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Dr Vicky Singleton

Sociology: Senior Lecturer

Degree: RGN, Blackpool Victoria Hospital BSc Hons, Psychology, Lancaster University PhD, Science and Technology Studies

Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Centre for Science Studies

Current Teaching

WS101 - undergraduate one year course in gender and women's studiesWS402 - Doing Feminist Research - postgraduate module available for MA and PhD students

Research Interests

Key Words

Materiality, practices, science and technology, health, farming, policy, hidden work, gender constitution and enactment, standardization and generalisation, science and technology studies, (after) actor-network theory.

Myself

I trained and worked as a general nurse before studying for a degree in Psychology and completing my PhD in Science and Technology Studies and Feminist Science Studies. I have carried out many projects in health and medicine. Currently I am researching and writing about family farm practices.

I have three children and we live in a recently converted agricultural building in rural North West of the UK. I spent my childhood living and working on our family farm and I now live surrounded by the family farms of others that produce food for local and wider consumption. I am especially enjoying my current research project to consider various aspects of contemporary farming practices and their interaction with health and with agricultural and agri-environment policies.

My Research Story

What follows is a relatively neat and tidy account of the development of my research interests. It wasn't as straightforward as this, but a linear story is possible with hindsight.

When working as a nurse, firstly on an Intensive Care Unit for high dependency patients and later on an acute health care ward for women undergoing surgery, I developed specific interests and questions. I became interested in questioning the relationship between expertise and gender and expertise and lay knowledge. I was fascinated by the unspoken, craft knowledge embedded in professional practices and also in the complex interactions of psychological health and physical health. I joined the University as an undergraduate to study Psychology and Sociology with these interests in mind. I was introduced to Philosophy of Science and to social theory and I became especially interested in policy and practice interactions in health care settings.

I studied for my PhD within the Centre for Science Studies and Science Policy at Lancaster with an exciting group of PhD students and working with Mike Michael and Brian Wynne, both established scholars within Science and Technology Studies. The PhD was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Science and Engineering Research Council as a part of their research programme considering Public Understanding of Science. We explored the interactions of sciences and publics through a variety of empirical case studies and through asking questions such as: Who are 'the public'? What is science? How is interaction done?

My PhD was an empirical case study of the practices of the UK Cervical Screening Programme. Through ethnography, participant observation and interviews I studied the programme in practice, how the various contributors played their role; e.g. cervical cells, laboratory technicians, doctors, women, microscopes. I became particularly interested in how the practices related to the national policy. Theoretically the thesis created conversations between Science and Technology Studies, in the guise of Actor-Network Theory, and Feminist Studies of Science and Technology. It developed the notion of ambivalence in relation to actors' enrolment within particular networks and drew heavily upon the concept of multiple identities.

Subsequent research has included various case studies articulating practices and materialities involved in 'the doing of' health policies. Currently I am researching family farm practices with a particular interest in women and farming, in local food production and in the relationships between family farm practices and National agricultural and agri-environment policies. This project brings together a range of personal and intellectual experiences and interests and will involve ethnography and participant observation.

I feel privileged to continue to work at Lancaster. It has a thriving and very active interdisciplinary Centre for Science Studies that intersects with the Institute for Women's Studies in energising and inspiring ways. I have also learned much through supervising eleven PhD students to successful completion of their theses and through teaching the Science and Technology Studies MA core module, 'Science and Technology Studies' and the Women's Studies MA core module, 'Doing Feminist Research'.

Research Programme and Activities

My contribution to Science, Technology and Society Studies is through empirical case studies that aim to articulate practices and materialities. In particular I have contributed to the development of Science, Technology and Medicine Studies and to Feminist Studies of Science and Technology. I draw upon a diverse body of work that includes, public understanding of science and technology, medical sociology, feminist technoscience, theory and practice, cultural studies, science and technology studies and more recently, research on women and farming, food and agriculture.

My empirical foci are places where policy meets practice and include:

• Public health programmes such as the UK Cervical Screening Programme and an initiative to train members of a rural community in Cardio-pulmonary Resuscitation.
• Clinical locations that afford access to the complexity of medical decision making around protocols, such as a clinic-based study 'Measuring Effectiveness in the Diagnosis, Treatment and Care of Alcoholic Liver Disease'.
• Locations evaluating the effect on policy during implementations such as a study of sickness absence following a policy change at a large Land Registry Office (funded by the Land Registry) an a study of mothers' implementation of recommendations to reduce the risk of cot death. All of these research projects have been written up as reports and as academic papers.

My current research project considers family farm practices of food production in the North West of the UK.

Theory, Method and Implications

My research explores how publics interact with science, in particular medicine and agricultural, and how medical and agricultural practices and programmes understand publics, which has implications for the development of policy. At a theoretical level, I have two major concerns. Firstly, I continue to develop conceptual tools that afford articulation of practices and materiality and analytical sensitivity to ambivalence, tacit and craft knowledges. Secondly, I am concerned to explore the processes through which knowledges/programmes/practices are perpetually changing through practice, and the implications of this for policy development.

As many of the empirical foci that I have researched have particular implications for women, I have also researched and published on the woman/science relationship and join many other feminist commentators to highlight the particularities of the relationship between women and science/technology.

I welcome research students and currently supervise students researching in a range of substantive areas including; caesarean section and women's right to choose, the historical construction of epilepsy, surgical construction and treatment of obesity, library information systems, schizophrenia and psychiatric care, young women, sexuality and Christian traditions, the co-evolution of children's bodies and prosthetic limbs. I am interested in and have expertise in qualitative research including participant observation, interviews, and textual analysis in the form of detailed case studies. In particular I am interested in research that seeks to articulate and to appreciate the work of practice of programmes, policies, interventions, systems and guidelines. Substantively I am interested in medicine and health care and in farming and food.

Some of my publications:

A Further Species of Trouble: Disaster, in M. Doering and B. Nerlich Eds., From Mayhem to Meaning: The Cultural Meaning of the 2001 Outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK , Manchester University Press: Manchester, UK (in press, 2007) >(with John Law)

The promise of public health: Vulnerable policy and lazy citizens' Environment and Planning : Society and Space , Vol 23 (5) (October 2005), 771-786 >

Resuscitating Healthy Citizens: Normativities and Negativties, in Feminism and Technoscience: A Reader I Moser, K. Asdal and B. Brenna Eds. (in press, 2006)

Object Lessons Organization Vol. 12 No 3 (2005) 331-355. (with John Law)

Who's choosing caesarean section? British Journal of Midwifery Vol. 11 No. 6 (June 2003) (with Carol Kingdon, Tina Lavender, Gill Gyte, Ruth Cattrell, James Neilson)

Allegory and Its Others in Knowing in Organisations: a Practice Based Approach Silivia Gherardi, Davide Nicolini and Dvora Yanow (Eds) New York : M.E. Sharpe (2003) 225-254. (with John Law)

Sickness Absence as Risk Taking Behaviour: A study of organisational and cultural factors Health, Risk and Society Vol. 2. (2001) 7-21 (with Anne Grinyer)

Performing Technology's Stories: On Social Constructivism, Performance, and Performativity, Technology and Culture Vol. 41 No. 4 (October 2000) 765-775. (with John Law)

Actores-red y ambivalencia. Los medicos de familia en el programa britanico de citologia de cribaje, in Sociologia simetrica, Ensayos sobre ciencia, tecnologia y sociedad Miquel Domenech and Francisco Javier Tirado (comps.) Editorial Gedisa, Barcelona , Spain (1998) 171-217. (With Mike Michael, translation of Singleton and Michael, 1993)

The Politic(ian)s of SSK Social Studies of Science Vol. 28 No. 2 (April 1998) 332-338.

Stabilising Instabilities: The role of the laboratory in the UK Cervical Screening Programme in Differences in Medicine: Unravelling Practices, Techniques and Bodies Marc Berg and Annemarie Mol (Eds.) Duke University Press, Durham , NCa (1998) 86-104.

Feminism, Sociology of Scientific Knowledge and Postmodernism: Politics, Theory and Me Social Studies of Science , Special Issue on The Politics of SSK: New Directions/Places/People/Things, Malcolm Ashmore and Evelyn Richards (Eds.) Vol. 26 (1996) 445-68

Networking Constructions of Gender and Constructing Gender Networks: considering definitions of woman in the British Cervical Screening Programme in The Gender-Technology Relation: Contemporary Theory and Research Keith Grint and Rosalind Gill (Eds) Taylor and Francis Ltd., London (1995) 146-173. >

Actor-Networks and Ambivalence: General Practitioners in the UK Cervical Screening Programme Social Studies of Science Vol. 23 (1993) 227-64. (with Mike Michael)

Reports

1. Vicky Singleton and Anne Grinyer, Sickness Absence at a District Land Registry: An Independent Investigation Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University . (September 1998)

2. John Law and Vicky Singleton Complexity and the Management of Alcoholic Liver Disease Centre for Science Studies , Lancaster University . (September 1999)

Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database

Vicky Singleton has 7 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk

Other Interests and Hobbies

I have a passion for walking, especially with friends, family and my dog. I very much appreciate living near to the Lake District and to the fells of Bowland Forrest. I am a keen gardener. Having just moved to our new home with a larger garden, I am looking forward to growing more vegetables and fruit. I also enjoy going to live music concerts, especially rock concerts.

Associated Keywords: After actor-network theory, Agriculture, Farming, Gender, Health, Science and technology studies

View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with Vicky Singleton.

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