Seminar series ISSR programme 2021

TikTok and COVID-19: Doing Social Science in Dynamic Digital Environments

16 March 2021

16:00 – 17:00

We welcome Professor Andy Miah, Chair in Science and Communication, Salford University. The focus of the talk will be on the methodological challenges with undertaking social scientific work within TikTok and what are some of the crucial considerations needed to undertake research responsibly and effectively to come to terms with the lived experiences of digital natives.

Prof Miah will be hosted by Dr Gillian Bartle, Education and Social Work and is aligned under the ISSR themes of Innovation in Methods and Data Analytics; Environment: Health and Wellbeing and Governance, Policy and Regulation.

Professor Andy Miah, Chair in Science Communications & Future Media in the School of Science, Engineering and Environment at Salford University.His research examines the intersections of art, ethics, technology and culture and he has also given over 300 major conference presentations and he is often invited to speak about philosophical and ethical issues concerning technology in society, from artificial intelligence to human enhancement. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, USA and holds board memberships with the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester.

Exploring Age-Friendly Cities and Communities: Lessons from India, Brazil and the UK

30 March 2021

16:00 - 17:00

We are delighted to confirm Professor Ryan Woolrych, Director of the Urban Institute, Heriot-Watt University as the fourth speaker in the ISSR seminar series.

A global ageing population presents opportunities and challenges to designing urban environments that support ageing in place. The World Health Organisation’s Global Age-Friendly Cities movement has identified the need to develop communities that optimise health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age. Yet there has been an absence of cross-national research exploring experiences of older adults particularly in the Global South. This paper draws upon findings from two ESRC funded projects exploring how ageing and place is experienced across 9 cities and 27 neighbourhoods in the UK, India and Brazil. The seminar will identify implications for the delivery of age-friendly cities and communities.

Prof Woolrych will be hosted by Prof Judith Sixsmith, ISSR Co-Director and is aligned under the ISSR themes of Environment and Health and Wellbeing.

Disabling Justice: Impairment as crime and punishment

15 April 2021

16:00 - 17:00 pm

We welcome Bill Hughes, Professor of Sociology in the Glasgow School of Business and Society, Glasgow Caledonian University.

The duo of crime and punishment invoke an agent that offends and a penalty that follows; a rule breached and a proportionate response. The balanced scale is the metaphor suggesting equilibrium between damage and penalty, wrong-doing and suffering. Justice has been done.

Disability, however does not sit easily in this symmetrical framework, for impairment is conceived in early western systems of meaning as, simultaneously, crime and punishment. In the circular theodicy of ableism, an offensive act is not required for punishment to follow. Disability need not do anything wrong to be a crime. It just is – ontologically so. It comes into being as such. Impairment is also a punishment, inflicted by ancient gods and by monotheistic Christianity. I will try to unpack this argument, in what follows, by examining the miracle in Medieval Christianity and the pharmakos or scapegoat in Ancient Greece.

This aligns with our Social Justice and Social Change and Health and Wellbeing themes. It will be of interest across the four ISSR Schools but also more widely across the University. The seminar is chaired by ISSR Co-Director Professor Judith Sixsmith and moderated by Dr Teodor Mladenov, School of Education and Social Work.

Rural Older Adults in Disasters: A Study of Recovery from Hurricane Michael

28 April 2022

16:00 – 17:15

We are delighted to confirm Dr Patricia Fletcher as the second speaker of the spring programme. The seminar will be hosted by Dr Mei Fang and is aligned under the ISSR themes: Social Justice and Social Change, Health and Wellbeing and Environment.
Background
Dr Fletcher is a leading aging influencer with a national and global reach on innovative insights in public health and social science research to improve older persons’ quality of life. She has diversified experiences working with state, national, not-for-profit, and private companies and is a former adjunct professor in communication and aging studies. Dr Fletcher has technical expertise in psychology and aging, data analysis strategies, policy processes for social change, program evaluation, public policy & law, design thinking, and marketing communications. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Communication, an M.S. in Gerontology, a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies of Public Policy & Social Change, and a post-graduate Design Thinking Certificate. She is an active member of the Gerontological Society of America, the American Public Health Society (Section Councillor in Aging & Public Health), the NGO Committee on Ageing NY ( Global Alliances & the to Promote the Human Rights Convention of Older Persons).

Why and How Individuals Commit Professional Misconduct?

20 May 2021

16:00 - 17:00 pm

We are delighted to confirm Professor Will Harvey, Associate Dean Global, University of Exeter Business School as the final speaker in the ISSR seminar series.

The last two decades have witnessed a sharp increase in large scale organizational misconduct. While the roles of individuals and firms have been evidenced, it is less well-understood how and why individuals commit professional misconduct. Drawing on 18 months of interviews and focus groups with 70 inmates at a federal prison in the United States (US), our research provides four insights into what causes individuals to commit professional misconduct. First, individuals rarely set out to commit misconduct, but rather sleep-walk across ethical lines. Second, organizational factors dynamically interact with individual triggers to cause individuals to succumb to professional misconduct, when placed within a certain environmental context. In contrast to current evidence which privileges individual explanatory factors, we argue that the interaction of individual triggers alongside environmental and organizational considerations provides a holistic explanation of professional misconduct. Third, individual intuition rather than greed drives professional misconduct. Fourth, despite an emphasis on improving controls, compliance and normative behaviours, excessive regulation can surprisingly increase misconduct. We argue that these insights are particularly salient in the post-coronavirus economy when individuals are likely to face unprecedented pressures to cut costs, set aggressive financial targets, and implement cumbersome regulatory changes.

Professor Harvey will be hosted by Dr Norin Arshed, University of Dundee Business School is aligned under the ISSR themes of Innovation in Methods and Data Analytics; Environment; and Governance, Policy and Regulation.