CRESC | Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change

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Sophie Watson

Some information about me

Profile
Publications
Projects
Events

Profile

Biography:
Professor of Sociology, Open University
Previous Appointments:
- 1998-02 Professor of Urban Cultures University of East London
- 1995-98 Professor of Social Policy in School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol.
- 1991-95 Professor and Head of Department, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Sydney.
Recent Consultancies
- 2009: Special Adviser to House of Commons Department of Communities and Local Government Inquiry into Traditional Retail Markets.
- 2010: Consultant to Regeneris on the LDA report on London’s street markets. 2009 Special Adviser to Department of Communities and Local Government Inquiry into Traditional Retail Markets
Recent Publications

Books and Monographs
- 2011 The New Blackwell Companion to the City (edited with Gary Bridge) Oxford: Blackwell
- 2010 The Blackwell City Reader 2^nd Edition (edited with Gary Bridge). Oxford: Blackwell
- 2008 Security: Sociology and social worlds (ed with Carter, S.) Jordan, T
Recent Articles and Chapters
- 2012 Street markets in Vienna and Budapest economic(inter)action spheres for migrants (in German: Straßenmärkte in Wien und Budapest als Schauplätze des WirtschaftenMigrationskontexten), in Dabringer, M. and Trupp, A. (eds.), Wirtschaften mit Migrationshintergrund. Zur soziokulturellen Bedeutun ethnischer Ökonomien in urbanen Räumen, StudienVerlag with Knierbein, S, Aigner, J
- 2012 Suburban Drifts: mundane multiculturalism in outer London Ethnic and Racial Studies (with Saha, A) forthcoming. Available on line
- 2012 Global Futures- reflections on culture, diversity and planning for the twenty first century. In G. Young (ed) The Ashgate Research Companion to planning Ashgate
- 2012 Into Unorthodox London: The Religious Ethnography of Charles Maurice Davies Victorian Literature and Culture (with Dodsworth) VLC 40.2
- 2011 Constituting Religious Publics: The Tale of two non-conformist churches in London Culture and Religion Vol 12 ,no 1 p. 1-19 (with F.Dodsworth
- 2009 The eruv: where the soft spaces of symbolic meaning meet the hard lines of planning. S&RO, Theme Issue on the Soft City (Dutch journal on architecture and urban planning)
- 2009 The Magic of the Market Place: Sociality in a neglected public space Urban Studies, Vol. 46, No. 8, 1577-1591
- 2009 Performing Religion: Migrants, the church and belonging in Marrickville, Sydney Culture and Religion, Volume 10, Issue 3 November 2009 , pages 317 - 338
- 2009 Brief Encounters of an unpredictable kind: Everyday Multiculturalism in three London street markets. Wise, A (ed) Everyday MulticulturalismLondon: Palgrave
- 2008 Fear in the city, in Carter, S., Jordan, T. and Watson, S. (eds)
- 2008 Productive Potentialities in Public-Private and Private-Public Space Urban Design 108 31-34
- 2008 Abandoning the monumental and seeking the serendipitous. In Vesterdal, I. Pagh, C. eds. Changing Metropolis 52-55
Current research interests:
Current Research Areas
1. City water: Water lies at the very heart of the interconnectedness and entanglements of humans with their environment and reveals, arguably more than any other substance, the impossibility of thinking of ourselves as separate from nature. Water exists as a resource through a complex intersection of socio- technical networks and systems, and is a site of different cultural meanings and social practices across time and space. Water is enmeshed in a myriad of governmental and regulatory practices as well as private markets and complex forms of provision. Its abundance as well as its scarcity is constituted in public discourses and political decisions, implicated in relations of power as these are, as much as ‘natural’ occurring phenomena as rains, floods, and drought. Water is far from being the natural resource it is often assumed to be. This research project seeks to explore cities and water- the socio-cultural practices associated with it, the socio- technical networks involved, and the regulatory frameworks of its provision across a number of cities in the Global North and South.
2. The Presence of Faith in East London (E1): Religious Buildings, Spaces, Texts and Images, c. 1800-2010. This project explores the presence of religion in east London, tracing the ways in which different faiths have been made visible, tangible and legible through their inscription in places, texts, images and public practices.
3. Street Markets - as sites of sociality, cultural practices and innovation.
4. City Materialities - street objects and the public realm
E-mail: s.watson@open.ac.uk

Publications

Refereed Journal Papers

Book Chapters

Knierbein, S, Aigner, J and Watson, S (2012), 'Straßenmärkte in Wien und Budapest als Schauplätze des WirtschaftenMigrationskontexten', Wirtschaften mit Migrationshintergrund. Zur soziokulturellen Bedeutuntethnischer Ökonomien in urbanen Räumen, StudienVerlag.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2011), 'Reflections on Affect', 277-288, in Bridge and Watson, The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2011), 'Reflections on Materialities', 3-15, in Bridge and Watson, The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2011), 'Reflections on Mobilities', 157-169, in Bridge and Watson, The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2011), 'Reflections on Division and Difference', 501-511, in Bridge and Watson, The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2011), 'Reflections on Politics and Planning', 619-631, in Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2011), 'Reflections on Publics and Cultures', 379-390, in Bridge and Watson, The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2010), 'Introducing Urban politics and Planning', 331-339, in Bridge and Watson, The Blackwell City Reader..
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2010), 'Introducing Division and Difference', 169-177, in Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, The Blackwell City Reader..
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2010), 'Introducing Materialities', 1-11, in Bridge and Watson, The Blackwell City Reader, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2010), 'Introducing Mobilities', 97-103, in Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, The Blackwell City Reader, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (2010), 'Introducing Urban Publics and Urban Cultures', 253-261, in Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, The Blackwell City Reader., Oxford: Blackwell.
Sophie Watson (2009), 'Brief Encounters of an unpredictable kind: Everyday Multiculturalism in three London street markets.', 125-140, in Wise, A and Velayutham, S, Everyday Multiculturalism, London: Palgrave.
Sophie Watson (2008), 'Fear in the city', in Simon Carter Tim Jordan Sophie Watson, Security: Sociology and Social Worlds (Making Social Worlds), Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Working Paper

Francis Dodsworth, Elena Vacchelli, Sophie Watson (2011), 'Shaping religious community in East London', CRESC Working Paper 102.
Simon Carter, Francis Dodsworth, Evelyn Ruppert, Sophie Watson (2011), 'Thinking Cities Through Objects', CRESC Working Paper 096.

Projects

Urban Experiments

City Water Matters: the cultures, practices and meanings of urban water.

Human beings are constituted of water. 75 % of men’s body mass and 68% of women’s body mass is made up water. The water content of the organic world of plants can be as high as 80%. We not only...
Eco cities
This project aims to compare the economic, social and cultural models of eco-city development in four international settings (China, the Gulf, India, and Europe). It will
- reconstruct...
City Objects

This comparative international project explores street objects as devices for understanding city cultures, sociality and the formation of publics.
Religion, culture and materiality

This project aims to explore socio-cultural and religious change through religious, buildings, sites and spaces of East London.

Governing Cultures: Cities, Policies, Heritage

Street Markets and Diversity

Street markets across the world are significant sites of commerce, trade and consumption. In Britain there are 1400 markets at the present time, although increasingly many markets in the last 20...