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For the risk management consultant and private investigator called Michael Featherstone, see Michael Featherstone.

Mike Featherstone (born 1946) is a British sociologist, Research Professor of Sociology and Communications at Nottingham Trent University and also the director of the Theory, Culture & Society Centre. He is noted for his work in the fields of social and cultural theory, consumer and global culture, ageing and the body. Featherstone is the founding editor of the journal Theory, Culture & Society (1982-) and the Theory, Culture & Society Book Series (1990-). He is co-editor of the journal Body & Society (1995-).

His books and articles have been translated into sixteen languages. The Consumer Culture and Postmodernism book has been translated into Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish and Turkish. Undoing Culture has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian and Portuguese. Other books and articles have been translated into Bulgarian, Croatian, French, German, Hungarian and Ukrainian. He has spent time as a visiting professor in Barcelona, Geneva, Kyoto, Recife, São Paulo, Tokyo and Vancouver. [is this okay?]

Featherstone gained his BA and MA degrees from University of Durham and his PhD from the University of Utrecht. [Mike, your teaching posts here]

Research interests

[maybe a short para or something that i could work into a short para] His original research interests were in the sociology of power and revolution and this resulted in the publication of Reference Groups and the Theory of Revolution (1973) and Power in Britain (1973).

Early work at Lancaster was in the area of social theory and the philosophy of the social sciences. This resulted in the jointly written Social Theory as Science, (1975, 1982), which set out the main features of the realist philosophy of science. Critical confrontation with a number of Marxist traditions, of Althusserian structuralism, German state theory, and neo-Gramscian, resulted in The Anatomy of Capitalist Societies (1981).

Research Areas

[am not sure you are happy with this but we can go with what you prefer]

Research over the last twenty years has focused on five main areas.

Regionalism

First, there was the urban and regional research mainly associated with the Lancaster Regionalism Group. Collaborative research resulted in Localities, Class and Gender (1985) and Restructuring. Place, Class and Gender (1990) Two particular themes have been pursued: the relationship between society and space (as in the Social Relations and Spatial Structures, co-edited with Derek Gregory, 1985); and the possibilities of developing local economic policies (as in Place, Policy and Politics, 1990).

Economic & Social Change

The second area of research has been in the more general dimensions of economic and social change in western capitalist societies. This has resulted in three jointly written books, Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes (1983); The End of Organized Capitalism (1987); and Economies of Signs and Space (1994; latter two with Scott Lash).

Consumer & Tourism Services

Thirdly, research focused upon one particular set of industries that are of particular significance in contemporary western societies, namely consumer services and especially tourist-related services. The economic, social, environmental and cultural implications of such developments can be seen in The Tourist Gaze (1990, 2002: 2nd edn.), Consuming Places (1995), Touring Cultures (1997, edited with Chris Rojek), Tourism Mobilities (2004, edited with Mimi Sheller), and Performing Tourist Places (with J-O Barenholdt, M Haldrup, J. Larsen). This concern was extended to issues of environmental change and the 'sociology of nature' see Contested Natures (1998) and Bodies of Nature (2001) (both with Phil Macnaghten).

Mobility

Fourthly, there are various research projects and publications relating to the changing nature of mobility. Publications include: Sociology Beyond Societies (2000), a special issue of Theory, Culture and Society, (Aug 2004 on Automobilities coedited with Mike Feathersone, Nigel Thrift); Mobile Technologies of the City (2006; coedited with Mimi Sheller. John Urry also directs the Centre for Mobilities Research.

Complexity theory

Finally , John Urry has been exploring some implications of complexity theory for the social sciences. Publications here include Global Complexity (2003), and Complexity, a special double issue of Theory, Culture and Society (2005).

He is also one of the founding editors of the new journal Mobilities, and has been the editor of the International Library of Sociology since 1990 (Routledge).

Books published

(excluding foreign language editions; books translated into 10+ languages)

• 1988 Postmodernism, Sage Publications
• 1990
  • Global Culture, Sage Publications
  • The Future of Adult Life Proceedings, 5 Volumes, University of Teesside Publications
• 1975 Social Theory as Science, Routledge and Kegan Paul (with Russell Keat)
• 1981 The Anatomy of Capitalist Societies, Macmillan
• 1982 Social Theory as Science, Second Edition, Routledge and Kegan Paul (with Russell Keat)
• 1983 Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes, Allen and Unwin (with Nick Abercrombie)
• 1985
  • Social Relations and Spatial Structures, Macmillan (co edited with Derek Gregory)
  • Localities, Class, and Gender, Pion (with Lancaster Regionalism Group)
• 1987 The End of Organized Capitalism, Polity (with Scott Lash)
• 1988 Contemporary British Society, Polity (with Nick Abercrombie, Alan Warde, Keith Soothill, Sylvia Walby).
• 1989-96 Schools of Thought in Sociology, General Editor of 18 vols, Edward Elgar.
• 1990
  • Localities, Policies, Politics. Do Localities Matter?, Hutchinson (co edited with Michael Harloe, Chris Pickvance).
  • Restructuring. Place, Class and Gender, Sage (with other members of the Lancaster Regionalism Group).
  • The Tourist Gaze, Sage.
• 1994
  • Economies of Signs and Space, Sage (with Scott Lash)
  • Contemporary British Society, Second Edition, Polity (with Nick Abercrombie, Alan Warde, Keith Soothill, Sylvia Walby)
  • Leisure Landscapes, Main Report and Background Papers, CPRE (with Gordon Clark, Jan Darrall, Robin Grove-White, Phil Macnaghten)
• 1995 Consuming Places, Routledge
• 1997 Touring Cultures, Routledge (co edited with Chris Rojek)
• 1998 Contested Natures, Sage (with Phil Macnaghten)
• 2000
  • "Sociology for the New Millennium." Special issue of the British Journal of Sociology (commissioned: contributors include Castells, Wallerstein, Beck, Sassen, Therborn)
  • Sociology beyond Societies, Routledge
  • Contemporary British Society, Third Edition, Polity (with Nick Abercrombie, Alan Warde et al.)
  • "Bodies of Nature". Special issue of Body and Society 6 (commissioned: co edited with Phil Macnaghten)
• 2001 Bodies of Nature. Sage (co edited with Phil Macnaghten)
• 2002 The Tourist Gaze. Second Edition, Sage
• 2003 Global Complexity, Polity
• 2004
  • "Presence-Absence." Special issue of Environment and Planning A: Society and Space 22 (co edited with Michel Callon and John Law)
  • "Automobilities." Special issue of Theory, Culture and Society 21 (co edited with Mike Featherstone and Nigel Thrift)
  • Tourism Mobilities. Places to Play, Places in Play, Routledge (co edited with Mimi Sheller)
  • Performing Tourist Places, Ashgate (with Bærenholdt, J. O., Haldrup, M., Larsen, J.)
• 2005
  • "Complexity." Special Issue of Theory, Culture and Society 22 1- 270
  • Automobilities. London: Sage (co edited with Featherstone, M., Thrift, N.) 285 pp.
  • Sociologie de Mobilités: Une nouvelle frontiére pour la sociologie?, Paris, Armand Colin, 251pp.
• 2006
  • "Mobilities and Materialities." Special issue of Environment and Planning A (co-edited with M. Sheller)
  • Mobile Technologies of the City, London: Routledge (coedited with M. Sheller)
  • Mobilities, Polity (in preparation)
  • Mobilities, Geographies, Networks, London: Ashgate (with J. Larsen, K.Axhausen)

References

• Lancaster University Staff pages
• Curriculum Vitae
• Publishers

External links

Lectures

• Lecture (Video/Audio) Mobility Futures
• Lecture (Video/Audio) Mobility Futures at World-Information City conference in Paris 2009