Profile

Biography

• FRSA
• BSc,MSc (Surrey)

Roger was born in Suffolk in 1962. He was educated at the University of Surrey between 1980 and 1984 gaining a BSc in Economics, Sociology and Statistics and a MSc in Social Research Methods. He went on to gain a broader social, cultural and political education between 1984 and 1989 working at Kingston Polytechnic, the North East London Polytechnic and the LSE before returning to Surrey as a Lecturer in 1989. In 1991 he moved to the University of Teesside where he became Associate Dean of the School of Health, Social and Policy Studies.

He joined the University of York in 1995 as Assistant Director of the Centre for Housing Policy becoming Co-Director and Reader in 1999. He was promoted to a Professorship in 2002. He moved to the Department of Sociology at York in 2004 in order to develop his work on social informatics.

He is the author, co-author or editor of over 100 articles, books, chapters and reports. He was the co-ordinator of the ESRC e-Society Research Programme (2005-2007), the co-editor of the international journal Housing Studies (2002-2005) and is a founding member of the editorial board of Information, Communication and Society which has been based in the Department at York since 2006.

He currently teaches in the areas of urban studies, introductory sociology, social media and social research methods.

Here is a video of Roger talking and debating at the BSA conference 2011 about his paper with Mike Savage on 'The Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARLARDwLJhw

He supports Norwich City FC and currently maintains an unhealthy interest in The Wire, Patti Smith, the Alabama 3, Web 2.0 and the York Beer and Wine shop.

Research

Overview

• Future of Sociology
• Health and Illness
• Social Informatics
• Urban Studies

Recent projects

2008-2009 - Pleace, N., Burrows, R. and Bowles, R.,
‘Information Sharing for PSA 16 Client Groups: Adult Offenders under Probation Supervision’,
Sponsor: Department of Work and Pensions

2008-2009 - Burrows, R., Wooffitt, R. and Castro, M.
Psi Related Experiences and Spatialization: the Use of GIS to Investigate Spontaneous Psi Phenomena and Experient Profiling
Sponsor: Fundçào Bial

2005-2008 - Woods, B., Nettleton, S., Kerr, A. and Burrows, R.
Food Allergies: Constructing a Sociological Agenda
Sponsor: ESRC

2005-2007 - Nettleton, S., Burrows, R. and Watt, I.
On Being a Doctor: A Sociological Analysis
Sponsor: ESRC.

2005-2007 - Burrows, R.
Coordination of the ESRC E-Society Programme
Sponsor: ESRC

2004-06 - Burrows, R., Gane, N. Ellison, N., Hardey, M. and Parker, S.
Sorting Places Out? Neighbourhood Classification and its Consequences in the Information Age
Sponsor: ESRC E-Society Programme.

Supervision

Roger has catholic research interests and has supervised students on a wide range of topics; however he is now particularly keen to work with research students with interests in social media and/or urban studies and/or innovative methods of quantitative methods/visualization.  Recent successful PhD students have included:

Jon Minton PhD on ‘Work and its Other: A Multiple-perspective Analysis of Employment and Incapacity Benefit Reforms’. White Rose Studentship, Jointly Supervised with Professor Danny Dorling, University of Sheffield, 2010.

Danae McLeod PhD on ‘Home and Away: A Sociological Analysis of Transnational Intimate Relationships’, 2009.

Maz Hardey PhD on ‘Seriously Social: An Ethnography of Web 2.0’ Jointly Supervised with Professor Stevi Jackson (CWS), 2008.

Sue Vella PhD on ‘Small Firms in Small States: Social Capital and the Double Disadvantage’, 2007.

Alison Wallace PhD on ‘The Operation of Local Housing Markets: Understanding the Perspectives of Key Housing Market Actors’, 2007

Bev Searle PhD on ‘Individual and Structural Factors in the Determination of Psycho-Social Well-Being’, 2005.

Publications

Selected publications

Penfold-Mounce, R., Beer, D. and Burrows, R. ‘The Wire as Social Science Fiction?’ Sociology, 45, 1, 2011

Beer, D. and Burrows, R. ‘Consumption, Prosumption and Participatory Web Cultures: An Introduction’ Special Issue of Journal of Consumer Culture, 10, 1: 1–10, 2010

Nettleton, S., Woods, B., Burrows, R. and Kerr, A. ‘Experiencing Food Allergy and Food Intolerance: An Analysis of Lay Accounts, Sociology, 44, 2, 289-305, 2010

Beer, D. and Burrows, R. ‘The Sociological Imagination as Popular Culture’ in J. Burnett, S.Jeffers and G. Thomas (eds) New Social Connections: Sociology’s Subjects and Objects Basingstoke: Palgrave. , 233-251, 2010.

Uprichard, E., Burrows, R. and Parker, S. ‘Geodemographic Code and the Production of Space’, Environment and Planning A, 41, 12, 2823 – 2835, 2009.

Kerr, A., Woods, B, Nettleton, S. and Burrows, R. ‘Testing for Food Intolerance: New Markets in the Age of Biocapital’, BioSocieties: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Social Studies of Life Sciences, 4, 1, 3-24 , 2009.

Savage, M. and Burrows, R. ‘Some Further Reflections on the Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology’, Sociology, 43, 4, 765–775, 2009.

Nettleton, S., Woods, B., Burrows, R. and Kerr, A. ‘Food Allergy and Intolerance: Towards a Sociological Agenda’ Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 13, 6, 1-18, 2009.

Burrows, R . ‘Afterword: Urban Informatics and Social Ontology’ in M. Foth (ed) Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the Real-Time City. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference, IGI, 450-454. 2009

Nettleton, S., Burrows, R. and Watt, I. ‘Regulating Medical Bodies? An Analysis of Doctors Accounts of the Consequences of the “Modernization” of the NHS for the Disembodiment of Clinical Knowledge’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 30, 3, 333–348, 2008.

Nettleton, S., Burrows, R. and Watt, I. ‘How do you Feel Doctor? An Analysis of Emotional Aspects of Routine Professional Medical Work’, Social Theory and Health, 6, 1, 18-36, 2008.

Watt, I., Nettleton, S. and Burrows, R. ‘The Views of Doctors on their Working Lives: A Qualitative Study’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 101, 592–597, 2008.

Uprichard, E., Burrows, R. and Byrne, D. ‘SPSS as an Inscription Device: From Causality to Description?’ Sociological Review, 56, 4, 606-622, 2008.

Hardey, M. and Burrows, R. ‘Cartographies of Knowing Capitalism and the Changing Jurisdiction of Empirical Sociology’ in N. Fielding, R.M. Lee and G. Blank (eds) The Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods London: Sage, 507-518, 2008

Burrows, R . ‘Geodemographics and the Construction of Differentiated Neighbourhoods’ in J. Flint and D. Robinson (eds) Cohesion in Crisis? New Dimensions of Diversity and Difference Bristol: Policy Press, 219-237, 2008.

Savage, M. and Burrows, R. ‘”Viewpoint: Wither the survey?” International Journal of Market Research, 50, 3, 305-307, 2008.

Parker, S., Uprichard, E. and Burrows, R. ‘Class Places and Place Classes: Geodemographics and the Spatialization of Class’, Information, Communication and Society, 11, 6, 901-920, 2007.

Savage, M. and Burrows, R. ‘The Coming Crisis of Empirical Sociology’, Sociology, 41, 5, 885-899, 2007.

Beer, D. and Burrows, R. ‘Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations’, Sociological Research Online, 2007.

Ellison, N. and Burrows, R. ‘New Spaces of (Dis)engagement? Social Politics, Urban Technologies and the Rezoning of the City’, Housing Studies, 22, 3, 299-316, 2007.

Burrows, R . and Gane, N. ‘Geodemographics, Software and Class’, Sociology, 40, 5, 793-812, 2006