Research groups
Current research groups
Our research clusters and reading groups bring students and academics together to collaborate and develop ideas at the intersections of their disciplines.
Caste as Practice seeks to understand the enduring role of caste in contemporary South Asia through interdisciplinary collaboration across the social sciences and humanities.
Despite significant economic and political changes, caste remains a persistent marker of inequality and identity, woven into every aspect of social life. Explaining its resilience and resurgence poses a key challenge. Our network brings together established and emerging scholars to rethink existing analytical frameworks on caste. Additionally, viewing caste as a multi-dimensional and interlocking structure of oppression offers new insights into global discussions on race and racialisation.
This network is convened by Manali Desai, Priyanka Kotamraju and Jusmeet S. Sihra.
CGHR thinks critically and innovatively to foster citizen voice and solidarity-building towards a just, inclusive and better world.
Across the world, societies and polities face rapid transformations in technology, alongside upheavals in climate, health, conflict and global order, and demands to address historic and new injustices. Our challenge is to more sharply understand these dynamics and their implications, and to improve how research supports progressive change and those who drive it.
Thinking with practitioners, at CGHR we are reimagining how justice, solidarity and citizen voice can flourish with or against technology.
CGHR’s distinctive approach, developed from empirical and theoretical innovation during our first decade, follows these tenets:
- Social sciences-led critical thinking, informed by deep interdisciplinarity;
- Student-led initiatives manifesting collaborative and inclusive knowledge generation – across disciplines, levels, and institutions;
- Deliberate bridge-building between scholarship and practice;
- Close collaborations with practitioners to identify issues and problems and design solutions and innovations starting from a grassroots level;
- Bringing collaborative knowledge into conversation with the academy to innovate theoretically, resulting in design-fuelled research and research-fuelled design;
- Reflexivity around the role of the academy in the world today and the politics of scholarship.
CGHR is co-directed by Ella McPherson, Professor in the Sociology of Media and Technology, and Sharath Srinivasan, David and Elaine Potter Professor, Department of Politics and International Studies.
The Culture and Politics Research Group (CPRG) aims to build a collaborative community of scholars.
CPRG is a space for postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty members to discuss the impact of selected readings on their research and thinking. They also consider joint projects and share ideas.
Texts discussed are published or developing studies of power relations in culture and politics. Subject matter includes:
- the role of ideas and intellectuals,
- ideological groups and social movements,
- popular opinion and the public sphere,
- revolution and political change,
- war and social violence.
The CPRG team is Zeina Al-Azmeh, Patrick Baert, Hazem Kandil, Sebastian Raza Mejia and Santiago Vargas-Acevedo.
By focusing on planetary problems, from climate change and deforestation to air pollution, we consider how technological approaches to observing and managing these problems influence social life, and how they facilitate or limit democratic engagement and equity.
An interdisciplinary research cluster that brings together scholars in sociology, anthropology, STS, HCI, and digital humanities to engage critically with the challenges of the digital age.
The group is convened by Dr Xin Zhan and Joe Beadle.
The Gender & Sexuality Research Cluster is a multidisciplinary community that brings together postgraduate students and faculty dedicated to the study of gender and sexualities (broadly construed).
Our approach is intersectional, recognising the interconnectedness of these categories with other social markers such as race, class and dis/ability among others. We foster a collaborative and inclusive environment where members can share their research, connect with other scholars, and contribute to the broader academic discourse.
Based in the Department of Sociology, the cluster welcomes researchers from various disciplines to join our academic exploration of gender and sexuality.
Find out more about the Gender and Sexuality Research Cluster
We bring together researchers interested in work, employment and labour from across the University.
We are based at the Department of Sociology but also have members and alumni in a diverse range of disciplines including human geography, management, anthropology, history, social policy and politics. Our intention is to create links between those who have similar research interests across work, employment and labour issues, broadly understood.
ILM is convened by Dr Alex Wood.
This research cluster brings together those interested in exploring the connections between disciplinary sociology and the medium of film.
A number of members of our department are exploring these intersections, either through making films, working collaboratively with filmmakers and visual artists, or studying digital visual artifacts in their research.
We aim to create a research community to explore the theoretical and methodological questions that emerge from such practices.
Seeing Sociology is convened by Erkan Gürsel and Isabelle Higgins.
Th is reading group is a welcoming space for open discussions, and we encourage participation from postgraduates, postdocs, lecturers, and researchers across disciplines who are interested in this field.
Whether you're new to the topic or well-versed, the group seeks to cultivate collaborative, enriching discussions centred on cutting-edge research from across the globe.
A community of postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty members interested in exploring the relationship between literature and social theory.
Twice a term, we host a ‘sociological book club’, where we discuss two novels on a particular sociological theme and examine fiction’s contribution to social thought. Once a term we organise an experimental writing workshop, encouraging participants to explore forms such as sociological fiction, sociological poetry, and creative non-fiction.
Find out more about the Sociology in Fiction Research Cluster
This research group shines the sociological spotlight on artificial intelligence, to answer questions such as:
- How can sociology help us understand the rise of AI and its attendant problematics?
- What can our theory say about the empirical data around AI, and what can the empirical data around AI say about our theory?
- What do we think about the use of or resistance to AI in relation to the production of sociological knowledge?
- What are the broader consequences of sociological arguments about AI for users, technologists, policy-makers, and neo-Luddites?
This group is co-convened by Professor Ella McPherson and Professor Patrick Baert.
Talking History meets once a term in four-hour sessions, including a potluck lunch break.
Convened by Professor Hazem Kandil.
WTR-RN is dedicated to driving forward cutting-edge research centred on the permanent reduction of working time, with a particular emphasis on achieving collective reductions in overall work time.
Our mission is to pave the way for a societal transformation that promotes wellbeing and a better work-life balance for employees.
Convened by Professor Brendan Burchell.
Past research groups
Past research clusters and reading groups
Decolonise Sociology was first established as a working group in 2017 by the Department of Sociology to support reflection on, and action towards, decolonising departmental practices. It focused on issues relating to teaching, curricula, and departmental culture, including gathering feedback and identifying areas for change.
While Decolonise Sociology is no longer active, the group's website is now a hub for reflection, events, and resources that support critical engagement with decolonial scholarship and practice. This site is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the theory and practice of decolonising higher education curricula and departmental culture.
Convened by Sophie Mary and Marisa Tangeman, this research cluster brought together academics from a range of backgrounds with an interest in technology and new media to explore and discuss recent and ongoing research.
Both undergraduate and postgraduate students, staff, and visiting scholars participated. The cluster emphasised multidisciplinary collaboration, not only between departments of the University of Cambridge, but with other universities.
The Theory Hub was a research group coordinated by Filipe Carreira da Silva that brought together faculty and students interested in social and political theory broadly construed.
Based at the University of Cambridge since 2016, the Theory Hub was active in four main areas: the Theory Hub Advanced Training (since 2018); Theory Hub Publications Accelerator (since 2018); Theory Hub Reading Groups (since 2019): Theory Hub Research Grants (since 2016).