The School of Geography, Politics and Sociology

Staff Profile

Dr Jacqui Close

Lecturer

Teaching

My research interests lie in the complexities and experiences of everyday lives, including identities, inequalities and social justice. My undergraduate teaching spans methodology and theoretical perspectives and how the two inform and complement one another. 

I am the Module Leader for the stage 2 module Class in Everyday Life (SOC2094).

In addition to teaching, I am also the Senior Tutor for Sociology students, and EDI Director for the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology.


Research

ESRC funded PhD completed 2017: Ideals and Expectations: Representations, Practices and Governance of Contemporary Motherhood. This qualitative research is based primarily on semi-structured interviews with mothers, examining identity, neoliberal governance and moral worth. The thesis is an exploration of the “truth” of mothering, which I argue can only be known by examining the project of the child in the making of neo-liberal selves. It builds a framework through setting out how a technology of governance works, identifying the spread of doxa through neuroscience presumptions, and looks at how “wilful dependency” has become a dominant discourse in the everyday and in policy-making.

Publications