Professor of Sociology, School of Social Sciences

B.A. (Cambridge), M.A. (Durham), Ph.D. (Leeds)

Room Number: 3.049 Arthur Lewis Building
Tel: +44(0)161 275 3630
Email: alan.warde@manchester.ac.uk

Professional biography

I joined the University of Manchester in September 1999. My previous position was Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, where I held my first permanent position after completing a Ph.D. on the British Labour Party at the University of Leeds. In the past I have conducted research on politics, social movements, cities, domestic divisions of labour, economic restructuring and the social structure of Britain. I came to Manchester to work partly in the Sociology Department, partly to serve as Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition (CRIC). CRIC was integrated in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research in 2006 at the end of its period of core funding from the research council. Research projects in CRIC focused on developing theories of consumption, with particular emphasis on food, and on economic sociology. With other colleagues, in what is now the Sociology Discipline Area, I continue to work on the sociology of consumption, sociology of culture, social stratification and social network analysis.

Much of my work is conducted in collaboration with others in Manchester. I am part of the Research Clusters in Sociology on ‘Stratification and Culture’ and ‘Quantitative Methods and Interdisciplinary Social Research’. I was the founding Director of the ESRC-funded Sustainable Practices Research Group (SPRG) and am involved in its management and core research programme. also have attachments to the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) and the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI).

Within CRESC specifically, I have worked on theories of consumption, patterns of elite consumption, cultural omnivorousness, and cultural consumption in the UK.

In addition, I work extensively with groups outside Manchester. I am engaged closely in the European Sociological Association Working Group on Consumption and with networks of social scientists working on food in Norway, France, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Finland. I have also been part of a network of European sociologists (SCUD – Network for Studies of Cultural Distinctions and Social Differentiation) examining the role of cultural capital in contemporary societies.

In recent years I have held visiting positions in Mannheim, Sao Paolo, Paris and New York. I am a past Chair of the Executive Committee of the British Sociological Association and was a member of the ESRC Research Grants Board 2007-10.

In the year 2010-11 I will hold the Jane and Aatos Erkko Research Professorship in Studies of Contemporary Change, at the University of Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Finland.