Dr Nicola Spurling
Senior LecturerResearch Overview
Nicola is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology. Her (2022-) explores the emergence of ‘life without children’ auto/biographical practices (e.g. memoirs, communities and podcasts) since c2010, and the new standpoints of ‘childless due to circumstance’, ‘childless not by choice’ and ‘unexpectedly childfree’. At a moment of significant demographic change, when growing numbers of people live entire adult lives without biological children, sociology has yet to recalibrate its conceptual tools. Her work examines the experiential knowledge being developed by the growing demographic identifying with these standpoints, explores for whom and how this knowledge matters, how it travels across social and institutional contexts, and how taking these knowledges seriously reframes research agendas concerned with the life course and social futures. Her work shifts attention from how childless/free ness is arrived at to expanding understanding of the decades that follow, the knowledge that is emerging from these lives and its potential contribution to pressing social challenges.
Nicola was Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research from 2020-2025 and is known for her contributions to Mobilities scholarship and Sociology of Consumption (2010-2022). Her research, funded by the ESRC, The Scottish Government, the AHRC, Design United (The Netherlands) and the EPSRC has brought auto/biographical, oral history, archival and social futures methods to the study of social change and sustainability. Her projects include ; ; ; and, . This research is published in leading journals, book chapters in interdisciplinary edited collections and the co-edited book (Routledge Advances in Sociology, 2013).
Beyond academia, she has prioritised community engagement, policy advocacy and intervention towards beneficial change for environment and society, through invited roles as Commissioner on the , and as Founder and Chair of the from 2019-2022. This work was underpinned by collaborations with ThinkTanks, Policy, Industry and Community partners.
She is now developing new networks related to her current work.
Career Details
I came to 果酱视频官网 as a Senior Research Associate in 2014. I took up position as Anniversary Lecturer in 2016, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2020.
PhD Supervision Interests
Qualitative and ethnographic empirical projects on social and cultural change in a context of climate and ecological change. Explorations of emerging societal issues/inequalities, practices and interventions in this space e.g. young people's participation, emotions, material cultures (design/recycle/repair/reuse), mobility cultures, 'nature' practices and mobile practices, ageing, disaster response. I am drawn to projects that engage with mobilities scholarship, and research designs that attend to lived experience, for example through ethnography (including sensory, digital, visual and multi-species ethnography), in-depth interviews, participatory and mobile methods and auto/biographical approaches. I meet regularly with those I supervise and connect them with relevant research networks and events to help their projects thrive.
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01/05/2025 → 07/05/2025
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01/07/2023 → 31/12/2027
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01/02/2022 → 31/07/2023
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01/10/2020 → 30/09/2021
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01/09/2019 → 31/08/2022
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02/11/2017 → 03/11/2017
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01/11/2017 → 31/12/2017
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01/10/2017 → 31/07/2019
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01/03/2017 → 31/07/2017
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01/02/2017 → 30/09/2017
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20/05/2016 → 30/05/2016
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01/02/2016 → 30/09/2016
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01/02/2016 → 31/12/2016
Research
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Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
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Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
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Visiting an external academic institution
Editorial activity
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- CeMoRe - Centre for Mobilities Research
- Institute for Social Futures Fellow