First edition published in Great Britain in 2020 by
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Policy Press 2020
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Contents
Mark Doidge is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Sport and Service Management at the University of Brighton. He is also currently a trustee of the British Sociological Association and convenor of the Sport Study Group. His current research focuses on the role of sport and leisure in supporting refugees and asylum seekers. Dr Doidges research also focuses on political activism among football fans across Europe, particularly anti-racism, supporting refugees, anti-discrimination, anti-violence, and the broader political identities associated with football fandom. He is the author of Ultras: The Passion and Performance of Contemporary Football Fandom (2020 forthcoming, Manchester University Press, with Kossakowski and Mintert), Football Italia: Italian Football in an Age of Globalization (2015, Bloomsbury), Collective Action and Football Fandom: A Relational Sociological Approach (2018, Palgrave Macmillan, with Cleland, Millward and Widdop); and co-editor of Sociologists Tales (2015, Policy Press, with Twamley and Scott) and Transforming Sport: Knowledges, Practices, Structures (2018, Routledge, with Carter and Burdsey).
Rima Saini is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Middlesex. She completed a PhD in quantitative sociology at City, University of London in 2019, following an MSc in social research methods (City, University of London) and an MA in legal and political theory (School of Public Policy, University College London). She has taught sociological theory and methods at City, University of London, the University of Kent and the University of Southampton. Dr Saini is also co-convenor of the British Sociological Association Race and Ethnicity Study Group. Her interests lie in understanding the relationships that middle-class minority ethnic groups in the UK have to their ethnic, religious, national and class identities, and the socio-political implications of this.
Any book is a social project. It is never simply the sole product of the authors. This book is no exception. It emerges out of a sustained engagement with the British Sociological Association (BSA) and a desire to showcase the importance of the discipline of sociology in the rapidly changing, turbulent and slightly scary contemporary world. This Short Guide to Sociology hopes to be the book that we wish we had read years ago. For Rima and Mark, we wish we had known about sociology earlier in our lives so we could have had the language and conceptual framework to make sense of the everyday worlds we grew up in. It is the product of our individual biographies, where we grew up and how we started our careers. We may have grown up in different parts of the UK, and with different backgrounds, but we also grew up in the same social milieu, with similar social forces affecting our life trajectories.
Specifically, this Short Guide to Sociology grew out of a project developed with the BSA and Policy Press (which publishes this book). While part of the early career forum of the BSA, Mark edited a booked entitled Sociologists Tales (with Katherine Twamley and Andrea Scott). Conversations continued with the director Alison Shaw and commissioning editor Catherine Gray, who helped to develop the project. The book emerged from a feeling of Marks that he had had a unique journey into sociology. From talking with others, it was clear that many did not have a conventional route into the discipline. By stimulating the sociological imagination, we realise that we are all unique just like everyone else.
Being aware that we are not the centre of the universe is humbling. No one individual has the monopoly on how the world works and no individual can claim complete knowledge of the sociological canon. We all bring different experiences, perspectives and insights to the discipline of sociology. Rimas hard work with the BSA and expertise in teaching provided a broader insight into the undergraduate curriculum to inform the subject matter of this book.
To reiterate that nothing is individual, and everything is social, we would like to thank Alison Shaw and Catherine Gray at Policy Press for their support for this project, alongside the constructive and positive feedback from the reviewers. The BSA is a vital organisation that celebrates the varied and diverse world of sociology and provides the platform for our work to flourish.
Rima would like to thank each of her colleagues and fellow postgraduate students at City, University of London who began her sociological journey with her half a decade ago. Particular thanks go to Aaron Winter, Ipek Demir, Sweta Rajan-Rankin and Narzanin Massoumi, co-convenors of the BSA Race & Ethnicity and Migration study groups, for all the insightful conferences and events they have hosted together, and all the important sociological discussions that have been facilitated by them as a group over the years.
Mark is thankful for being given the opportunity to discover sociology through his PhD supervisor at Exeter, Professor Anthony King. Along the way, he has been supported by many sociologists, too many to mention, who have made him feel like he belonged from his first BSA conference. Special mentions go to Lara Killick and Ruth Lewis who introduce him onto this BSA journey as part of the postgraduate forum.
Clearly, no sociological work would be complete without acknowledging the place of ones family and friends. Mark and Rimas parents and siblings all socialised each of them into this world. Former school friends and work colleagues influenced them and provided the template upon which each sociologist was built. For Rima, by her husband, best friend, and companion through the complexities of this modern world, Amit. For Mark, it has been completed by his partner, best friend and soulmate, Momtaz, to whom he gives eternal thanks.
