Sarah Moore
Dr Sarah Moore
BA, MA, PhD (Kent)
Lecturer in Sociology
Room: G.03, 6 College Park
Ext: 3956; Email:
s.moore@qub.ac.uk
I am a qualitative sociologist by instinct and training, with a particular interest in gender, crime, and risk, cultural sociology, and the sociology of health and illness. I am influenced by ‘classical’ feminist theory (such as the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Ann Oakley), theorists of individualisation and risk, and Erving Goffman’s work on gender and social identity.
My PhD thesis, carried out at the University of Kent and completed in late 2006, explored the sociological implications of ‘awareness’ ribbons, such as those worn for breast cancer and AIDS. The thesis provided a critique of ‘awareness’ campaigns, particularly the way in which they have been co-opted by their commercial sponsors, and formed the basis of my recent book, Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion, and Public Awareness.
Before taking up a Lectureship in Sociology at Queen’s in 2008, I worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Kent. The British Academy-funded project was headed by Adam Burgess and explored undergraduate students’ beliefs about binge-drinking and drug-facilitated sexual assault (or drink-spiking). Our research showed that the discourse of drink-spiking awareness has become particularly salient amongst the female student population, and is reinforced by maternal warnings, the media, student union campaigns, as well as a more general climate of personal risk awareness. A core part of the research involved tracing the shifting meaning of ‘date rape’ in the US and UK media. Adam and I have written several articles based on this study, and presented our work at international conferences. We are also currently working on a co-edited book, provisionally entitled Sex and Risk.
Through my doctoral and postdoctoral research I’ve become interested in the representation of the female body as ‘at risk’, and the consequences of this – culturally, for our conception of femininity, but also in terms of women’s sense of anxiety or worry about their personal safety and health. I’ve also become increasingly interested in the diffusion, or levelling out of risk, so that it comes to be seen as a generalised problem for everyone, exemplified by the proliferation of ‘awareness’ campaigns. My research suggests that this is a deeply problematic cultural phenomenon, not least because it obscures the fact that risks – whether they are threats to our health or safety – are socially-structured and require principally political (as opposed to personal) action. At the moment, I am involved in two research projects. The first is a collaborative project with Simon Breeze (University of Kent) and explores the gendered use of space in public toilets. We are particularly interested in the inversion of the usual gendered relationship between public space and fear of crime. The second project develops some of the themes of my postdoctoral research, and looks at the experience of becoming a female ‘Fresher’, with a particular emphasis on binge-drinking and ‘campus problems’. I will also be Visiting Fellow at Yale’s Center for Cultural Sociology in April 2009, where I will lead a workshop on my research on drug-facilitated sexual assault.
Teaching
I am convenor and principal lecturer for the first year module, ‘Introduction to Criminology’. I am also convenor for the second year option module, ‘Crime and the Media’.
Publications
Moore, S.E.H. (2008) Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion and Public Awareness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
See the publisher’s webpage for the book, complete with links to reviews: http://www.palgrave.com/newsearch/title.aspx?PID=280290
Moore. S.E.H. (2008) "Gender and the New Paradigm of Health", Sociology Compass, Vol. 1 (2).
Moore, S.E.H. (forthcoming, Body & Society) "Is the Healthy Body Gendered? Towards a feminist critique of the new paradigm of health".
Moore, S.E.H. (forthcoming) "A Weapon in a Pill? The media construction of drug-facilitated sexual assault".
Moore, S.E.H. (under review at Crime, Media, Culture) "Epidemics and Rumours: Exploring the representation of drink-spiking in the British media and its impact on belief”.
Burgess, A. & Moore, S.E.H. (under review at British Journal of Sociology) “Spiking the Truth: Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault, Female Binge-Drinking, and Female Sexuality”.
Moore, S.E.H. (in preparation for submission to Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies) "The Cultural Sublimation of Rape: The Case of Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault".
