Staff profile
Ben Main
Postgraduate Research Student
| Affiliation | Room number | Telephone |
|---|---|---|
| Postgraduate Research Student in the Department of Sociology |
Biography
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) my PHD investigates precarious life in London by comparing precarious living spaces across social-space and social categories. Empirically, my research is engaged with the specificties, economies, networks and gatekeepers of hidden homelessness and temporary accommodation and with the conditions of social transitions and ‘relegation’ into and out of this space. I follow a ‘Burawoyean’ ethnography constructing ‘cases’ and explanations from field sites to interrogate existing aspects of social theory. Theoretically, my concerns are the abstractions and social processes of the housing system, ‘rent’ and work and the mechanisms of ‘symbolic violence’.
My postgraduate and undergraduate degrees are from the University of Cambridge and London. Previously, I held the IMESS programme scholarship at UCL’s School of Slavonic and East European studies for the MA in Economy, State and Society. In 2023 I am on a UKRI PHD placement in the UK government.
Teaching
Seminar tutor (academic year 2022/23):-
- Contemporary Criminological Theory
- Criminal Justice Landscape
- Social Work in Context
Publications
Journal Article
- Main, Ben, Csanadi, Marcell & Ozieranski, Piotr (2022). Pricing strategies, executive committee power and negotiation leverage in New Zealand’s containment of public spending on pharmaceuticals. Health Economics, Policy and Law 17(3): 348-365.
- Main, Ben & Ozieranski, Piotr (2021). Divergent spender: State‐societal and meso‐organisational mechanisms in the containment of public spending on pharmaceuticals in a liberal capitalist democracy. Sociology of Health & Illness 43(6): 1518-1539.