Professor Rob Stones

I am currently writing a book for Bloomsbury Academic entitled Why Current Affairs Needs Social Theory, which demonstrates how social theory can inform deeper and wiser readings of news and current affairs stories. The book is aimed at a general audience and is intended as a contribution to public sociology. It iis based on the belief that academic social and political analysis will be most effective when it engages directly with representations already circulating in the public sphere. A series of related journal articles will continue to explore and develop the role social, political and cultural theory can play in the analysis of news and current affairs in a range of different areas and genres.   

I continue to develop strong structuration theory (SST), a version of structuration theory I have developed and refined for use in empirical case study research (see Structuration Theory, 2005, Palgrave Macmillan). SST is being drawn on and extended in interesting ways by researchers in a number of different fields, and this also influences my own work. I regard SST as an important but  'open' approach that is easily and fruitfully combined with other theoretical positions, depending on the issues being  addressed by a particular piece of research. I am currently directly involved in two funded projects using this approach:

The first is in a project project funded by the NIHR - SDO (National Institute for Health Research) using strong structuration as the basis for developing theory and method for studying Resistance’ to Big IT programmes in Healthcare. This is part of an ongoing collaboration with Trish Greenhalgh,
 Professor of Primary Health Care and Director, Healthcare Innovation and Policy Unit
, at 
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

The second is is a bilateral ESRC/RCG funded project entitled Lifestyle Migration in East Asia: A comparative Study of British and Asian Lifestyle Migrants with Professor Karen O’Reilly of Loughborough University and Dr Maggy Lee from the Department of Sociology at Hong Kong University. The research is examining lifestyle migration in Asian contexts, through a comparative study of Hong Kong migrants to mainland China and British migrants (and prior Hong Kong expatriates) in Thailand and Malaysia.

Another ongoing research project is on recent and continuing political conflict in Thailand, and this is in collaboration with Dr Ake Tansupvattana of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. See 'Social Theory, Current Affairs, and Thailand's Political Turmoil: Seeing Beyond Reds vs. Yellows', Journal of Political Power, vol.5, No.2, August 2012.

A constant strand in my publications is an appreciative and critical engagement with the work of other theorists, which I draw on in developing my own theoretical approach to case study analysis. Most recently I have written a review article on Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knobl's Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures, in The Journal of Classical Sociology, vol.12, (3-4), September 2012, and a chapter entitled 'Strengths and Weaknesses of Luc Boltanski's On Critique' to be published inn S. Susen and B.S. Turner (eds) The Legacy of Pierre Bourdieu: Critical Essays, London and New York: Anthem Press. A third edition of my edited volume Key Sociological Thinkers is planned for publication by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015.

This information has been contributed by Professor Stones.