Lisa Smyth
BA, NUI Galway, MSc (Econ) London, PhD, Warwick.
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
6 College Park
Ext 3251; Email: L.Smyth@qub.ac.uk
My research interests lie in the fields of social roles, norms, recognition and action theory. My most recent book, The Demands of Motherhood: Agents, Roles and Recognition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), returns to neglected sociological questions concerning the connections between agency and normative complexity, through the pragmatist interpretation it offers of the recognition dynamics shaping this deeply contested and emotionally fraught role.
My previous book, Abortion and Nation: The Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Ireland (Ashgate 2005), analysed the significance of a gendered politics of national identity in this context.
I have also published papers on the social politics of breastfeeding, abortion and sex education, and am currently working on the significance of maternal situations as sites of civility, sectarianism and social change in Belfast's divided inner city.
I am interested in supervising PhD theses in the fields of normative conflict, role inhabitance and creative action.
Teaching
Sociological Imagination (Level 1 core)
Social Norms, Roles and Identities (Level 3 option).
Recent Publications
See my Selected Works
