Thesis: Flagging nations? Examining discourses of national identity in contemporary England (2008)

Supervisor: Sonia Livingstone

After the PhD

Dr Michael Skey currently teaches sociology at the University of East London. Prior to that he taught sociology at University of Leicester and media and communications at the London School of Economics, where he completed his PhD in 2008. His research interests include; nations and nationalism, multiculturalism and belonging, media rituals, cosmopolitanism, sociology of everyday life and discourse analysis. His forthcoming book, National Belonging and Everyday Life: The Significance of Nationhood in an Uncertain World , focuses on ethnic majorities in Western settings and argues that their largely taken-for-granted status is used to underpin claims to key material and ontological benefits. In studying the value of this privileged position, we are better able to explain why multicultural or cosmopolitan policies are often resisted and the need to address (though not necessarily condone) majority concerns and anxieties around social change.

Contact: poodlechaos@hotmail.com

Websites and webpages:

http://nationalbelongingandeverydaylife.wordpress.com/about or http://www.uel.ac.uk/lss/staff/michaelskey/ or http://uel.academia.edu/MichaelSkey

Publications

Skey, Michael (forthcoming) Why do nations matter? British Journal of Sociology

Skey, Michael (forthcoming, 2012) We need to talk about cosmopolitanism: The challenge of studying of openness towards other people, Cultural Sociology, 6(4)

Skey, Michael (2012) 'Sod them, I'm English': The changing status of the 'majority' English in post-devolution Britain, Ethnicities, 12(1): 106-125

Skey, Michael (2011) National Belonging and Everyday Life: The Significance of Nationhood in an Uncertain World, Basingstoke: Palgrave (Joint winner of the 2012 BSA/Philip Abrams Memorial Prize)

Skey, Michael (2011) 'Thank God, I'm back!': (Re)defining the nation as a homely place in relation to journeys abroad, Journal of Cultural Geography, 28(2): 233-252

Skey, Michael (2010), 'A sense of where you belong in the world': National belonging, ontological security and the status of the ethnic majority in England, Nations & Nationalism, 16(4): 715-733

Skey, Michael (2009), 'We wanna show 'em who we are': National Events in England in McCrone, D & McPherson, G (eds), National Days, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan

Skey, Michael (2009), The national in everyday life: A critical engagement with Michael Billig's thesis of Banal Nationalism, Sociological Review, 58(2): 331-364

Skey, Michael, (2006), Carnivals of surplus emotion? Towards an understanding of the significance of Ecstatic Nationalism in a globalising world, Studies in Ethnicity & Nationalism, 6:2. 143-161