Professor Vicky Singleton
Emeritus ProfessorResearch Interests
Key Words
Materiality, practices, care, technoscience, feminist theory, health, medicine, policy, gender constitution and enactment, standardization and generalisation, science and technology studies, (after) actor-network theory.
General Research Activities
I am an interdisciplinary scholar, bringing feminist theory and methods together with sociological and cultural perspectives to study health, medicine, science and technology. I work within the discipline of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and its sub-discipline Science, Technology and Medicine Studies (STM).
My work has contributed to the development and growth of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) - a major and influential approach to STS that is widely used in numerous disciplines including organisational studies, health and medicine studies, social psychology, empirical philosophy, history, sociology and feminist studies. My work put ANT into conversation with feminist method and theory. My ANT inspired approach explores care as situated entanglements of non-human and human actors and explores the implications of this for fostering and supporting the best possible care practices.
Prior to my academic career I trained as a Registered General Nurse and I work with professional practitioners, service users and activists in order to contribute to policy and concrete practice as well as to theory. I carry out qualitative studies of doing care and policy on the ground: the research explores the complexities of practice essential to good care, but which often escape the managerial or policy-oriented approaches.
My current research projects are:
2018 - Being a digitised cancer patient (with Professor Pierre Martin-Hirsch and Lancashire Acute Hospitals Trust, linked to an ESRC CASE Award and a Swedish International Visiting Researcher Grant)
2017 - Living with Dying: palliative care (with Dr Steve Mee and and hospice staff and clients)
Previous projects:
2010 - 2016 Compassion in practice (with Dr Steve Mee, University of Cumbria and local community)
2007 - 2010 The impact of the Cattle Tracing System on the care work of farmers (with Fylde and Wyre farmers)
2001 - 2007 Women’s choice and Caesarean Section (with Liverpool Women’s Hospital and an NHS Fellow, Dr Carol Kingdon)
1999 - 2003 Training healthy citizens: CPR in the community (with Heart of Lancashire Charity)
1998 - 2000 The care trajectory of patients with Alcoholic Liver Disease (with Dr Peter Isaacs and a local acute Hospital Trust)
1999 - 2001 Sickness Absence at a District Land Registry (with Dr Anne Grinyer and HM Land Registry)
External student funding
- Eight ESRC Collaborative studentships (CASE Awards) and 4 NHS funded studentships.
- 3ESRC studentships, 2 AHRC studentships, 1 NERC studentship
- Oversees funding including Mexican, Canadian, Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese Governments.
Current Teaching
I teach modules/lectures concerning gender, feminism and society, and science and technology and society, at all levels of the undergraduate and postgraduate programme in Sociology.
Undergraduate
GWS 101 Gender and Women's Studies: Identities, Inequalities and Politics (First year course, Director and Lecturer)
SOCL 314 Feminism and Social Change (Third year module, Course convenor and Lecturer)
Masters
SOCL 406 Feminist Technoscience Studies (Course convenor and Lecturer).
SOCL 906 The Social Life of Science and Technology: Theories and Debates (Course convenor and Lecturer)
SOCL 931 Methods in Science and Technology Studies (Lecturer)
Doctoral/Research Student Workshops:
I have taught numerous international and national research student workshops
08/15 ANT, Policy and multiplicity, TANT LAB, Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark.
10/13 Gender, Nature and Society, University of Tampere, Finland.
04/13 An Introduction to Feminist Technoscience Studies of Reproduction, ReACH Midwifery Cluster, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
12-16 Feminist Technoscience Studies Summer School, Lancaster University (Course convenor and Lecturer, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016)
03/05 Science Studies School, Science Studies Opens the Black Box, Prague, Czech Republic.
05/04 Research Seminar Series, Department of Midwifery Studies, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK.
11/03 Medicine, Technologies and Practices, Linköping University, Sweden.
06/02 Bodies, Technologies and Health, Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo, Norway.
05/01 Bodies, Medicine and Health, Centre for the Sociology of Innovation, L’Ecole des Mines, Paris, France.
PhD Supervision
I currently supervise 7 PhD students:
Toby Atkinson, Alan Connolly, Aniela Bylinski Gelder, Emily Hoyle, Andy Yuille, Leah de Quattro, Clare Rotherham.
I have supervised 22 PhD students and 2 MPhil students to successful completion.I have worked with 7 visiting research students in recent years and will welcome a further student in 2019.
Post-Doctoral Mentees: I have mentored several researchers in recent years including Dr Yunxia Wu (China Scholarship Council, 2014-15). I will welcome Dr Lisa Linden (Swedish International Visiting Research Grant, 2019-21 ).
Examining Duties
I am External Examiner for the Science, Technology and Innovation Studies MA programmes, University of Edinburgh.
I have examined 28 PhDs: 13 as internal examiner and 15 as external examiner (in UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Australia).
Past teaching experience
Undergraduate: I have developed and taught a large number of undergraduate courses, including on study skills. I contributed to the Lancaster University Effective Learning Programme for many years.
Postgraduate Teaching: I convened and taught the core module for the Women’s Studies MA programme Doing Feminist Research for many years. I obtained ESRC and AHRC recognition for Women's Studies MA and MRes programmes. I co-developed the long standing MA in Science and Technology Studies and I remain responsible for the core module, Science, Technology and Society.
Research Overview
My current research programme explores Care-in-Practice
As part of this programme I have co-edited a Sociological Review Monograph titled Care and Policy Practices (2017) that explores the following questions:
- How do the practices of policy produce particular subjects and objects?
- How do policy and care, in intimate everyday social-material practices, and across diverse domains, distribute rights and resources?
- How might policy be enacted in ways that are care-full and appreciative of practices and contexts?
The research programme is developing a network of researchers to explore concerns about policy and about care as failing. Policies designed to protect, and to nurture can inadvertently harbour and promote relations of harm. Recent research on care as socio-technical and relational is proving productive in thinking through diverse policy-related domains. In particular the monograph explores how policy could attend to those things often neglected, harmed or made invisible and how to sensitize policy to inevitable incommensurate knowledges and excesses.
My current empirical projects develop this research programme:
Living with Dying explores professional and lay experiences of end of life care in a Hospice and Hospice at home service. The project identifies and promotes improvements that can be made to care practice and articulates practices of good care.
Being a digitised cancer patient explores how care is impacted for patients and practitioners in relation to the introduction of digital patient information. The aim is to articulate the issues and practices that are not picked up with usual forms of evaluation.
Professional affiliations
European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) Elected member of Council (2015 -)
The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
Association for Studies in Innovation Science and Technology (AsSIST-UK) Member of the Executive Committee and the Strategic Advisory Group (2015-)
Advisory Bodies (recent and current)
2018 Review Panel Member, Academy of Finland.
2018 Ziman Award Committee, EASST (for outstanding public engagement)
2017- External Examiner Science Technology and Innovation Studies MA programmes, University of Edinburgh
2015- Executive Board UK Association for Studies in Innovation, Science and Technology (AsSIST-UK).
2015- Elected member of Council of European Association for the Social Studies of Science and Technology (EASST),
2015- EASST Director of publications
2016 Chair of Ziman Award Committee, EASST (for outstanding public engagement)
2001-07 Project Steering Committee, Women’s Choice and Caesarean Delivery by Maternal Request, Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
Editorial Boards
EASST Review (March 2015-)
Science and Technology Studies (March 2015-)
International appointment committees: Copenhagen University, Denmark 6/2014, Aalborg University, Denmark 9/2016.
Regular reviewer of research applications: I receive regular invitations from ERC and ESRC to review applications. Review panel for Academy of Finland Research Project and Fellowship Awards (02/18 and 02/19).
Regular reviewer of papers for academic journals: Social Studies of Science; Science, Technology and Human Values; Social Science and Medicine; Sociology of Health and Illness; Organisation; Environment and Planning D and review book manuscripts (e.g. for Manchester University Press)
PhD Supervision Interests
I welcome research students and have supervised 22 students researching in a range of substantive areas. I am especially interested in students researching how policy is done in locations of practice and also in how care is done in practice. I have worked with several care practitioners seeking research qualifications. I am interested in and have expertise in qualitative research including ethnography, participant observation, interviews, and textual analysis in the form of detailed case studies. I am keen to work with stduents and collaborators to articulate and to appreciate the work of practice of care interventions, programmes, policies, technologies, systems and guidelines.
Selected Publications
Devices as rituals: notes on enacting resistance
Singleton, V., Law, J. 28/01/2013 In: Journal of Cultural Economy. 6, 3, p. 259-277. 19 p.
Journal article
Modes of syncretism: notes on noncoherence
Law, J., Afdal, G., Asdal, K., Lin, W., Singleton, V. 2014 In: Common Knowledge. 20, 1, p. 172-192. 21 p.
Journal article
All Publications
Living Well During and Beyond Treatment for Gynaecological Cancer: Exploring the Lived Experiences of Patients Undergoing Treatment for Gynaecological Cancer
16/05/2021 → 30/09/2022
Research
Living Well During and Beyond Treatment for Gynaecological Cancer: Exploring the Lived Experiences of Patients Undergoing Treatment for Gynaecological Cancer
16/05/2019 → 30/09/2022
Research
Being a Digitised Cancer Patient
01/10/2018 → 30/09/2021
Research
Living with Dying: End of Life Care
01/01/2017 → 01/01/2020
Research
Care in and for Policy
01/03/2013 → …
Research
Compassion in practice
01/10/2010 → 30/09/2016
Research
Family Farming Practices
01/01/2007 → 01/01/2010
Other
Materialities of Farming: The impact of the Cattle Tracing System on the care work of farmers
01/01/2006 → …
Other
Mixed Method Study of Women's Choice and Caesarean Section
01/10/2001 → 01/10/2007
Research
Sickness Absence and employee behaviour
01/01/1999 → 01/01/2001
Research
Gynae Cancer Narratives
Invited talk
Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
EASST
Other
Meeting Soil
Other
Creating a Diverse and Welcoming Movement
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
EASST
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Book launch and seminar
Other
Society for Socal Studies of Science
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
EASST / 4S
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
EASST / 4S
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
EASST / 4S
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Ontologies of…The Biosphere, Sex, the Artificial and Autonomous
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Telling Lives
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
New Practices for New Publics
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Centre for Science Studies (Organisational unit)
Membership of committee
"CO" – Co-productions, collaborations, contestations coming together in Copenhagen
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Social and Ethical Aspects of Health and Medicine
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
EASST Review (Journal)
Editorial activity
European Association for Study of Science and Technology (External organisation)
Membership of committee
Challenging Questions and Ethical Obligations: The Ethics of Everyday Practice
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
AsSIST-UK (External organisation)
Membership of committee
Biennial Conference of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Health Politics and Policy Network Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Gender, Nature and Society
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
CRESC Annual Conference. In/vulnerabilities and Social Change: Precarious Lives and Experimental Knowledge
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Evidence, Policies and Politics Seminar Series
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
ReaCH Midwifery Research Cluster
Visiting an external academic institution
Centre for Gender and Women's Studies Research Day
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
STS Laboratory research series
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
EASST / 4S Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
BSA Childbirth Study Group Conference
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Journeys with Salmon: Salmon Companions and their Others
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Centre for Gender Studies
- Centre for Gender Studies
- Centre for Science Studies