There is a spike in exports of household white goods and consumer electornics to former Soviet Central Asia and the neighbourhood. Why is that? The assumption is they are headed by hook and by crook to Russia. What for? It is claimed they are needed for the war. There is …
It is difficult to understand the appeal of Ardern, Sturgeon, Trump and Johnson without recognising that politics is about providing psychological goods: the warm bath of a seratonin hit, with the odd excitement of a dopamine rush to break it up now and then. Western politicians have given up on …
A research review is a summary, evaluation and critique of a book or other work, like a report or a collection of research articles. Its purpose is to comment on the state of knowledge on a topic and/or to evaluate a particular theory or contribution. The first task you have …
The value of social research methods is that it produces independent evidence on the nature of society, social-economic problems and challenges, and potentially agreed ways of reaching effective solutions. There are two challenges to social research methods: one is the epistemic fracture of societies, where awkward evidence is mistrusted or …
Crime is designed in. Organised crime is intertwined in society and its institutions, its character reflects them, and it uses society’s technical affordances. Digital capitalism provides tools to increase the reach and impact of criminal activity Risks are distributed along with social vulnerabilities. Some crime is required and necessary because …
You know that bit at the end of your dissertation or research paper where you suggest what could be done next, and which is always the last thing everyone writes and which you give less thought to than a status update on Insta? You are doing it wrong. Typically these …
Life is generic, and therefore so is our AI. Botcopalypse postponed for now. Technofear can stand down. As with Zombie move tropes, the real threat is from the humans. Interacting with ChatGPT is not that different from talking to any bureaucracy. I have in the past set out a few …
Illicit markets face problems with valuation, coordination and cooperation (Beckert and Wehinger, 2012) and cannot rely on institutions of of law and state to fix these problems for them. Therefore they turn to other mechanisms – interpersonal trust, reliance on corrupt state and policing actors for enforcement, and sometimes complex …
If you did not have imposter syndrome you would basically be living in your parents’ attic right now (apologies if you are in fact living there right now. I’m sure it’s nice). You cannot get rid of imposter syndrome but you can feel better about it and use some elements …
Research is a process of constantly theorizing from evidence. In order to give our findings life and meaning we can apply frames that allow us to do that and also help us work together and react to practical problems as they come up. One frame is normalization. As sociologists we …
