Dr Julie Parsons

Biography

I started work at the University of Plymouth as a Lecturer in the Sociology of Health and Illness on a fractional contract, teaching sociology on the BSc (hons) nursing and midwifery programmes, followed by all of the other allied health professional programmes. I went full time in 2010 when I also began a PhD entitled 'ourfoodstories@email.com'; An Auto/Biographical Study of Relationships with Food, which was completed in 2014. I became a Lecturer in Sociology in 2014, teaching on the BSc (hons) Sociology programmes. I was programme lead for the MSc in Social Research (2010-14) and for the BSc (hons) Sociology programme from 2017-2021. I am currently the Associate Head of School for the Social Sciences (Criminology, Anthropology & Sociology) for the School of Society and Culture.

Following my doctoral study I was lucky enough to be awarded a Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness (SHI) Mildred Blaxter Post-Doctoral Fellowship to work with LandWorks (a resettlement and rehabilitation scheme for people in prison and those at risk of going to prison), exploring the benefits of eating together for those on placement and the wider community. I have subsequently worked on a number of funded research projects at LandWorks, including an Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) mid career fellowship in 2016, which enabled me to establish a website https://penprojectlandworks.org/. This is an ongoing project working with people on placement at LandWorks to co-create blog posts about their journeys into, and lived experience of, the criminal justice system in their own words.

Erwin James, editor of the Inside Time, the Newspaper for Prisoners and Detainees, has published a number of PeN project blogs in the newspaper, and has written:

‘The PeN project is a must view and read for anyone who wants not only to understand the thinking and experiences of those we imprison and their journeys of change - but also to be reminded of the potential reward to society when we give them encouragement, nurturing, hope and above all, the skills and confidence to live meaningful, contributing lives once they have served their sentences.’

My latest research funding is from the British Academy, exploring the lived experience of the pandemic for socio-economically disadvantaged and criminalised individuals.

I work as a volunteer cook at LandWorks, working one-to-one with people on placement there, preparing lunch for up to 18 people, including visitors who might be working within the criminal justice system, e.g. probation or prison officers, police etc., I supervise student placements at LandWorks and if you are a BSc (hons) Sociology student you will have the opportunity to visit the project as a volunteer or on a work placement. You can read about one of the student placements at LandWorks here or watch a short film about another here.

I am a keen advocate of the benefits of volunteering, and as well as my involvement with LandWorks, I volunteered for Home-start, a charity that offers support, friendship and practical help to families at home where there is at least one child under 5, doing weekly visits to families (1995-2010), and now volunteer for the New Bridge Foundation, a charity that supports volunteers to befriend people in prison by exchanging letters and visiting.

If you are interested in pursuing a PhD with me, please feel free to get in touch. I am currently supervising students exploring a range of interests, such as parenting a child with autism, non-binary gender identity narratives and prison officers as agents of rehabilitation. All three are adopting an auto/biographical or autoethnographic approach to their research.

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)

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

Co-convenor of the BSA Food Studies Group - @BSA_Food

Highlights

Finishing Time and Moving on: Life after punishment
Video: For the last seven years, Julie has been lucky enough to work on a series of funded research projects at Landworks – a resettlement and rehabilitation project that works with prisoners and people at risk of going to prison.

Teaching

Teaching interests

I have extensive experience teaching a wide range of themes in sociology and the sociology of health and illness. Currently, I am responsible for teaching social identities and inequalities, as well as food and foodways for students enrolled in the BSc (Hons) in Sociology. I generally contribute to teaching in the areas of food culture, family, gender, health, lived experience, prison food and desistance from crime. Also, qualitative and innovative research methods, Auto/Biography and autoethnography.

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

Research interests

I have three broad inter-related research interests: food/health, social inequalities and methodological innovations. My monograph Gender, Class and Food, Families, Bodies and Health was shortlisted for the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness (SHI) book prize in 2016 and I am co-convenor of the British Sociological Association’s Food Study Group, organising conferences, seminars and research methods workshops.

I am passionate about food (in)justice and the power of food to bring people together. I have written about the benefits of 'commensality' (eating together around a table) at LandWorks (a resettlement and rehabilitation scheme for prisoners and those at risk of going to prison), as well as the indignity of prison food.

More generally, my research tends to focus on lived experience and the fluidity of the boundaries between autobiography and biography, the self and other. In my research approach I try to adopt innovative, creative and/or auto/biographical approaches and have experience of using adapted 'photo-voice' techniques, 'i-poems', collage and zine making, computer mediated communication, or email correspondence techniques (asynchronous online interviews).

I co-edited and published the Palgrave Handbook of Auto/Biography (2020) and a special issue of Methodological Innovations on creative and collaborative approaches to research and practice with a social and criminal justice focus. This follows a research residential funded by the ISRF and a website I developed exploring issues of collaboration in research https://collaborations-in-research.org/.

I am an editor for the Methodological Innovations journal and the Auto/Biography Review.

I am on the conference committee and active member of the British Sociological Association’s Auto/Biography Study Group.

Research groups

Dietetics, Human Nutrition and Health

Grants & contracts

Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) Flexible Grant for Small Groups Making Communities – an exploration of community building and collaborative approaches to re/integration after punishment, (2021-22)

British Academy, Special Research Grant Covid-19, Finishing time at a distance: an exploration of support mechanisms for socio-economically disadvantaged and criminalised individuals during the Covid-19 crisis and beyond. August 1st 2020 – 30th April 2022.

LandWorks CIO, Five year evaluation, 1st April 2020 – 31st March 2025.

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. https://finishingtime.online/

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. https://collaborations-in-research.org/

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. https://penprojectlandworks.org/

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.

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.

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).

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 https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/handle/10026.1/2920

Publications

Journals

Chappell, A., and Parsons, J.M. (2021) How COVID, lockdown and isolation has fuelled our interest in the lives of others, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/how-covid-lockdown-and-isolation-has-fuelled-our-interest-in-the-lives-of-others-144033

Parsons, J.M. (2020) Finishing Time, iPoems & The ‘Pains of Release’ into the community after punishment, ISRF Bulletin 22, Structures of Feeling, pp15-20 https://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

Books

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.

Chapters

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.

Reports

Grose, J., and Parsons, J.M. (2020) LandWorks Evaluation Report 2019-20, University of Plymouth, https://www.landworks.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/LandWorks-Evaluation-Report-2020.pdf

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.

Other Publications

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 Letherby, G., (2020) An Introduction to Creative and Collaborative Approaches to Research with a Social and Criminal Justice Focus, Special Issue of Methodological Innovations, Sage. https://journals.sagepub.com/topic/collections-mio/mio-1-creative_collaborative_approaches/miob

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

Doctorates

Parsons, J. (2014) 'Ourfoodstories@email.com', An Auto/Biographical Study of relationships with Food, PhD thesis, http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/2920

Conference Papers

Lewis, C., Parsons, J.M., Stewart, C. (2021) ‘Losing touch’; an exploration of corporeal estrangement, 8th International Conference of Autoethnography, Bodies, Territories, Touch, 18-20th July, Online

Lewis, C., Parsons, J.M., Stewart, C. (2021) Estranged: troubling ‘family’ relationships, BSA 29th Auto/Biography Summer Conference, Troubling Auto/Biography, 14-16th July, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2021)“In this prison we have our main meal at 11:30 am.” The significance of ‘time’ in everyday foodways for prisoners and the free community, BSA 7th Food Studies Group Conference, Food & Food Systems in a Time of Insecurity, June 21-23rd, Online

Methods Workshop: Letherby, G., Parsons, J.m., Pettinger, C., (2021) BSA Food Studies Group Workshop, Doing Food Research: Creative Approaches, June 20th, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2021)“How’s your week been?” Reflections on the use of texts, emails and phone-calls as methods of data collection during the COVID-19 lockdown. Methodological Innovations Conference, Methodological Innovations in the Time of Covid, 7th June, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2021) Narrative Wanderings/Wondering across a Pandemic Landscape, 17th Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI), Collaborative Futures in Qualitative Inquiry, 19th-22nd May, Online

Parsons, J.M. & Vincent, L. (2021) “Even a dog wouldn’t eat it”, should we give ‘good’ food to ‘bad people and what can institutionalised food practices in prison teach us about wider everyday foodways? BSA Regional Medical Sociology Webinar, 14th May, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2021)“Prison is the easy bit, it’s coming home that’s hard” an exploration of methods for engaging with criminalised individuals as they adjust to life after punishment in the absence of face-to-face interaction" BSA Annual Conference, remaking the Future, April 13-15, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2020) Community at a distance and the co-production of narratives of transition with those re/integrating into the community after punishment. British Sociological Association Auto/Biography Winter Conference, Auto/Biography & Community, Online, 4th December 2020. Keynote

Parsons, J.M. (2020) ‘dreaming of fishing’ – i-poems as reclamation, The 7th International Conference of Autoethnography, 20th-21st July, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2020) I-poems, photographs, timelines, and film making, a methodological toolkit for giving voice to stigmatised storytellers. BSA Annual Conference, ‘Reimagining Social Bodies, Self, Institutions & Societies’, Aston University, 21st -23rd April, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2020) The i-poem as a tool for articulating the ‘pains of release’ into the community after punishment. 4th European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, 5th -7th February 2020, University of Malta.

Parsons J.M. (2019) Virtual desistance dialogues; an opportunity for building bridges and as resettlement ritual. European Society of Criminology Conference, 19th Annual Conference, ConverGENT roads, bridges and new pathways in criminology, 18th-21st September, Ghent, Belgium

Internet Publications

The Pen Project: https://penprojectlandworks.org/

Collaborations in research: https://collaborations-in-research.org/

The Finishing Time Project: http://www.finishingtime.online/

Personal

Reports & invited lectures

Keynote: Parsons, J.M. (2020) Community at a distance and the co-production of narratives of transition with those re/integrating into the community after punishment. British Sociological Association Auto/Biography Winter Conference, Auto/Biography & Community, Online, 4th December 2020.

Conference Papers:

Lewis, C., Parsons, J.M., Stewart, C. (2021) Estranged: troubling ‘family’ relationships, BSA 29th Auto/Biography Summer Conference, Troubling Auto/Biography, 14-16th July, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2021) Narrative Wanderings/Wondering across a Pandemic Landscape, 17th Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI), Collaborative Futures in Qualitative Inquiry, 19th-22nd May, Online

Parsons, J.M. (2020) ‘dreaming of fishing’ – i-poems as reclamation, The 7th International Conference of Autoethnography, 20th-21st July, Online

Methods Workshop:

Letherby, G., Parsons, J.m., Pettinger, C., (2021) BSA Food Studies Group Workshop, Doing Food Research: Creative Approaches, June 20th, Online

Conferences organised

29th BSA Auto/Biography Study Group Summer Conference, 'Troubling Auto/Biography', Online 15-16 July 2021.

7th BSA Food Studies Group Conference, Food & Food Systems in a Time of Insecurity, Online, 21-23 June 2021.

Methodological Innovations Conference, Methodological Innovations in the time of Covid, Online, 7th June 2021.

6th BSA Food Studies Group Conference, Re-imagining Food Systems, Sustainability, Futures and the Everyday, Monash University, Prato, Italy, 24th-25th June 2019.

Methodological Innovations Conference 2018, Methods & Methodologies for Exploring Everyday Life, Institute of Health & Community (IHC), Methodological Innovations Group, University of Plymouth, 28th June 2018.

Methodological Innovations Conference 2017, Contemporary, collaborative and creative approaches to research questions, Institute of Health and Community (IHC),Contemporary Research Methodologies (CRM) group, Plymouth University, 26th May 2017.

Methodological Innovations Conference 2015, Innovation, Challenges & Opportunity, 3rd December 2015.

Methodological Innovations Conference 2014, Creative and critical possibilities: methods, methodologies and epistemologies, CMI, Plymouth University, 9th -10th December 2014.

Methodological Innovations Conference 2013, Methods & Methodologies: Approaches & Experiences, CMI, Plymouth University 4th-5th December 2013.

British Sociological Association Postgraduate Event: Auto/Biographical Approaches to Sociological Research, Plymouth University, 18th February 2011