A collection of chapters by international scholars researching sexualities has just come out, and includes a chapter from the Social Work Division at Brunel University London.
Sexualities Research: Critical Interjections, Diverse Methodologies and Practical Applications is edited by Andrew King, Ana Cristina Santos and Isabel Crowhurst (Routledge, Dec 2017). It brings together researchers who’ve been members of the Sexualities Research Network of the European Sociological Association over recent years. Dr Pam Alldred, Research Theme Deputy Leader for Welfare, Health and Wellbeing at Brunel (writing with Nick Fox) introduces an approach called new materialism, applying it to discuss young men’s sexualities in the first chapter. The discussion of the micropolitics of sexuality shows how harsh the status hierarchy is among a group of young men according to
i) their 'bodily capital' (sexually mature bodies being more highly valued)
ii) their (hetero)sexual experience or rather their bragging about it.
Other chapters that might be of interest to Social Workers include those on researching sex work, on the treatment of transgender offenders, an analysis of intimate partner violence in lesbian relationships, on the heteronormativity of childlessness studies, and of loneliness and isolation in older lesbians. One chapter that Pam is particularly keen to show to students on the Social Work MA is about autobiographical methods called ‘Reading Texts and their Silences: Sexuality and the Autobiographical Method’ by Roma Dey.