Staff Profile

I am a Professor of Social Science Philosophy and Method and lead the Newcastle University Methods Hub which I established in 2020. My research explores how feminist new materialist philosophies of science open new possibilities for the philosophical foundations, methodological approaches and ethical practices used in the social sciences. This work underpins my substantive contributions to a range of fields including gender, work and family; the intersection between technology and society; data sharing and big data; perinatal mental health; qualitative research; and research ethics. I have published over 60 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and a book by Harvard University Press. I am an Editorial Board Member of Qualitative Research. I am a Fellow of the Online Ethics Center and co-lead its Community of Practice on Data Epistemologies and Interpretive Ethics. In 2017 I was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Science in recognition of my methodological contributions to the social sciences.

I have a BA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge (awarded 1989), in which I studied biology, history and philosophy of science, and experimental psychology. My PhD in Social and Political Sciences is also from the University of Cambridge (awarded 1994) and was funded by a Medical Research Council studentship. It explored women's experiences of motherhood and was published as The Darkest Days of my Life: Stories of Postpartum Depression (Harvard University Press, 2002). In 1994 I took up a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education to work with Professor Carol Gilligan funded by scholarships from the Fulbright Commission, the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation, and the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. 

My research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the European Union, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Society for Research Into Higher Education, the Carnegie Trust, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Scottish Universities Insight Institute. Throughout my career I have engaged in knowledge exchange activities through contributions to the media, public events, blogs, practitioner conferences, collaborative projects with artists, and the development of academic-policy-practitioner networks.

I have held several research leadership roles. From 2018-2022 I was Director of Research at the Newcastle University Business School, where I led the REF2021 Business and Management submission. I sit on the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Research Committee and am currently leading the Development Programme for Directors of Research jointly run by CABS and the British Academy of Management. I have worked with several business schools in the UK supporting the development of research strategy and leadership capacity, and acting as an external reviewer for Research Excellence Framework preparations. Prior to Newcastle, I worked at the University of Aberdeen’s Business School (2003-2018) where I hold an Honorary Chair. I was Director of Research (2012-2018), co-led the REF2014 Business and Management submission, and was Research Lead on the Business School’s Athena SWAN Bronze Award (2016-17). I have also held appointments at the University of Aberdeen’s Arkleton Centre for Rural Development Research (1998-2003) and Health Services Research Unit (1995-1996), and the University of Edinburgh’s Research Unit in Health and Behavioural Change (1996-1998) and Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (2013-2018).

I have undertaken extensive undergraduate and postgraduate teaching over the past 30 years. I teach courses on research philosophies, methods and ethics; and gender, work and organisation.

My approach to teaching, research and leadership are influenced by feminism. I draw on feminist thinking in my teaching philosophy and content. In my research, I use feminist theories and methodologies. This means listening to the voices of women and marginalised perspectives. It also involves conceptualising research problems in relational terms and challenging taken-for-granted binaries and hierarchies in my fields of study. My approach to research leadership roles is based on listening, being inclusive, collaboration, and a feminist ethic of care.

My current research focuses on four areas:

1. Feminist philosophy of science and methodology

My research explores the implications of emerging feminist (new materialist and posthumanist) philosophies of science for the philosophy of social science, with a particular focus on the work of physicist and feminist philosopher, Karen Barad. One aspect of this work is to reconfigure research methods (including feminist and qualitative research methods) as philosophically situated practices. My research investigates ways of conceptualizing and enacting methods in philosophically, ethically and politically accountable and responsible ways, for which I am pioneering a new methodology of 'diffractive genealogies'. My work is also contributing to rethinking research ethics and the politics of knowledge production in feminist posthumanist terms.

2. The philosophy and ethics of data sharing and big data

I have a long-standing research interest in the philosophy and ethics of data sharing policy and practice. This work develops critical philosophical and methodological approaches to the creation and use of digital qualitative research archives in the social sciences. I argue that data archiving and sharing policies are underpinned by an implicit positivist understanding of science and data. This dominance of positivism means that (1) debates about the philosophical underpinnings of data sharing policies and practices are overlooked, and (2) the contributions of alternative non-positivist philosophical approaches are marginalised. My work investigates how data sharing policies and practices might be more inclusive of the diversity of epistemic approaches and practices (philosophical, methodological, and ethical) within the social sciences. I also study the ethical complexities around sharing qualitative data, the challenges they present for the regulation of data sharing, and the potential for developing governance frameworks that support flexible, inclusive, and collaborative approaches in which relevant stakeholders (researchers, research participants, research funders, universities, and publishers) work together to devise context-specific data-sharing practices on a case-by-case basis. My work on data sharing is informed by feminist theorising, including Haraway’s ‘situated knowledges’ and Gilligan’s feminist ‘ethics of care’. 

3. Methodological innovation on the Listening Guide method of narrative analysis

I have been using and researching Carol Gilligan’s Listening Guide method of narrative analysis since the early 1990s when I learnt the method by working with Carol Gilligan as a doctoral student (at Cambridge University) and postdoctoral researcher (at Harvard University). Over the past 25 years, I have written extensively about the method, including with my colleague Andrea Doucet. I am currently conducting genealogical research on the Listening Guide to understand its history and philosophy, and to develop Listening Guide methodological practices that recognise how this method plays a role in constituting its objects of study. This is part of a broader effort to explore the implications of a feminist posthumanist turn for social science methodology, including qualitative research methods, which entails conceptualising and incorporating genealogies of research methods as inherent and inseparable parts of their practice.

4. Gender and work in higher education

Building on my earlier research on gender, work and family life, and gender, power and research management within the university sector, I am currently collaborating with colleagues at Newcastle University on research exploring intersectional inequalities and audit cultures in higher education. I am currently supervising a doctoral student, funded by a Goldman PhD Scholarship, researching gender in the neoliberal university. 

Prof. Mauthner currently teaches research methods to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

• Articles

  • Mauthner N. Karen Barad's posthumanist relational ontology: An intra-active approach to theorising and studying family practices. Families, Relationships and Societies 2021, 10(1), 33-49.
  • Mauthner NS. Towards a Posthumanist Ethics of Qualitative Research in a Big Data Era. American Behavioral Scientist 2019, 63(6), 669-698.
  • Mauthner NS. Screening, diagnosing, and medicating depression: Psychiatric methods and the making of mental disorder. Women’s Reproductive Health 2018, 5(1), 32-36.
  • Mauthner NS, Gárdos J. Archival practices and the making of ‘memories’. New Review of Information Networking 2015, 20(1-2), 156-171.
  • Mauthner NS. ‘The past was never simply there to begin with and the future is not simply what will unfold’: A posthumanist performative approach to qualitative longitudinal research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 2015, 18(3), 321-336.
  • Mauthner NS. Digital data sharing: A genealogical and performative perspective. Studia Socjologiczne 2014, 3(214), 177-186.

• Book Chapters

  • Mauthner NS. Research Philosophies and why they matter. In: Keith Townsend, Mark NK Saunders, Rebecca Loudoun and Emily Morrison, ed. How to Keep your Doctorate on Track: Insights from Students' and Supervisors Experiences. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020, pp.76-86.
  • Mauthner NS. Feminist methods. In: Atkinson PA; Delamont S; Cernat A; Sakshaug JW; Williams RA, ed. Sage Research Methods Foundations. London: SAGE Publications, 2020.
  • Mauthner NS. Carol Gilligan. In: Atkinson P; Delamont S; Cernat A; Sakshaug JW; Williams RA, ed. SAGE Research Methods Foundations. London: Sage, 2019.
  • Mauthner NS, Kazimierczak KA. Theoretical perspectives on technology and society: Implications for understanding the relationship between ICTs and family life. In: Connecting Families? Information & Communication Technologies, Generations and the Life Course. Bristol: Policy Press, 2018.
  • Mauthner NS. Data sharing methods. In: Ritzer G, ed. Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, Second Edition. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2018.
  • Mauthner NS. A posthumanist ethics of mattering: New materialisms and the ethical practice of inquiry. In: Iphofen R; Tolich M, ed. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Ethics. London: Sage, 2018.
  • Mauthner NS. The Listening Guide Feminist Method of Narrative Analysis: Towards a Posthumanist Performative (Re)configuration. In: Jo Woodiwiss, Kate Smith and Kelly Lockwood, ed. Feminist Narrative Research: Opportunities and Challenges. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp.65-91.
  • Mauthner NS. Un/re-making method: Knowing/enacting posthumanist performative social research methods through ‘diffractive genealogies’ and ‘metaphysical practices’. In: Victoria Pitts-Taylor, ed. Mattering: Feminism, Science and Materialism. New York: New York University Press, 2016, pp.258-283.
  • Mauthner NS. Should data sharing be regulated?. In: van den Hoonaard WC; Hamilton A, ed. The Ethics Rupture: Exploring Alternatives to Formal Research-Ethics Review. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016, pp.206-229.