School for Sociology, Politics and International Studies

Dr Jennifer Whillans: Money on the table: Cost, splitting the bill, and value for money when eating out 

Curiously, money has been absent from the sociology of consumption (Evans and Gregson 2023). Specifically, theories of practice - a hugely influential approach to the study of ordinary, inconspicuous activity – emphasises how practices (such as eating out) are configured through the alignment of heterogeneous elements (materials, competences, meanings); however, economic ‘elements’ – including cost, payment etiquette, and value for money – are largely absent from practice theoretic accounts of consumption such as Eating Out (more popular, for example, have been patterns of taste and social distinction). This research will use existing quantitative data, Eating Out Survey 2015. This survey has a broad scope but includes questions about attitudes towards eating out (including perceived value for money of the practice) and details about the last occasion on which respondents ate a main meal away from home (including how much was spent, and who paid). This quantitative research will address the following research questions:  

RQ1: What situational and sociodemographic variables account for the total cost of a restaurant bill?

RQ2: When dining out with others, what variables shape the settling of the bill?

1. How often is the bill paid for by one person or shared/split?
2. What situational and sociodemographic variables are associated with splitting the bill?
3. When one person pays the total bill, what are the differences between meal occasion when a man pays and when a woman pay?

RQ3: What situational and sociodemographic variables are associated with evaluating that the last meal occasion was ‘value for money’?

RQ4: What is the relationship between cost, payment, and value for money?

In this research project, interns will:

• Apply and develop quantitative research methods using statistical software (STATA).
• Conduct a literature search on gender equality and payment, etiquette around payment in restaurants, and ‘value for money’ in sociological literature.

Dr Jennifer Whillans: Food fights at work- MPs’ subsidised gourmet meals and Nurses’ expensive macaroni cheese 

Most workers, most days eat lunch at work. The workplace is the most common place to eat during the week, after meals in the home. Despite its prominence in the contemporary diet, the workday lunch has been unattended within the sociology of food and eating. A recent media storm on MPs’ subsidised gourmet meals and Nurses’ expensive macaroni cheese raises interesting sociological questions about food at work. Who has access to good quality, value for money meals at work? Whose responsibility is it to feed workers? (Whose responsibility should it be? Government, employer, individual). Public outcry over the cost and quality of MPs and nurses workday lunch provides an empirical example through which to develop understanding of social justice, responsibilization, and food at work. 
 
In this project, the intern will: 

• Conduct a literature review around workplace canteens in UK; employers’ role in feeding workers; government subsidies and tax relief on meals at work. 
  
• Assemble a qualitative dataset, gathering newspaper articles and social media posts on the news story of MPs and Nurses lunches. 
  
• Conduct preliminary analysis of the qualitative data (thematic analysis in NVivo). 

Dr Karen Tucker: Mapping the global governance architecture on reforestation 

Reforestation is widely acknowledged to be a crucial component of humanity's response to anthropogenic climate change. Despite its acknowledged importance, there is no single UN agency or overarching policy framework to guide international cooperation and action in this area. The global governance of reforestation instead takes place through a patchwork of initiatives and guidance, which makes it difficult to assess its effectiveness. This project will help fill this gap. Using a mixture of internet research and academic literature reviews, the intern will map the global governance guidelines and initiatives pertaining to reforestation that have been launched in the past decade, along with the scholarly debates that these have generated. 

Dr Katharina Richter: The Cultural Politics of Sustainability Transformations 

The cultural politics of sustainability transformations is an under-researched area. Investigations tend to focus on the socioeconomic aspects of low-carbon futures. Yet, fundamental changes in the way we relate to the living world are required for those low-carbon transformations to be sustainable and politically feasible. The nature/culture divide, or the mechanistic view of nature as inert resource is one of the main cultural drivers for environmental exploitation. This view is coupled to the history and political economy of capitalism and colonialism and has been universalised as a hegemonizing and excluding discourse via science and technology (Achinte and Rosero, 2016; Merchant, 2020). The research intern will be asked to carry out a literature review into the cultural politics of sustainability transformations, specifically, into what interventions, projects, factors, or practices have the potential to overturn, or have demonstrably overturned this mechanistic view of nature in the UK and the Anglophone world, and whether/how they have created a sense of being embedded into the natural world. The latter is argued to produce worldviews and world-making practices that challenge the ‘coloniality of nature’, and if scaled up, would allow for long-term sustainability transformations to take place. The literature review will consist of a SCOPUS and one more database search, which includes operationalising search terms, building the search, screening title, abstract and keywords, full-text review, data extraction and finally, write-up of results. 

Dr Rosie Nelson: Bisexuality in the Media- A literature review project 

This project aims to look at how bisexuality is depicted on screen. This project will take place in two segments under the guidance of Dr Rosie Nelson (they/them). You will be asked to conduct a scoping review into academic literature to explore what theorists and academics have said about bi+ representation on screen. 
 
A scoping review is a method where a researcher explores a vast amount of literature databases using particular key words to map the existing evidence and arguments around a particular topic. In this case, we will be exploring bisexuality and the media. 
 
At the end of this project, you will have a huge insight into how to search for literature using a scoping methodology and how to summarise some key points that can help a literature review. You will also have some insight into the methods needed to develop studies of media representation and content. 

SPAIS/Geography, Dr Lydia Medland: Under the apple tree- the changing social and political relations of apple production in the UK 

As part of the Working for Five a Day project, you will focus on orchards and the people who work in them. You might choose to take an approach looking at the political and economic history of orchards which will involve considering how the UK membership and exit from the EU have changed orchards over recent decades. Or, you might consider the social conditions of workers in large orchards today, for example focusing on housing or pay rates of orchard workers in the UK today. Alongside your academic supervisor, Dr Lydia Medland, you will be encouraged to meet other researchers across the University of Bristol working on the apple and cider industry. Your project can be conceptually framed by the idea of ‘Food Justice’ or ‘Food Security’ or ‘Food Systems’. The disciplines that will inform your work could include, Geography, Sociology, Politics, International Relations, History, Industrial Relations and Law. The details of how you carry out the project will be planned in collaboration with your academic supervisor, ideally before you begin your six-week placement.