G M Thomas
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 23174 |
|---|---|
| NOME | G M Thomas |
| PRENOMES | G M |
| SOBRENOME | Thomas |
| ASSINATURA | THOMAS G M |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4959-2337 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 32 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 80 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 31 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1962 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Reconciling Goffman and Disability Studies
Erving Goffman cuts a divisive figure in disability studies. Some criticize his conception of “stigma” as deviance‐focused and as ignoring structural forces that shape personal encounters. Others praise his recognition of stigma as an interactional phenomenon. Drawing on research with parents of learning‐disabled adults, I conceptualize stigma in interactionist (Goffman‐inspired) and structural (disability‐studies‐inspired) terms. Parents reflect…
Alive and kicking
Older people's participation in sport, and particularly in ‘adapted’ sporting activities, is rarely subject to sociological attention. In this article, I draw upon 65 interviews with older people playing walking football, an adapted version of running football (or soccer) widely endorsed as a safe, sociable, and inclusive physical activity in later life. Informed by a nascent research base demonstrating how older people can use sport to reclaim t…
Opening reflexive spaces
The value of maps in geographical and social-scientific research as tools that afford imaginative aesthetic engagement with research topics has become increasingly recognised. We explore here, for the first time, the value of these affordances for interviewing experts. In particular, the imaginative engagement maps can provide may help unsettle routines of thought, and invite reflexivity towards the assumptions on which expert knowledge may rest.…
The boots will be on the coffin
A narrative of decline dominates the ageing process in the Global North. At the same time, older people have shared more positive stories of ageing, particularly with respect to their leisure practices. I explore this tension by drawing on an interview-based study with people playing walking football in the United Kingdom. My contention is that older people express multiple meanings of ageing that disturb deficit-focused cultural scripts of later…
New Editorial Team
The Dark Side of (Later-Life) Leisure
Leisure is heralded as a channel for connection, belonging, and inclusion in later-life, particularly owing to a presumed threat of isolation and loneliness. Yet, such a framing of later-life leisure risks obscuring moments of conflict and marginalization. Drawing on interviews with 65 people who play walking football, this article explores how players praise its “inclusive” ethic by asserting and celebrating open recruitment policies, the partic…
Can You Tell Me What Ethics Means?’
Accounts of doing ‘inclusive research’ – in which people with learning disabilities are considered as major stakeholders in the research agenda – have proliferated in recent years. These largely focus on the process of such pursuits, including project planning, research design, data collection, and disseminating results. Yet, whilst scholars have identified the challenges of doing inclusive research, they rarely sketch out the more messy, and eve…
Later-Life Masculinities
Older men are often treated as homogenous, a-gendered, and unmasculine. Drawing on 52 interviews with older men who play walking football in the UK, we explore how their experiences can be understood through a lens of masculinity. Men claimed that walking football offers an outlet for both competition and displaying physical prowess. Their embodied performances were crucial for cultivating a masculine identity which, whilst threatened by the agei…
Unmasked
During the COVID-19 pandemic, policies have been established that have exempted some disabled people from wearing a face covering in public spaces. Yet, despite the introduction of such policies, disabled people have reported being challenged and abused for not wearing one. Drawing upon key ideas and tropes from disability studies and the sociology of the everyday, we sketch out the adverse effects and ambiguities caused by the pandemic relating …
Introduction to special issue
This special issue explores the intersections, boundaries, and collaborative opportunities between the disciplines of medical sociology and disability studies. Both disciplines co-exist, yet, outside of important exceptions (Barnes & Mercer, 1996; Scambler & Scambler, 2010; Thomas, 2004a; Thomas, 2007; Thomas, 2010), and especially in the UK, there is a long legacy of disconnection and territory-protection with little recognition of, and attempt …
Expressivist objections to prenatal screening and testing
The 'expressivist objection' (EO) refers to the notion that using reproductive (genetic) technologies to prevent the birth of future would-be disabled people contain, and express, a negative valuation of life with disability. Whilst the EO has received increased attention in recent years in line with rapid technological and genomic developments, there remains scant research on how EO concerns are experienced and expressed by disabled people and t…
A legacy of silence
Disability remains on the margins of the social sciences. Even where disability is foregrounded as a category of analysis, accounts regularly emerge in silos, with little interdisciplinary dialogue acknowledging the potential intersections and points of convergence. This discord is particularly acute within medical sociology and disability studies, yet there is mostly a legacy of silence about the relationship between the two disciplines. Drawing…
The media love the artificial versions of what's going on
While disability has historically been depicted in problematic ways in television, film, and print media, more balanced and progressive cultural representations are arguably emerging. However, few studies address how disabled people and their families (e.g., parents) encounter, and make sense of, media configurations ostensibly designed to promote a more positive and visible image of living with disability. Drawing upon interviews with parents of…
Stigma, class, and ‘respect’
A bstract
Light, connectivity and place
This article reports on a study of how young people in a post-industrial UK town reflect on their sense of health, place and identity. Drawing on 56 qualitative interviews with 14-15 year olds, we explore how young people negotiate public space and how public lighting and darkness affect interactions with their surroundings. The young people provide an insight into how dark places ignite strong feelings of anxiety and danger, deeply fuelled by th…
Ultrasound as a technology of reassurance? How pregnant women and health care professionals articulate ultrasound reassurance and its limitations
The premise that ultrasound technologies provide reassurance for pregnant women is well-rehearsed. However, there has been little research about how this reassurance is articulated and understood by both expectant mothers and health care professionals. In this article, we draw on two qualitative UK studies to explore the salience of ultrasound reassurance to women's pregnancy experiences whilst highlighting issues around articulation and silence.…
Threats and thrills
In this article, we draw on the findings of a critical discourse analysis of pregnancy-related mobile software applications designed for smartphones (‘apps’) to examine how such apps configure pregnant embodiment. Drawing on a detailed analysis of all such apps available in June 2015 in the two major global app stores Google Play and Apple App Store, we discuss how such technologies (the ‘threats’ mode of representation) portray the pregnant body…
Towards a sociology of risk work
In this article, we define the concept of “risk work,” which aims to make visible working practices to assess or manage risk , in order to subject these practices to sociological critique. This article reviews and synthesizes existing published literature to identify components of risk work: (a) translating risk into different contexts, (b) minimizing risks in practice, and (c) caring in the context of risk. We argue that these three components o…
Keeping the Backdoor to Eugenics Ajar
Noninvasive prenatal testing arguably constitutes a form of eugenics in a social context in which certain reproductive outcomes are not valued
Parenting and Digital Media
Parents have accessed websites, online discussion forums and blogs for advice, information and support since the early days of the World Wide Web. In this article, we review the literature in sociology and related social research addressing the ways in which digital media have been used for parenting‐related purposes. We begin with the longer‐established media of parenting websites, online discussion forums, blogs, email, mobile phones and messag…
It’s not that bad’
Impressionist France
In France, write Kelly and Watson, ‘the years between 1850 and 1880 saw the confluence of painting and photography in defining national identity’. This scholarly, handsomely produced, and well-edited exhibition catalogue explores that confluence in depth. While the ‘Impressionist’ banner perpetuates our marginalization of other art that better represents French taste and history, the book’s content actually counters this bias by devoting three qu…
Picture perfect
Non-medical ‘four-dimensional’ ultrasound is commercially advertised as promoting maternal ‘bonding’, providing reassurance and tendering entertaining experiences for expectant parents. Despite the proliferation of this technology, it has not yet been subjected to sufficient social scientific attention. Drawing on an ethnography of a private prenatal clinic in the United Kingdom, I explore how four-dimensional scans, providing detailed real-time …
American environmental policy
Prenatal Screening for Down's Syndrome
This article reviews research on both parent and healthcare practitioner experiences of prenatal screening for Down's syndrome. Whilst studies on Down's syndrome screening are broad in scope and diverge in theoretical and epistemological foundations, their core focus can be classified into two main and intertwining categories: (i) the decision‐making practices of expectant parents and why they do/do not participate in screening and (ii) the inter…
Parenting and Digital Media
Parents have accessed websites, online discussion forums and blogs for advice, information and support since the early days of the World Wide Web. In this article, we review the literature in sociology and related social research addressing the ways in which digital media have been used for parenting‐related purposes. We begin with the longer‐established media of parenting websites, online discussion forums, blogs, email, mobile phones and messag…
It’s not that bad’
Ultrasound as a technology of reassurance? How pregnant women and health care professionals articulate ultrasound reassurance and its limitations
The premise that ultrasound technologies provide reassurance for pregnant women is well-rehearsed. However, there has been little research about how this reassurance is articulated and understood by both expectant mothers and health care professionals. In this article, we draw on two qualitative UK studies to explore the salience of ultrasound reassurance to women's pregnancy experiences whilst highlighting issues around articulation and silence.…
A legacy of silence
Disability remains on the margins of the social sciences. Even where disability is foregrounded as a category of analysis, accounts regularly emerge in silos, with little interdisciplinary dialogue acknowledging the potential intersections and points of convergence. This discord is particularly acute within medical sociology and disability studies, yet there is mostly a legacy of silence about the relationship between the two disciplines. Drawing…
Later-Life Masculinities
Older men are often treated as homogenous, a-gendered, and unmasculine. Drawing on 52 interviews with older men who play walking football in the UK, we explore how their experiences can be understood through a lens of masculinity. Men claimed that walking football offers an outlet for both competition and displaying physical prowess. Their embodied performances were crucial for cultivating a masculine identity which, whilst threatened by the agei…
The media love the artificial versions of what's going on
While disability has historically been depicted in problematic ways in television, film, and print media, more balanced and progressive cultural representations are arguably emerging. However, few studies address how disabled people and their families (e.g., parents) encounter, and make sense of, media configurations ostensibly designed to promote a more positive and visible image of living with disability. Drawing upon interviews with parents of…
Introduction to special issue
This special issue explores the intersections, boundaries, and collaborative opportunities between the disciplines of medical sociology and disability studies. Both disciplines co-exist, yet, outside of important exceptions (Barnes & Mercer, 1996; Scambler & Scambler, 2010; Thomas, 2004a; Thomas, 2007; Thomas, 2010), and especially in the UK, there is a long legacy of disconnection and territory-protection with little recognition of, and attempt …
The Dark Side of (Later-Life) Leisure
Leisure is heralded as a channel for connection, belonging, and inclusion in later-life, particularly owing to a presumed threat of isolation and loneliness. Yet, such a framing of later-life leisure risks obscuring moments of conflict and marginalization. Drawing on interviews with 65 people who play walking football, this article explores how players praise its “inclusive” ethic by asserting and celebrating open recruitment policies, the partic…
Expressivist objections to prenatal screening and testing
The 'expressivist objection' (EO) refers to the notion that using reproductive (genetic) technologies to prevent the birth of future would-be disabled people contain, and express, a negative valuation of life with disability. Whilst the EO has received increased attention in recent years in line with rapid technological and genomic developments, there remains scant research on how EO concerns are experienced and expressed by disabled people and t…
Light, connectivity and place
This article reports on a study of how young people in a post-industrial UK town reflect on their sense of health, place and identity. Drawing on 56 qualitative interviews with 14-15 year olds, we explore how young people negotiate public space and how public lighting and darkness affect interactions with their surroundings. The young people provide an insight into how dark places ignite strong feelings of anxiety and danger, deeply fuelled by th…
The boots will be on the coffin
A narrative of decline dominates the ageing process in the Global North. At the same time, older people have shared more positive stories of ageing, particularly with respect to their leisure practices. I explore this tension by drawing on an interview-based study with people playing walking football in the United Kingdom. My contention is that older people express multiple meanings of ageing that disturb deficit-focused cultural scripts of later…
Can You Tell Me What Ethics Means?’
Accounts of doing ‘inclusive research’ – in which people with learning disabilities are considered as major stakeholders in the research agenda – have proliferated in recent years. These largely focus on the process of such pursuits, including project planning, research design, data collection, and disseminating results. Yet, whilst scholars have identified the challenges of doing inclusive research, they rarely sketch out the more messy, and eve…
Picture perfect
Non-medical ‘four-dimensional’ ultrasound is commercially advertised as promoting maternal ‘bonding’, providing reassurance and tendering entertaining experiences for expectant parents. Despite the proliferation of this technology, it has not yet been subjected to sufficient social scientific attention. Drawing on an ethnography of a private prenatal clinic in the United Kingdom, I explore how four-dimensional scans, providing detailed real-time …
American environmental policy
Prenatal Screening for Down's Syndrome
This article reviews research on both parent and healthcare practitioner experiences of prenatal screening for Down's syndrome. Whilst studies on Down's syndrome screening are broad in scope and diverge in theoretical and epistemological foundations, their core focus can be classified into two main and intertwining categories: (i) the decision‐making practices of expectant parents and why they do/do not participate in screening and (ii) the inter…
L'Internationale et la Commune a Brest
The Novel of the Spanish Civil War
The Novel of the Spanish Civil War (1936-75)
Women's Voices from the Spanish Civil War
Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig
Published in 1856–7, this fascinating collection of Latin and Greek source material on the politics and economy of the Republic of Venice includes charters, treaties and official letters, focusing particularly on relations between Venice and Constantinople. The editors were Gottlieb Tafel (1787–1860), a pioneering Byzantinist who retired from his chair at Tübingen in 1846, and Georg Thomas (1817–87), Professor of Classical Philology at Munich. Th…
Urkunden Zur Älteren Handels- Und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, 1256-1299 Vol. 3
We Aren't Racing a Fair Race
Following the 200 metres final in the London Paralympics 2012, athlete Oscar Pistorius criticised the prosthetic leg ('blade') length of Alan Oliveira, a fellow athlete and eventual winner of the race, and accused the International Paralympic Committee of failing to implement fair stipulations. Pistorius' contention directs attention toward an issue largely ignored in the sociological spectrum: the concept of fairness in the sporting arena. Drawi…
American environmental policy
Prenatal Screening for Down's Syndrome
This article reviews research on both parent and healthcare practitioner experiences of prenatal screening for Down's syndrome. Whilst studies on Down's syndrome screening are broad in scope and diverge in theoretical and epistemological foundations, their core focus can be classified into two main and intertwining categories: (i) the decision‐making practices of expectant parents and why they do/do not participate in screening and (ii) the inter…
Impressionist France
In France, write Kelly and Watson, ‘the years between 1850 and 1880 saw the confluence of painting and photography in defining national identity’. This scholarly, handsomely produced, and well-edited exhibition catalogue explores that confluence in depth. While the ‘Impressionist’ banner perpetuates our marginalization of other art that better represents French taste and history, the book’s content actually counters this bias by devoting three qu…
Picture perfect
Non-medical ‘four-dimensional’ ultrasound is commercially advertised as promoting maternal ‘bonding’, providing reassurance and tendering entertaining experiences for expectant parents. Despite the proliferation of this technology, it has not yet been subjected to sufficient social scientific attention. Drawing on an ethnography of a private prenatal clinic in the United Kingdom, I explore how four-dimensional scans, providing detailed real-time …
Threats and thrills
In this article, we draw on the findings of a critical discourse analysis of pregnancy-related mobile software applications designed for smartphones (‘apps’) to examine how such apps configure pregnant embodiment. Drawing on a detailed analysis of all such apps available in June 2015 in the two major global app stores Google Play and Apple App Store, we discuss how such technologies (the ‘threats’ mode of representation) portray the pregnant body…
Towards a sociology of risk work
In this article, we define the concept of “risk work,” which aims to make visible working practices to assess or manage risk , in order to subject these practices to sociological critique. This article reviews and synthesizes existing published literature to identify components of risk work: (a) translating risk into different contexts, (b) minimizing risks in practice, and (c) caring in the context of risk. We argue that these three components o…
Keeping the Backdoor to Eugenics Ajar
Noninvasive prenatal testing arguably constitutes a form of eugenics in a social context in which certain reproductive outcomes are not valued
Parenting and Digital Media
Parents have accessed websites, online discussion forums and blogs for advice, information and support since the early days of the World Wide Web. In this article, we review the literature in sociology and related social research addressing the ways in which digital media have been used for parenting‐related purposes. We begin with the longer‐established media of parenting websites, online discussion forums, blogs, email, mobile phones and messag…
It’s not that bad’
Ultrasound as a technology of reassurance? How pregnant women and health care professionals articulate ultrasound reassurance and its limitations
The premise that ultrasound technologies provide reassurance for pregnant women is well-rehearsed. However, there has been little research about how this reassurance is articulated and understood by both expectant mothers and health care professionals. In this article, we draw on two qualitative UK studies to explore the salience of ultrasound reassurance to women's pregnancy experiences whilst highlighting issues around articulation and silence.…
Light, connectivity and place
This article reports on a study of how young people in a post-industrial UK town reflect on their sense of health, place and identity. Drawing on 56 qualitative interviews with 14-15 year olds, we explore how young people negotiate public space and how public lighting and darkness affect interactions with their surroundings. The young people provide an insight into how dark places ignite strong feelings of anxiety and danger, deeply fuelled by th…
Stigma, class, and ‘respect’
A bstract
A legacy of silence
Disability remains on the margins of the social sciences. Even where disability is foregrounded as a category of analysis, accounts regularly emerge in silos, with little interdisciplinary dialogue acknowledging the potential intersections and points of convergence. This discord is particularly acute within medical sociology and disability studies, yet there is mostly a legacy of silence about the relationship between the two disciplines. Drawing…
The media love the artificial versions of what's going on
While disability has historically been depicted in problematic ways in television, film, and print media, more balanced and progressive cultural representations are arguably emerging. However, few studies address how disabled people and their families (e.g., parents) encounter, and make sense of, media configurations ostensibly designed to promote a more positive and visible image of living with disability. Drawing upon interviews with parents of…
Unmasked
During the COVID-19 pandemic, policies have been established that have exempted some disabled people from wearing a face covering in public spaces. Yet, despite the introduction of such policies, disabled people have reported being challenged and abused for not wearing one. Drawing upon key ideas and tropes from disability studies and the sociology of the everyday, we sketch out the adverse effects and ambiguities caused by the pandemic relating …
Introduction to special issue
This special issue explores the intersections, boundaries, and collaborative opportunities between the disciplines of medical sociology and disability studies. Both disciplines co-exist, yet, outside of important exceptions (Barnes & Mercer, 1996; Scambler & Scambler, 2010; Thomas, 2004a; Thomas, 2007; Thomas, 2010), and especially in the UK, there is a long legacy of disconnection and territory-protection with little recognition of, and attempt …
Expressivist objections to prenatal screening and testing
The 'expressivist objection' (EO) refers to the notion that using reproductive (genetic) technologies to prevent the birth of future would-be disabled people contain, and express, a negative valuation of life with disability. Whilst the EO has received increased attention in recent years in line with rapid technological and genomic developments, there remains scant research on how EO concerns are experienced and expressed by disabled people and t…
The Dark Side of (Later-Life) Leisure
Leisure is heralded as a channel for connection, belonging, and inclusion in later-life, particularly owing to a presumed threat of isolation and loneliness. Yet, such a framing of later-life leisure risks obscuring moments of conflict and marginalization. Drawing on interviews with 65 people who play walking football, this article explores how players praise its “inclusive” ethic by asserting and celebrating open recruitment policies, the partic…
Sociology (18 obras) · Psychology (15 obras) · Political science (13 obras) · History (10 obras) · Disability Rights and Representation (9 obras) · Law (9 obras) · Medicine (8 obras) · Social Psychology (8 obras) · Aesthetics (7 obras) · Gender Studies (7 obras)