Andrew Miles, Professor of Sociology

Which areas of research are you concentrating on at the moment?

My main focus is on how shifting understandings of ‘culture’ and cultural participation are implicated in defining personal, social and place identities, drawing boundaries, and in reproducing inequalities.

Naming something as ‘cultural’, or not, causes disparities in status and resource between people and places, which have not always been acknowledged and remain poorly understood. Across the UK there are pronounced inequalities between those whose cultural preferences are celebrated and supported and those whose cultural practices are not recognised. Structural and spatial inequalities in public cultural investment are organised around social class and ethnicity, in particular, with implications emerging for both individual wellbeing and community resilience. 

Can you tell us more about your work on the Understanding Everyday Participation project?

The Understanding Everyday Participation project has involved us working in six contrasting areas of England and Scotland, to identify the value, and values, attached to cultural participation. In the Outer Hebrides, for example, where there are concerns about population decline, we have been looking at how young people’s participation in music networks and in the community land movement can help to renew a sense of identity with and commitment to island life. And in north Manchester and east Salford, we have shown how ethnic and religious cultural practices work, paradoxically, to demarcate parks and other parts of the public realm as shared spaces for participation. Our research here has also highlighted the complex cultural dynamics of charity shops and shopping in the context of continuing austerity.

This programme of work features in the Understanding Everyday Participation project’s second international conference, which will take place in Manchester next month. Attendees can expect some lively discussions, involving participants from across a range of disciplines.

Policy impact and application is an important consideration for this project. Our national partners include Arts Council England and the Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport, to which we recently submitted formal evidence in connection with a parliamentary enquiry into the social impact of participation in culture and sport. In Scotland our work has influenced the development of the new Scottish Cultural Strategy, and we are currently exploring ways of involving local citizens in making their own cultural policy ‘from the ground up’ as part of an ESRC Impact Accelerator Account follow-on project.

In a further development, I am working collaboratively with researchers at the London School of Economics on a new project looking at how to challenge and counter urban decline narratives that attach to towns and smaller cities located within the hinterland of larger, successful ‘creative’ cities. This work is especially relevant for understanding some of the mechanisms and sentiments informing the recent ‘Brexit’ vote and has attracted the interest of a number of MPs, to whom we recently made a presentation in Parliament. 

What are you most looking forward to in the year ahead?

I am particularly looking forward to writing a new book on everyday cultural participation and to teaching two new courses: one on social class and inequality; the other on cultural participation and cultural policy. Both of these courses are based on recent and on-going research into key sociological issues, that are also prominent in media and policy discourses, which I think is important in bringing them to life and underlining their relevance for students. 

What was the last book you read and would you recommend it?

Academic: I would recommend John Goldthorpe, Sociology as a Population Science. It re-pitches and develops what many would see as an old-fashioned and controversial model of understanding society. Whether you agree with it or not, it provides a cogent, provocative and accessible challenge to new orthodoxies.

Non- academic: Steve Silberman, Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently. Despite increased general awareness of autistic spectrum disorders, real understanding of their nature and impact remains limited. This is an engaging and enlightening history, which advances the case for neurodiversity in testing cultural and political times for people with learning difficulties.