Profile

Biography

• MA, PhD (Lancaster)
• BA (York)

I was trained initially as a historian (BA at York and MA at Lancaster). I became a sociologist in part by design, since I was interested in the grand theoretical questions which sociologists tend to pose, and part by luck (the Department of Sociology at Lancaster happened to have a PhD grant available!).

My doctoral work, which became my first book, was on the history of the local Labour movement in Preston, Lancashire between 1880 and 1940. This study was a specific case study, but contains many issues of enduring interest to me: the changing role of place, space, locality; the significance of time; and social inequality and social movements.

I have been unable to shake off an enduring enthusiasm for geography (my favourite subject at school) and history. Much of my research tries to develop a sociology of stratification which is adequate to 21st century complexities and fluidities. This has involved me in thinking about the sociology of the middle classes which make up a large proportion of the labour force; in exploring the nature of changing gender relations; in thinking about how people's sense of attachment to place and locale is being reconfigured; and in thinking about new and under-utilised conceptual and methodological tools for understanding social inequality, social protest and social mobility.

I have pursued these interests through jobs at the Universities of Lancaster, Sussex, Surrey, Keele, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Manchester and, from October 2010, back again to York.

Research

Overview

• Cultural class analysis
• Space and urban studies
• History of social science methods.

I have supervised 20 PhD students to completion since 1991, from Chile, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iran, Portugal, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UK pursuing a variety of topics and research interests.

I am interested in the cultural dimensions of social inequality, especially with respect to class, gender, age and locality. I have pursued these interests using both quantitative and qualitative methods, through studies of consumption, cultural tastes, lifestyle and identity. Although much of my research has been on the UK, I am now a member of European and global research networks in these areas.

I am also keen to develop research initiatives in the social scientific analysis of digital and transactional data, where I am currently working with the BBC on a project on ‘Britain’s real class system’ which is constructing a web questionnaire on people’s class identities. The challenge for sociologists here is to demonstrate the social scientific ‘added value’ of deploying such data forms compared to more conventional survey and interview research. I am especially keen to utilize such data sources to examine under-researched aspects of social stratification, for instance elite formation, and the cultural tastes of specific social groups.

I will continue to have strong links with the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), especially work on ‘social and cultural participation’ and on ‘the social life of methods’, which is exploring how social scientific methods themselves are agents in contemporary social change.

I think that there is a strategic gap in UK, indeed international, sociology in more quantitative approaches to cultural issues (the study of identities, values, tastes, etc) and I am keen to work towards ways of resolving this through the introduction of new, more innovative, forms of analysis. I am keen to work with postgraduate students who share these, or related, interests.

Recent and current projects

• 2011-2016: named applicant, ‘ Sustainable Transport Evidence and modelling Paradigms: Cohort Household Analysis to support New Goals in Engineering design (STEP-CHANGE)’ EPSRC
• 2010: named applicant, ‘ The Europeanisation of Everyday Life: Cross ‐ border Practices and Transnational Identities among EU and Third ‐ Country Citizens, European Commission
• 2008: principal applicant, Equality and Career mobility: report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
• 2007-2010: named applicant, Qualitative analyses for NCDS, with Jane Elliot, Institute of Education, ESRC.
• 2006-2008: named applicant, latent class models of middle class careers (with Gindo Tampubolon, CRESC, ESRC.
• 2004-2009: Convening Director, Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, ESRC Research Centre Competition, (other directors, Tony Bennett, Open University, and Karel Williams, Manchester).
• 2003—2006, Principal Applicant, Social Capital and consumption, promoting network analysis, with John Scott, (Sociology, Essex), Gindo Tampubolon and Alan Warde (Sociology, Manchester) (ESRC Research Methods Programme)
• 2003-2006, Named applicant, Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion: a critical investigation, (with Tony Bennett and Elisabeth Silva (Sociology, Open University), and Alan Warde).
• 2003-2006, Sole applicant, Popular Social Identities in England, 1950-2000, Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.

Publications

Selected publications

• Mike Savage, ‘The politics of method and the challenge of digital data’ in Sasha Roseneil and Stephen Frosh (eds), Social Research after the cultural turn, Basingstoke, MacMillan, forthcoming 2011
• Mike Savage, 'Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940: the politics of method', Oxford, Clarendon, 2010, pp 284
• Savage, M., Wright, D, Gayo-Cal, M., 'Cosmopolitan nationalism and the cultural reach of the white British', 'Nations and Nationalism' 16, 4, 598-615
• Scherger, S., and Savage, M., 'Cultural transmission, educational attainment and social mobility', Sociological Review, 58, 3, 406-428
• Savage, M., 'The politics of elective belonging', Housing, Theory and Society, (focus article, with five comments and a 'response', July, 2010, 26,1, 115-161.
• Savage, M., 'Unpicking sociology's misfortunes', 'British Journal of Sociology', 61, 4, 659-665
• Mike Savage, ‘Using archived qualitative data to study socio-cultural change’, in Jennifer Mason and Angela Dale (eds), Social Researching, forthcoming 2010
• Mike Savage, ‘The lost urban sociology of Pierre Bourdieu’, in Garry Bridge and Sophie Watson (ed), Companion to the City, Oxford, Blackwells, forthcoming 2010
• Mike Savage, ‘Status, lifestyle and taste’, in Frank Trentmann (ed), Consumption in History, Oxford, Oxford UP, forthcoming, 2010.
• Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal, David Wright, Culture, Class Distinction, Routledge 2009, pp 310.
• Mike Savage and Roger Burrows, ‘Some further reflections on the coming crisis of empirical sociology’, Sociology, 2009, 43, 4, 762-772
• Mike Savage, ‘Against epochalism: numbers, narrative and socio-cultural change’, Cultural Sociology,: 2009. 3,1, 217-238.
• Mike Savage, ‘Sociology and Descriptive Assemblage’, European Journal of Social Theory, 12, 1, 144-174, 2009
• Tom Osborne, Nikolas Rose, Mike Savage ‘Sociology and its inscription devices’, introduction to centenary issue of Sociological Review, 56, 4, November 2008, pp 519-534.
• Talja Blokland and Mike Savage, (eds) Networked urbanism: Social Capital on the Ground, Ashgate, 2008
• Mike Savage and Karel Williams, (eds), Remembering Elites, Sociological Review Monograph, Oxford, Blackwells, 2008
• Mike Savage, ‘Elizabeth Bott and the formation of modern British sociology’, Sociological Review, 56, 4, November 2008, 579-605.
• Mike Savage, ‘Affluence and Social Change in the Making of Technocratic Middle Class Identities, Contemporary British History, 22, 4, December 2008, pp 457-476.
• Brigitte LeRoux, Henry Rouanet, Mike Savage, Alan Warde, ‘Class and Cultural Division in the UK’, Sociology , 42, 6, November 2008, pp 1049-1071.
• Mike Savage, Gaynor Bagnall, Brian Longhurst, Globalisation and Belonging, London, Sage, 2005.