Researcher Profile - Edward Wright
Edward Wright
Theorisations of harm and the tobacco industry
Edward Wright is an Assistant Professor in the School of Sociology and Social Policy.
Social science has to react to the world around it. The biggest challenges for humanity should become the biggest challenges for social science. This is what makes social science exciting. It presents a chance to engage with the problems we face on a planetary level, in a way that goes beyond general public discussion.
Current research focus/recent research
The sociologist Talcott Parsons once described himself as an ‘incurable theorist’. Though I cannot claim to be a fan of Parsons, this phrase resonates with me in that I am over and over again drawn to ‘theory’. The way I do theory, though, is typically through qualitative research. Taking theoretical problems as my starting point, such as how the modern world is formed and how this impacts on the way we live, and then empirically exploring them, has meant that my research interests have always been quite eclectic. I have done research on boxing, capoeira, modern slavery, prisons, and those with sexual convictions.
Most recently, I have been focussing on theorisations of harm, and the tobacco industry. What links all my research together is an ‘incurable’ desire to understand and explain what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.
How would you explain your research?
Some of my current research, which I am undertaking with my colleagues James Heydon and Caitlin Bunce, seeks to situate the tobacco industry in relation to colonialism. Through doing so, I aim to produce a broader understanding of the harms of tobacco. Typically, the harms of tobacco focus on consumption and the individual body. My argument is that by focussing on production too, a wider series of harms become apparent. This then makes further sense of harms via consumption and vice versa.
I am particularly interested in consumer experiences and understandings of these production processes, and everyday tobacco consumption as it relates to these wider structures. I am also interested in how urban environments are ordered according to smoking and thereby the structures of tobacco production. This allows for an understanding of the coloniality of contemporary social life, and how harm is embedded within our mundane social order.
What inspired you to pursue this area?
I had written a paper on harm and colonialism, in which I wrote a little about the tobacco industry. James and Caitlin had also done some research on tobacco, so we began to talk. We clearly had a shared interest, so we began to develop some ideas further. This then combined with a piece of work I had done with Les Back (University of Glasgow), in which we discussed how even the most mundane products and aspects of everyday life often have roots in colonialism, which only becomes apparent once critically explored. Tobacco is an important avenue to explore these ideas, and one that can hopefully resonate widely with a variety of audiences, so this project was born. That tobacco is a hugely harmful substance gave me further drive to explore this area in particular, out of a vast array of products and actions that could be considered in this way.
How will your research affect the average person?
The mundane action of cigarette smoke inhalation – breathing in tobacco smoke first- or second-hand – can only occur due to a vast set of structures which are colonial in their origin and contemporary operation. Bringing this into view is something social science is capable of, and I hope that this research encourages further public understanding of the wider harms of the tobacco industry, beyond those bodily harms of which we are probably all aware. The World Health Organisation has a strategy on tobacco, which includes warning of its dangers, and I hope that this research can contribute to this discussion. Ultimately, I am seeking to augment how the public discussion on the harms of tobacco is conducted.
How does your research influence your teaching?
My research is vital to my teaching – I am not sure what I would lecture on without it! Even if I am not directly discussing my own research, I often know about the scholarship I am discussing through engaging with it in my research. I do also regularly directly discuss my own research in my teaching too though. For example, I directly discuss my work on theorisations of harm in one of our year two core criminology modules.
I also draw on my work on boxing in a research methods module I convene. I did a long-term qualitative study in a boxing club, which is – at least I hope – an interesting vehicle through which to teach qualitative research methods. More broadly, my overarching research vision informs my teaching too: I want to inspire students to actively and critically interrogate their place within the world, and I try to bring in theories and ideas from across my research that can help them do this.
What's been the greatest moment of your career so far?
I am not sure I could pin down a particular moment. There are perhaps some obvious successes such as being awarded my doctorate, but just routinely being in the presence of inspiring people at the university – staff and students – is about as good as it gets.
What's the biggest challenge in your field?
Social science has to react to the world around it. The biggest challenges for humanity should become the biggest challenges for social science. This is what makes social science exciting. It presents a chance to engage with the problems we face on a planetary level, in a way that goes beyond general public discussion. Equally, there tends to be a lag between the emergence of such challenges and social scientific analyses of them. For instance, there is something of a global moment of reckoning with the postcolonial condition, but criminology – particularly Western criminology – has yet to widely consider its relation to this. I think this is a major challenge for criminology.
What advice would you give to someone considering an undergraduate degree in criminology?
I would advise looking beneath the surface of what the word criminology means. At a basic level, it means the study of crime, but as might be gathered from reading the above, criminology involves engaging with a really diverse set of ideas and subjects. For instance, it involves learning in a detailed way about criminal justice systems, but it is not limited to it. Studying criminology at undergraduate level at Nottingham involves taking modules in sociology and social policy too, and the ideas engaged with in these modules are crucial for explaining matters of crime and justice, but are not necessarily immediately about crime and justice in the first instance.
In practical terms, I would advise coming to an open day at the university so that you can speak with our current students, to find out more about the course content, and to see the wonderful campus where our teaching and learning takes place.