Author, sociologist, health hesitancy campaigner, teacher, care-promoter, consumer.
Author
Of Variants (Norms and Dreams, 2024) – using both macro data and micro experience to reveal how ‘variants’ like obesity, poverty, air pollution and diabetes impact upon our health and pandemic resilience. Conclusion: we can all (as individuals and a collective) reduce such variants and improve our health
Previously, I used unstructured interviews to understand what is going on in the minds of eighteen-year-old pupils, (Eighteen, Whyte Tracks Publishing, 2019). Conclusion: we should not impose a discourse of ‘mental health’ and ‘social mobility’ upon young people but, instead, consider how ‘mental mobility’ and ‘social health’ can be promoted in their lives.
Sociologist
Sociologists are often derided in society for being ‘a wishy washy ology.’ I beg to differ! Sociologists have two main quests, which lie at the heart of everything I am interested in: 1. What are the structures of oppression/exploitation resulting in inequalities and disempowerment of certain groups? 2. What can we learn about what it means to be human when examining the intersection of the norms in society with the dreams of its members?
Health hesitancy campaigner:
Given that we do not hesitate fundamentally about voting or vaccinating, why are we so hesitant when it comes to our health? Being a health hesitancy campaigner means reversing the popular adage ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’ to: ‘where there’s a way there’s a will’. We need to recognise the power of structures and our surroundings in shaping our trajectories. This means promoting things like:
- Removing advertisements for fast food and sugary drinks
- Not allowing every high street to be colonised by junk food outlets
- Banning junk food shops near schools
- Changing what we put into our bodies
- Cleaning up the air we breathe in
- Developing our creative capacities through art, music, dance or drama
- Learning how to do some gardening
- Taking up, and regularly practicing, sports
Teacher:
Teaching is the ultimate ‘relational’ job: it takes time to develop the right rapport with your pupils, and as you do that, your pupils should be gaining skills and finding their place amongst other people and within their chosen profession.
I have been teaching sociology, world development (before it was scrapped due to ‘lacking rigour’ according to some educational ‘experts’) and EPQ to sixth formers in London state schools for the last eighteen years.
Care-promoter
There’s a lot of ‘carelessness’ towards society now as we are forced to put ourselves centre-stage: our exam system is a relatively-assessed competition amongst pupils; careers advisers and teachers tell pupils they can do whatever they want (a myth); jobs continue these trajectories, perpetuated by the most common, first question from a stranger: ‘what do you do’? Can we care more for others and ourselves and the planet through our jobs and leisure time?
To care for the plastic we don’t buy; to care for the sustainable products we use; to care for the way we behave in public; to care for the way we dispose of our rubbish; to care for people less fortunate than ourselves. And the most important aspect of care is to tackle inequalities and poverty; it is rather hard to care for others and our planet when we are malnourished, without a home and a decent job.
Consumer:
What do we buy and what do we not buy? Our purchasing power is almost more powerful than our tick in a polling booth: what we buy is a political decision with real-life economic ramifications. We can buy local or global; plastic or bamboo; long- or short-life; on fair or unfair wages; healthy or unhealthy; fast or slow; refillable or disposable; consciously or unconsciously. I consume, therefore I am; it is almost inevitable in our modern age of high mass consumption. My identity is inextricably linked to the symbols I display and the self-worth I gain through my purchases.
This is not about a degrowth economic agenda. Instead, we should see ourselves as creative, caring consumer-citizens fostering richer ‘regrowth’ in terms of ourselves, our high streets, our local economies, our families, our friendships and our communities by creating an economy based on sustainable products for people and the planet; that’s a fun challenge!
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