A Sociology of Values and Value

We have, since 2008, been in a crisis of value, where many elements of social life have been subject to radical re-evaluation.

Many understandings of self and sociality are now shaped by economic models, metaphors and understandings (eg acquisitive, rational actors, individualisation, capitals). At the same time, there is emergent research evidence of the desires for alternative ways of being and knowing such as altruism, care and kindness. But the study of values and value are usually only brought together in debates that demonstrate the seepage of monetary worth.

What I bring to both of these areas is a unique theoretical framework that has been pioneered over time, has challenged traditional understandings of class and gender, has been empirically tested in a range of sites and has set the agenda for sociological research. I have been developing my analysis across a range of sites (domestic space, media interaction, law, public space, education), through analysis of different categorisations as they intersect in different ways (eg gender, class, sexuality, race), examining the struggles and claims for value made by people through their values (eg respectability, respect, loyalty, care). These struggles reveal a way of living a different ethics and relationships than is assumed in most social theory.

Throughout my career this substantial empirical research has been funded by the ESRC (beginning with my PhD) and the fellowship capitalises upon this considerable investment. My ongoing analysis has drawn on previous research to intervene in complacent debates full of theoretical speculations about what motivates people. From these interventions I have pioneered an analysis of 'person value' and 'value struggles', intitially through a critique of Bourdieu and theories of governmentality. This analysis has grown through all my projects and the fellowship will be used not only to consolidate this work, but also to test and extend it further through what I consider to be two limit cases for understanding values and value: the 'new' digital economy and 'traditional' faith practices.

The digital domain is the example par excellence of how values (friendships) can be converted into value (targeted advertising), but although there is prolific research (not only by Facebook) on how every ticked 'like' is monetized, I am keen to understand what making one's activities subject to public judgment and value conversion does to a person's values. In the same way prosperity theology (the institutions that use business and sometimes proto-feminist discourse to equate salvation with financial contribution) makes a tight hinge between values and value, but is there anything beyond the conversion? If most of our analysis assumes that the conversion is the end point, what is left?

All my work is a study of social motivation and connection through which I explore and inform two ESRC priorities: 'Influencing behaviour and informing interventions' and 'A vibrant and fair society'. If our dominant model of the 'good self' (in political and popular rhetoric and academic theory) is one that is continually accruing value/s to itself, how do we generate fairness for those who cannot participate?

Impact Summary

We are living through crisis and flux and there appears to be a huge amount of floundering around the subject of value and what actually matters to people. The impact is intended to ground the thrashing in a thorough sociological analysis that puts the human back into the study of value and understand the role of the economic in the study of values. The public benefit of this work will be in demystifying and making publicly accessible a series of insights based on interdisciplinary analysis and empirical data.

I intend to disseminate findings throughout the fellowship to key journalists (e.g. Robert Peston, Paul Mason, Stephanie Flanders and Larry Elliot) to generate a debate on the assumptions about human behaviour that lie behind key economic models, especially all the presumptions about 'the new' in relation to the digital. I will offer the first comprehensive analysis of how these assumptions underpin current economic and political policy.

The debate on faith and values is intended to impact upon policy makers and public opinion, highly pertinent in times of austerity when alternative faith may offer comfort to those at the hard end of recession.
Impact will be generated by connecting the 'big' value (ESDS) surveys with analysis of how people actually behave. The surveys point to large cultural changes -whereas this research will show how and if people are actually living the changes identified.

I will report back to the IMF, World Bank analysis of their materials concerning these assumptions. Established links to think tanks (e.g. IPPR, JRF, Runnymede, Young, Demos) will be maintained to engage, influence and inform public opinions and insights into values that are both cultural and moral.

With my new digital skills I will establish a website for dissemination. Anybody familiar with digital debates knows these are fast and furious. Making explicit the processes used to generate value from values on internet judgment sites offers the publicising of digital methods to a popular international audience.

Goldsmiths have a local site 'Radical Gold' and our urban and community research centre (CUCR) through which we connect to local schools, The Stephen Lawrence Centre and community groups

I am in the process of developing a London Sociology group to showcase research for teachers and students across all the schools, colleges and universities which will then be mobilized nationally and internationally. The fellowship will have an academic impact that will stretch through to A level students by generating a new Sociology of Values and Value.

Ultimately I will establish a Centre on Values and Value (I have a long track record with successful centres and departments) to bring together scholars, policy makers and publics working in the area internationally and nationally.

I will use my PR, TV and BBC Radio 4 contacts to feed information into topics that relate to values (eg Psychologies, Huffington Post, Guardian Online, Talking Allowed, Today, Newsnight, etc.). I have a substantial track record of media dissemination (e.g's Thinking Allowed (BBCRadio 4. 2003 Thinkingallowed.shtml). Filmed for White Girls are Easy (C4 2003). Profiled for This Week Next Week (2003). Interviewed for City Life (2003). Interviewed for BBC Radio 4 Analysis (2003); Urban Regeneration (2004). Sky TV, Chavs (2005); Sky TV Girl Power; Caledor TV Class (2006). Psychologies magazine Class (2006) BBC Radio 4 Analysis on Social Mobility (2006). BBC Radio 4 You and Yours on Class in Decline (2006). Froensis, Eurozine, Bang, Genus magazines, Sweden (2007). BBCR4 Talking Allowed Class and Reality TV (2008). BBC Radio 4 Talking Allowed Sociological Research (2009). BBC2 TV Noughties (2009). BBC Radio 4 (2010). BBCR4 Talking Allowed, Moral Economies on TV (2011). BBCR4 Talking Allowed Cruel Optimism (2012).