- Room 209, 9 Portland Villas, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA
- +44 1752 585820
- J.M.Parsons@plymouth.ac.uk

Profiles
Dr Julie Parsons
Associate Professor of Sociology
School of Law, Criminology and Government (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business)
- Sociology
- Health and sociology
- Illness and sociology
Email publicrelations@plymouth.ac.uk to enquire.
Associate Professor in Sociology
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Julie_Parsons3
http://plymouth.academia.edu/JParsons
Qualifications
Academic Qualifications:
PhD Sociology (Plymouth) 2014
MSc Sociology (University of Bristol) 1996
BA (Hons) First Class Sociology (UWE) 1994
Teaching Qualifications:
Fellow of Higher Education Academy (HEA) (2014)
Accreditation as a teacher in Higher Education (SEDA) (2000)
PG Certificate in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (1999)
UPSU SSTAR Awards 2014: Nominated as Outstanding Personal Tutor, Plymouth University
Professional membership
Member of the British Sociological Association (BSA)
Member of the European Sociological Association (ESA)
Member of the Association for Food and Society (ASFS)
Member of the British Society of Criminology (BSC)
Fellow of the Higher Education Acadamy (HEA)
Roles on external bodies
Convenor of the BSA Food Studies Group
Teaching interests
I teach in the areas of food, family, gender and health. Also, qualitative research methods, feminist approaches to research, research as a reflexive and reflective practice and Auto/Biography.
Staff serving as external examiners
External Examiner (2016-2020): BA (Hons) Sociology, Single Honours and BA (Hons) Sociology, Joint Honours, University of Worcester, Worcester WR2 6AJ.
Research interests
- ‘Finishing time’ a pilot project following ‘offenders’ beyond their resettlement into the community after punishment. Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) Discretionary Grant Award. August 1st 2018 – 31st July 2020.
- Evaluation of the Dartington LandWorks Project (June 2015 - April 2018) & LandWorks (CIO) Evaluation, 1st April 2018 – 31st March 2020.
- Mapping the transformative potential of participatory styles of research with vulnerable, marginalised and/or hard-to reach groups. Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF), Residential Research Group Award, Girton College, Cambridge, 20-25 August 2017.
- Developing social and cultural capital through Photographic e-Narratives (PeN) at an offender/ex-offender rehabilitation scheme (RS). Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) Mid-Career Fellowship Award, September 2016 - September 2017.
- Commensality (eating together) as a tool for health, well-being, social inclusion and community resilience, at a rural land-based offender resettlement project. Sociology of Health and Illness Foundation (SHI) Mildred Blaxter Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award, September 2015 - September 2016.
- Ourfoodstories@e-mail.com', an auto/biographical study of relationships with food, incorporates feminist approaches to research, auto/biography, life history models, gender, class, food, health, family, maternal identities, emotion, culture and the body. PhD 2010 - 2014
Other research
- Member of an interdisciplinary research team funded by the Institute for Sustainable Solutions Research (ISSR) and lead by Dr Clare Pettinger (Public Health Dietician) on a small-scale exploratory study ‘Food as Lifestyle Motivator’ investigating the use of food as a lifestyle motivator to enhance wellbeing and life skills in marginalized individuals in a Plymouth Homeless Centre (May 2014-2015).
- Pilot project for the Institute of Health & Community (IHC), exploring the lived experience of weight loss surgery (WLS) and the management of diabetes through weight management practices.
Grants & contracts
- Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) Research Residential Group Award, (August 2017) - https://collaborations-in-research.org/
- Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) Mid-Career Fellowship Award, (2016-17) - https://penprojectlandworks.org/
- Sociology of Health and Illness Foundation (SHI) Mildred Blaxter Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award, (2015-16)
- Shortlisted for the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness book prize 2016 for Gender, Class and Food, Families, Bodies and Health (Palgrave MacMillan 2015)
- Winner of the International Award for Excellence for Volume 4 of Food Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, for the article “‘Good’ Food as Family Medicine: Problems of Dualist and Absolutist Approaches to ‘Healthy’ Family Foodways,” was selected for the award from among the ten highest-ranked papers emerging from the peer review process and according to the selection criteria outlined in the referee guidelines.
Parsons, J.M. (2020) Finishing Time, iPoems & The ‘Pains of Release’ into the community after punishment, ISRF Bulletin 22, Structures of Feeling, pp15-20https://issuu.com/isrf/docs/isrf_20bulletin_20issue_20xxii
Parsons, J.M. and Letherby, G., (2020) An Introduction to Creative and Collaborative Approaches to Research with a Social and Criminal Justice Focus, Special Issue of Methodological Innovations, https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799120942054
Parsons, J.M. (2020) Making time for food when ‘doing time’; how enhanced status prisoners counter the indignity of prison foodways, Special Issue of Appetite on Prison Food. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2019.104507
Pettinger, C., Parsons, J. M., Letherby, G., Cunningham, M., Withers, L., Whiteford, A., (2019) Participatory food events as collaborative public engagement opportunities, Methodological Innovations, Vol 12, Iss 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799119863283
Parsons, J.M. (2019) Narrative re-scripting: Reconciling past and present lives, Auto/Biography Review 2018, (editor) Sparkes, A.C. British Sociological Association Auto/Biography Study Group, Russell Press, Nottingham, pp111-128
Parsons J.M. (2018) Commensality as a theatre for witnessing change for criminalised individuals working at a resettlement scheme, European Journal of Probation, Volume 10, Issue 3, pp 182-198 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2066220318819239
Parsons, J.M. (2018) Virtual social media spaces, a relational arena for ‘bearing witness’ to desistance, Papers from the British Criminological Conference 2018, Vol 18, http://www.britsoccrim.org/papers-from-the-british-criminology-conference-2018/
Parsons, J.M. and Hocking, S (2018) The Lived experience of Carrots and Risks, voices from within the criminal justice system, ISRF Bulletin XV1, pp32-38, https://issuu.com/isrf/docs/isrf_bulletin_issue_xvi
Pettinger, C., Parsons, J.M., Withers, L., Daprano G., Cunningham, M, Whiteford, A., Ayers, R., Sutton, C., and Letherby, G. (2017), Engaging homeless individuals in discussions about their food experiences to optimise wellbeing: a pilot study, Health Education Journal, Vol 76, Iss 5, pp 557-568.
Parsons, J. (2017). The Joy of Food Play – Gender and Class in Men’s auto/biographical Accounts of Everyday Food-ways. Women, Gender & Research 24(3-4). https://doi.org/10.7146/kkf.v24i3-4.97061
Parsons, J.M. (2017), "Cooking with offenders to improve health and well-being", British Food Journal, Vol. 119 No. 5, pp. 1079-1090. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-10-2016-0453
Parsons, J.M. (2017) “I much prefer to feed other people than to feed myself.” The ’i-poem’ as a tool for highlighting ambivalence and dissonance within Auto/Biographical accounts of everyday foodways, in a Special Issue of The Journal of Psycho-Social Studies, Offering Food ↔ Receiving Food, Vol 10, Iss 2 (unpaginated) http://www.psychosocial-studies-association.org/volume-10-issue-2-october-2017/
Parsons, J.M. (2016) When convenience is inconvenient: ‘healthy’ family foodways and the persistent intersectionalities of gender and class, Journal of Gender Studies, 25:4, 382-397, DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2014.987656
Parsons, J. (2015) ‘Good’ Food as Family Medicine: Problems of Dualist and Absolutist Approaches to ‘Healthy’ Family Foodways, Journal of Food Studies, Volume 4, Issue 2.
Parsons, J.M. and Jarvie, R.J. (2015) 'Fat' editorial. M/C Journal, A Journal of Media and Culture, Vol.18, No 3. http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/1001
Brown, G., Davidson, D., Harvey, J., Letherby, G., and Parsons, J.M. (2015) HE(R)tales: reflections on some auto/biographical inter/multi-connections in academia, in Sparkes, C. (Ed) Auto/Biography Yearbook 2014, Russell Press, Nottingham, pp118-134
Parsons, J. (2014). “Cheese and Chips out of Styrofoam Containers”: An Exploration of Taste and Cultural Symbols of Appropriate Family Foodways. M/C Journal, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.766
Parsons, J.M. and Chappell., A., (eds) (2020) The Palgrave Handbook of Auto/ Biography, Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke.
Parsons, J. M. (2015) Gender, Class and Food: families, bodies and health, Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke.
Book Reviews
Parsons, J.M. (2018) Book Review: McLeod, K. Wellbeing Machine: How Health Emerges from the Assemblages of Everyday Life. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. 2017, in Sociology of Health & Illness, Vol 40, Iss 6, pp 1108 – 1109.
Parsons, J.M. (2017) Book Review: Food and Femininity, by Cairns, K and Johnston, J. London: Bloomsbury, 2015, in The Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies Vol: 97(4), pp273-275.
Parsons, J.M. (2016) Book Review: A Fat Girl’s Manifesto, A thin book on living FAT in America, by Cyr V. Daniel. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Peter E. Randall, 2015, in Fat Studies Journal, volume 5 (1) 2016.
Parsons, J.M. and Chappell, A., (2020) Chapter 1: A case for Auto/Biography, in Parsons, J.M. and Chappel., A., (eds) (2020) The Palgrave Handbook of Auto/Biography, Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke.
Parsons, J.M. (2020) Tastes of reflection, food memories and the temporal affects of sedimented personal histories on everyday foodways, in Falconer, E. (ed), Affecting Tastes, London: Routledge.
Parsons, J.M. and Pettinger, C. (2017) ‘Liminal identities’ and power struggles, reflections on the regulation of everyday foodways at a homeless centre and the use of creative participatory research as a tool of empowerment and resistance, in Bleakley, A. Lynch, L. and Whelan, G. (eds) Risk and Regulation at the Interface of Medicine and the Arts, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp171-189.
Parsons, J.M. (2015) ‘Food Work’ in Michelini, A. (Eds) Food, Nutrition, Agriculture: The Challenge for the New Millennium, 2nd Edition, UK and IT.
Walker, S., and Parsons, J. (2019) LandWorks Evaluation Annual Report, Plymouth, University of Plymouth.
Halliday J., Parsons, J., and Wilkinson, T. (2018) LandWorks Evaluation Final Report (August 2018), Plymouth, University of Plymouth.
Fok, J., Parsons, J. and Corrigan, O. (2016) Social and Cultural Aspects of Food Shopping, a pilot study of mum’s healthy and unhealthy food choices, Healthwatch Essex.
Bos, E., Brown G., Parsons, J., Halliday, J. and Brady, G., (2016) Supporting Rehabilitation: A pilot study exploring the role of community and land based models, Coventry University, Centre for Business in Society (CBiS). http://www.coventry.ac.uk/Global/08%20New%20Research%20Section/CBiS/Supporting%20Rehabilitation%20report.pdf
Halliday J., Wilkinson, T., and Parsons, J. (2016) LandWorks Interim Evaluation Report: Year 1. Plymouth: Plymouth University.
Parsons, J. (2016) (Editor) “It is What it is”, LandWorks Recipe Book, Volume 1, Cats-Solutions, Swindon, available at https://landworks.org.uk/portfolio/cook-book/
Parsons, J.M. (2016) Eat well together, work well together, Inside Time, the National Newspaper for Prisoners and Detainees, November 1st 2016, Southampton. http://www.insidetime.org/eat-well-together-work-well-together/#.WCAyUO8gQ6g.twitter
Editorials
Parsons, J.M. and Leherby, G., (2020) An Introduction to Creative and Collaborative Approaches to Research with a Social and Criminal Justice Focus, Special Issue of Methodological Innovations, Sage.
Doctorates
Parsons, J. (2014) 'Ourfoodstories@email.com', An Auto/Biographical Study of relationships with Food, PhD thesis, http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/2920Parsons, J.M. and Jarvie, R.J. (2015) 'Fat' editorial. M/C Journal, A Journal of Media and Culture, Vol.18, No 3. http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/1001
The Pen Project: https://penprojectlandworks.org/
Collaborations in research: https://collaborations-in-research.org/
The Finishing Time Project: http://www.finishingtime.online/
Other academic activities
Convenor British Sociological Association Food Studies Group (from December 2017)
Links
https://penprojectlandworks.org/
https://collaborations-in-research.org/
http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137476401