Professor of Sociology, University of Essex
John is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Leadership Fellow in Conflict, Crime and Security. John works on the sociology of disasters, emergencies and existential threat as well as the sociology of education.
His work considers the racial and classed contexts of preparedness campaigns for disasters and emergencies. This has involved analysis of preparedness campaigns and films from the Cold War in the UK and US, reappraising working class children's agency in the Aberfan disaster, community case studies on the racialization of public information for terrorist attacks, comparative analysis of national cultures of preparedness and critiquing popular conceptions of existential threat from nuclear war to A.I. 'super-intelligence'. His latest book 'Grenfell Tower: Preparedness, Race and Disaster Capitalism' (2019) uses Marxist value critique and Critical Race Theory to argue that disaster preparedness increasingly works against working class and racialised populations as exemplified by the Grenfell Tower fire.
John has acted as PI on both ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) and EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Science Research Council) interdisciplinary projects related to preparedness and disasters namely 'Preparedness pedagogies and race' (ESRC, 2009-2010), 'Game theory and adaptive networks for city evacuations'' (EPSRC, 2010-2013) and 'Threats to Infrastructure' (2012 - 2015). His ESRC Leadership Fellowship examines preparedness cultures across a number of comparative contexts (UK, US, Japan, Germany and New Zealand).
What the government is really saying with its 'Get Ready for Brexit' campaign
Sep 22, 2019 13:52 pm UTC| Insights & Views
The UK government is running a public information campaign urging the country to get ready for Brexit on October 31. It includes information on travel, exporting and legal requirements. The campaign is primarily built...
There’s an extra $1 billion on the table for NT schools. This could change lives if spent well
Emissions impossible? How the transport sector can help make the 2050 net-zero goal a reality
Did Biden really steal the election? Students learn how to debunk conspiracy theories in this course
Trump wouldn’t be the first presidential candidate to campaign from a prison cell