. This ambivalence is aptly represented in the chapters making up this collection which range from an exploration of close and intimate relations with companion animals to an investigation of the relations of exploitation and domination characterizing much human-other animal interaction. In this introductory chapter we explore some of the themes ra…
Gender, ethnicity and cultural identity: Womens ‘Places’
Animals Just Love You as You Are: Experiencing Kinship across the Species Barrier
This article explores how affective relationships between humans and animals are understood and experienced. It argues that, although the context of close relationships with pets has changed, affective relationships between humans and animals have a long history. The affinities between people and their pets are experienced as emotionally close, embodied and ethereal and are deeply embedded in family lives. They are understood in terms of kinship,…
My Family and Other Animals: Pets as Kin
The title of this paper gives a family-like character to animals and an animal-like character to the idea of family. It emphasises the close, family and friend-like relationships that can exist between human beings and the animals who share their domestic space. This type of relationship between humans and their pets emerged during a study of families and kinship and in this paper we draw on 193 in-depth interviews conducted in four contrasting a…
Animals, Agency and Resistance
In this paper we develop a relational approach to the question of animal agency. We distinguish between agency and action and, using three examples of non‐human animal behaviour, explore how human‐other animal interactions might be understood in terms of action, agency and resistance. In order to do this we draw on the distinction between primary and corporate agency found in the work of M argaret A rcher, arguing that, while non‐human animals ar…
The animal challenge to sociology
In this article, we ask why is it that sociology has been slow to take up the animal challenge, and ask what would happen if it did. We argue that sociology's fraught relationship with biology, its assumptions about human exceptionalism and its emergence in the context of industrialization and urbanization are key to understanding its lack of attention to animals and contribute to a limited conceptualization of society. This can be remedied by vi…
Post-Human Families? Dog-Human Relations in the Domestic Sphere
In this article I explore the ways in which dogs and other companion species become family members and engage with the argument that this indicates the emergence of post-human families. Using empirical data from responses to a Mass Observation directive on Animals and Humans and in-depth interviews with people who share their homes with companion animals, I explore the ways in which humans and dogs live with each other and the 'daily practices of…
He earns the bread and butter and I earn the cream: Job insecurity and the male breadwinner family in South Wales
This article explores the relation between job insecurity, male breadwinner ideology and family forms drawing on qualitative, in-depth interviews with women and men working in three organizations in a specific travel-to-work area in South Wales. We argue that a modified form of male breadwinner family is still widespread in this part of Britain, but that the elements that constitute male breadwinner ideology and the male breadwinner family are di…
Continuity and change in work-life balance choices
This paper explores the ways in which the work-life balance choices made by heterosexual couples differ in different generations, how such choices are gendered, and the extent to which 'individualization' provides an adequate conceptualization of the effects of social change on heterosexual couples. It argues that processes of individualization need to be seen in the context of changing social institutions, and that it is the de-institutionalizat…
Layered Meanings: The construction of ‘the family’ in the interview
Recent sociological inquiry into the family has focused on the decline of the male breadwinner family and the increasing diversity of family forms. Yet the term 'family' remains vague and assumes different meanings. This paper discusses the meanings of the term 'family' as it is used by interviewees in qualitative, in-depth interviews on family and kinship networks. The interviews were conducted as part of ethnographic fieldwork in a study of fam…
The Gender Dimensions of Job Insecurity in a Local Labour Market
Increasing job insecurity has been associated with the proliferation of nonstandard forms of employment. In order to explore this association, in-depth interviews with 55 women and 56 men were carried out in three different organizations in a local labour market in South Wales. The organizations were in manufacturing, retail and the public sector. The manufacturing organization was characterized by male, full-time employment while the others were…
Food for Feminist Thought
Women's relationship with food on a daily basis is contradictory and problematic. Women are expected to deny themselves food in order to remain sexually attractive and, at the same time, they have to feed their partners and children with healthy and nutritious meals. The power of ideologies equating sexual attractiveness with slimness means that most women are not happy with their body image. This dissatisfaction is reinforced by the comments of …
Studying the Particular, Illuminating the General: Community Studies and Community in Wales
This article is inspired by Frankenberg's (1990) claim that the best way to understand general social processes is through the study of their manifestation in the details of social life. We look at how studies of community that have been carried out in Wales, particularly Village on the Border and The Family and Social Change ( Rosser and Harris, 1965 ), have accomplished this link between the particular and the general. We then consider the find…
Gender and work orientations in conditions of job insecurity
This paper explores women's and men's work orientations in conditions of job insecurity, arguing that it is time to move beyond essentalist conceptions of work orientations and central life interests in order to understand the significance of paid work in people's lives. Data from a qualitative study are presented which show that the significance of paid work and the priority given to home and work are affected by experiences of job insecurity, c…
I just cope from day to day: Unpredictability and anxiety in the lives of women
Exaggerated Femininity and Tortured Masculinity: Embodying Gender in the Horseracing Industry
Most of the young people enrolling on modern apprenticeships in the horse racing industry are women and many hope to become jockeys. The majority of those who realise these ambitions are, however, men. This paper explores this process of attrition, focussing on gendered embodiment and its relation to the development of the bodily hexis and habitus characteristic of the racing field. We argue that women engage in the bodily labour of engenderment …
Eating Properly, the Family and State Benefit
In this paper we explore the relations between 'proper' eating and the family. In particular we are concerned to analyse the attitudes towards food and eating that are expressed by women who are dependent on the state for their basic needs, and the way in which these attitudes relate to food practices within their households. We demonstrate that families living on state benefit find it difficult to eat 'properly'; that is, they are unable to cons…
Imagine you are a Dog: Embodied Learning in Multi-Species Research
Based upon a multi-species ethnography of companion dog training in the UK, this paper examines the training class as a site of inter-species communication through which dogs and their humans are mutually affected and transformed. We argue that dog training represents an important form of multi-species learning in which participants (human trainer, trainee and canine) shape one another, jointly if asymmetrically, through the performance of partic…
Bringing dogs onto campus: Inclusions and exclusions of animal bodies in organizations
Since the early years of the 20 th century, work organizations have largely been places where animal bodies are absent or invisible. Recently, US and UK universities have facilitated therapy dog visits to improve students' wellbeing. In this article we analyse data on therapy dog visits to a UK university library as a starting point for thinking about other than human animals in organizations and the gendered dimensions of their inclusion and exc…
Age and Gender in Women's Accounts of Their Health: Interviews with Women in South Wales
In-depth interviews with 35 women in a working-class community in South Wales suggest that there are generational differences both in the ways women talk about health and in their health experiences. These are linked with women's differing social circumstances; changes over time in the ways in which health and ill health are explained; and the physical changes which are an unavoidable part of embodiment.The ability to perform their roles with res…
Disarming patriarchy: Feminism and political action at Greenham
Becoming with a police dog: Training technologies for bonding
To develop and illustrate the potential for visual methodologies in conducting multispecies ethnography, we present a case study of general‐purpose police dog training in the UK. Our argument is two‐fold: first, we draw on STS approaches and insights for looking at training activities as material and socio‐cultural devices that, we argue, constitute a training technology. Here we have been influenced by the work of Cussins and adopted her concept…
Feminist Politics, Domestic Violence and the State
This paper explores the relationship between feminist politics and the state around the issue of domestic violence. Its focus is the refuge movement in Wales. Feminist analyses of the state and feminist political practice identify the state as an important object of struggle. A particular form of feminist politics, the refuge movement, has engaged with the state while retaining its autonomy. It has been instrumental in effecting legal changes whi…
Written and spoken words: Representations of Animals and Intimacy
In this paper I explore the differences in the ways people write and talk about their relationships with animals, focusing on those they regard as kin and with whom they live. I draw on responses to the Animals and Humans Mass Observation directive, which was sent out in the summer of 2009, and 21 in-depth interviews with people who share their domestic space with animals. I suggest that writing about relationships with animals produces a particu…
Doing Gender, Practising Politics: Workplace Cultures in Local and Devolved Government
This paper takes a workplace perspective to explore the ways in which institutional arrangements influence the doing of gender and the practising of politics. It compares the workplace culture of the N ational A ssembly for W ales ( NAfW ) with that of local government in W ales, showing that the culture of the NAfW is experienced as less masculinized than local government and that women, and men, are less constrained to perform an aggressive, co…
The Piano in the Parlour: Methodological Issues in the Conduct of a Restudy
Although re-studies are relatively rare in sociological research, they can be very valuable resources for understanding social change. However, they also raise methodological questions about the validity of comparison given the inevitable changes in both social and analytical contexts during the period between the original and the re- study. This paper considers such methodological issues with reference to a major restudy in the area of family an…
I'm a feminist, I'm not ashamed and I'm proud’: Young people's activism and feminist identities in Estonia, Spain and the UK
Secretary Bryan’s Peace Plan
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Women, Shiftwork and the Sexual Division of Labour
Food for Feminist Thought
Women's relationship with food on a daily basis is contradictory and problematic. Women are expected to deny themselves food in order to remain sexually attractive and, at the same time, they have to feed their partners and children with healthy and nutritious meals. The power of ideologies equating sexual attractiveness with slimness means that most women are not happy with their body image. This dissatisfaction is reinforced by the comments of …
Eating Properly, the Family and State Benefit
In this paper we explore the relations between 'proper' eating and the family. In particular we are concerned to analyse the attitudes towards food and eating that are expressed by women who are dependent on the state for their basic needs, and the way in which these attitudes relate to food practices within their households. We demonstrate that families living on state benefit find it difficult to eat 'properly'; that is, they are unable to cons…
In Defence of Welfare (Book)
Women, Food, and Families
The Woman Question in Classical Sociological Theory
Gender Equity: An Integrated Theory of Stability and Change
Domestic violence, homelessness and housing: The response of housing providers in Wales
This article explores the impact of changes in government housing policy on the availability of refuge and move-on accommodation for women and children escaping domestic violence. The residualisation of council housing and the greater involvement of housing associ ations in the provision of social housing is discussed in the context of refuge provision in Wales. Refuge provision in partnership with hous ing associations is increasing. The provisi…
The Housing Needs of Women and Children Escaping Domestic Violence
This article discusses the experiences of women and children who become homeless as a result of domestic violence and assesses the extent to which their need for housing, both temporary and permanent, is being met within Wales. It explores women's experiences of living in and moving on from refuges. Refuge provision in Wales is not sufficient to meet the demand for refuge spaces. However, for those women and children who are accommodated in refug…
Practising Feminism: Identity, Difference, Power
In Practising Feminism, contributors drawn from a range of backgrounds in anthropology, sociology and social psychology, explore different ways of practising feminism and their effect on gendered identities. The contributors examine feminism and gender identities in different cultures, feminism as a politics of transformation, the call for recognition of heterosexuality as a politicised identity, the practical role of feminism in nationalist stru…
Feminist Politics, Domestic Violence and the State
This paper explores the relationship between feminist politics and the state around the issue of domestic violence. Its focus is the refuge movement in Wales. Feminist analyses of the state and feminist political practice identify the state as an important object of struggle. A particular form of feminist politics, the refuge movement, has engaged with the state while retaining its autonomy. It has been instrumental in effecting legal changes whi…
Disarming patriarchy: Feminism and political action at Greenham
I just cope from day to day: Unpredictability and anxiety in the lives of women
Contested Communities: The Refuge Movement and Cultural Identities in Wales
This paper explores different meanings of community and cultural identity. Women involved in the refuge movement in rural Wales belong to overlapping communities: geographically located rural communities; linguistic and ethnic communities; and the gendered and occupationally based community of Welsh Women's Aid. Language is an important marker of belonging to Welsh rural communities which are under threat from an influx of non-Welsh speakers. Inc…
Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork
Food, Health and Identity
Age and Gender in Women's Accounts of Their Health: Interviews with Women in South Wales
In-depth interviews with 35 women in a working-class community in South Wales suggest that there are generational differences both in the ways women talk about health and in their health experiences. These are linked with women's differing social circumstances; changes over time in the ways in which health and ill health are explained; and the physical changes which are an unavoidable part of embodiment.The ability to perform their roles with res…
Gender, Ethnicity and Political Ideologies
The Politics of Women's Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy
Cultural Stereotypes and the Gendering of Senior Management
This paper asks whether place is significant in understanding the gendering of senior management and how it might be integrated into existing theories. Drawing on interviews and focus group discussions with women and men in senior management in Wales, it compares the gendering of senior management in Wales with other regions of the UK. The situation in Wales is explained by the historical legacy of a peripheral economy dependent on male-dominated…
The Piano in the Parlour: Methodological Issues in the Conduct of a Restudy
Although re-studies are relatively rare in sociological research, they can be very valuable resources for understanding social change. However, they also raise methodological questions about the validity of comparison given the inevitable changes in both social and analytical contexts during the period between the original and the re- study. This paper considers such methodological issues with reference to a major restudy in the area of family an…
Gender and work orientations in conditions of job insecurity
This paper explores women's and men's work orientations in conditions of job insecurity, arguing that it is time to move beyond essentalist conceptions of work orientations and central life interests in order to understand the significance of paid work in people's lives. Data from a qualitative study are presented which show that the significance of paid work and the priority given to home and work are affected by experiences of job insecurity, c…
The Gender Dimensions of Job Insecurity in a Local Labour Market
Increasing job insecurity has been associated with the proliferation of nonstandard forms of employment. In order to explore this association, in-depth interviews with 55 women and 56 men were carried out in three different organizations in a local labour market in South Wales. The organizations were in manufacturing, retail and the public sector. The manufacturing organization was characterized by male, full-time employment while the others were…
Feminist Politics and Devolution: A Preliminary Analysis
This article explores developments in Wales consequent to devolution and the election of a legislative body where 50 percent of the representatives are women. Using social movement theory, it explores how the new gendering of political and discursive opportunity structures has affected social policies and the ability of social movements, specifically the domestic violence refuge movement, to influence policy. It concludes that although new opport…
Sociology (51 works) · Political science (38 works) · Psychology (33 works) · Gender Studies (26 works) · Law (23 works) · Gender Studies (17 works) · Anthropology (16 works) · Law (16 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Social science (15 works)