British Sociological Association Care and Social Reportudction Study Group

The group is co-convened by Dr Ania Plomien (LSE), Dr Sara Farris (Goldsmiths) and Dr Maud Perrier (University of Bristol). 

The number of studies on social reproduction and care has grown exponentially in the last few years. From analyses of the labour conditions of care workers, explorations of the proximity of spaces of production and social reproduction, to discussions of the complex affects entailed in care and visions of care societies as necessary utopias, these concepts and the theories they inform, are increasingly animating the sociological imagination. 

The group brings together scholars who work at the intersections of these debates in order to deepen our understanding of care and social reproduction and engage in a range of activities to highlight the wealth of sociological research on these topics and its importance in shaping and informing public debates.

Healing Movements: African LGBTI Organizing for Diasporic Wellbeing

Funded by the LSE Engagement and Partnerships Development Fund and the Department of Gender Studies Research Infrastructure and Investment Fund.

Led by Dr SM Rodriguez, this project focuses on empowering Black Queer communities across Africa and the Caribbean through healing justice—a framework that addresses trauma, systemic exclusions, and health disparities experienced by marginalized LGBTI communities. The initiative will connect community organizers from regions with shared legacies of colonialism and criminalization, fostering transnational solidarity and knowledge exchange.

Crafting Sustainability and Equitability: Reconstructing Pasts and Futures in the Indian creative economy

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Led by Dr Rohit Dasgupta, this research concentrates on an essential part of India’s creative economy: the traditional handicrafts sector. It will examine sustainability and sustainable practices related to environment and labour in traditional handicrafts and textiles with an aim to address inequalities from an intersectional perspective and to evaluate how and to what extent traditional practices can be embedded into the creative economy to ensure long-term environmentally and culturally sustainable and socially equitable development. 

Writing Women: Collaborative story writing as research method and dissemination tool

Funded by the British Academy Talent Development Award.

Led by Dr Asiya Islam, this project will use collaborative story writing as research method and dissemination tool to advance the PI’s longitudinal ethnographic research with young women in service work in Delhi, India.

Gender Justice and the Wellbeing Economy

The Programme is led by Professor Naila Kabeer (Director) and Dr. Ania Plomien (Deputy Director) as part of the International Inequalities Institute.

Transnational 'Anti-Gender' Movements and Resistance: Narratives and Interventions

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and LSE Knowledge Exchange and Impact. 

The research network mapped the narrative building blocks – the political grammars, conceptual vocabularies, rhetoric, figures, and temporalities – of both ‘anti-gender ideology’ interventions and the political struggles and solidarities engendered in resistance.

LSE Impact Blog: In a time of global anti-gender politics, research and activism also needs to be transnational 

Reflecting on the challenges facing gender activists and researchers in Hungary, Dorottya Rédai outlines how interactions between researchers and activists could be more productive and why taking a transnational perspective is increasingly important.

Ethical and Methodological Issues in Sex Work Research

LSE Research Showcase 

Drawing on her ethnographic research with sex worker organisations in the Philippines and Singapore, Dr Sharmila Parmanand traces her methodological journey, with a focus on the ethical considerations involved in sex work research and her reflections on how to minimise hierarchies in knowledge production; develop creative research methods that do not merely yield "academic data" but also provide a space for validation, politicisation, and psychic relief for participants; recognise the intellectual contributions of actors outside academia; and build more reciprocal research relationships

Troubling Anti-gender Attacks: Transnational Activist & Academic Perspectives

Funded by the Open Society University Network.

This collaborative initiative builds on a broader book project entitled Transnational Anti-Gender Politics, published as part of Palgrave’s ‘Thinking Gender in Transnational Times’ series. The OSUN grant supported the organisation of a virtual roundtable discussion with leading scholars and activists in the field and published a commentary report that summarises the key arguments and ideas discussed.

Jill Craigie: Film Pioneer

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, wih in-kind support from the BFI and BEHP and regional arts venues The Arts Institute (Plymouth), The Forum (Norwich) and the Stanley Spencer Gallery (Cookham). 

Jill Craigie: Film Pioneer is a three-year research project exploring the career of Jill Craigie, one of the first women to make documentaries in the UK. Her work, often overlooked in film history, encompassed innovative films, a feature, journalism and writing for the screen and as well as a passionate history of the women's suffrage movement. 

COVID-19: Reflections on the Pandemic 

Writing from our faculty and PhD students about the politics of COVID-19.

Gender, Inequality and Power Commission

The Gender, Inequality and Power Commission's update on its work: Confronting Gender Inequality in Uncertain Times. In this update, we review developments affecting gender inequality since the launch of the Gender, Inequality and Power Commission report in 2015.

Choice, constraints and the gender dynamics of labour markets in Bangladesh

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Labour markets are recognised as key institutional routes through which the benefits of growth are distributed across populations. Moreover, empirical research suggests that women’s access to labour market opportunities, particularly those which offer predictable incomes and ‘decent’ working conditions, can strengthen their voice and agency within the family and in the wider community. Yet, despite high rates of growth in recent decades, marked gender disparities in labour market outcomes persist across much of South Asia. These disparities are all the more puzzling in the context of Bangladesh. While it is one of the poorer countries in the region, it has not only shared in its high growth rates but has made more rapid progress in other aspects of gender equality, eg health and education. This project combines different research methods in order to carry out a detailed investigation into the interactions between individual choice, cultural norms and economic structures which might explain persisting gender disparities in labour market outcomes in the Bangladesh context as well as how these interactions might vary for men and women from different social groups and geographical locations.