Professor Imogen Tyler FAcSS

Professor of Sociology

Research Interests

Imogen Tyler (PhD, FAcSS) is Professor of Sociology. She is internationally renowned for her contributions to Social Theory and the Sociology of Inequalities. Her research on topics such as stigma, social abjection, social (in)justice, activism and social movements, social class, poverty and welfare, race and racisms, borders and citizenship has had global reach. Her published research has been widely adopted on university curricula across the world and is highly cited; Imogen is ranked in the world’s top 2% scientists (Stanford-Elsevier Rankings). Over the course of her career, Imogen has given 50+ Keynote and Public Lectures. She has received many awards and recognitions, including a 四虎影院 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Research (2014) and a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2015). Revolting Subjects was shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing and the Philip Abrams Prize. In 2018 Imogen was conferred as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and is a serving council member (elected trustee) of the Academy of Social Sciences (2023- current).

Imogen is best known for her monographs (2015); and (2020) - which combined have sold several thousand copies. She has published 50+ journal articles and book chapters, including the edited volumes (2018) and (2013), and field-defining articles such as ‘’ (2015); ‘’(2009); ‘’ (2009); ‘”’ (2008).

Imogen has been awarded funding by the ESRC (2010, 2012); the Leverhulme Trust (2010, 2015), the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) (2009), and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2022). She has secured UKRI funding for 10 Doctoral scholarships (AHRC and ESRC) and has supervised 20+ PhD projects and 4 funded postdoctoral research projects (Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme, Swedish and Finish Research Councils). Imogen is a member of the ESRC Peer Review College and regularly reviews grants and fellowship applications for UK and European universities, institutes and other grant giving bodies. She has served on several international advisory boards and is currently on the advisory board for the European Research Council project ‘Who Counts?’ re-examining the Profile, Drivers and Depth of Poverty across Europe (Autonomous University of Barcelona).

A passionate believer in public sociology, Imogen has engaged and collaborated with multiple civil society, think tank, charitable, community, and heritage organisations and groups. Her recent work with Lancaster Museums Service on the 18th century Black Lancastrians project, (funded by Art Fund, Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage and Association for Independent Museums), was the runner up for the 2023 Independent Museums Association Decolonizing Award & was featured as a GEM/Art-Fund . Other recent examples of engagement include her work with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s ‘: Stigma Free Futures’ project, and work with Network and . Imogen has co-produced a number of publications, podcasts, videos and educational resources designed to make sociological research accessible to wider public and policy audiences For some recent examples, see, ‘ ‘(JRF Report, 2024); ‘Seeking Freedom: 18th-Century Black Lives in Northern England: Key Stage 2 Teaching Resource (2024, & adopted by the Morecambe Bay Curriculum); ‘ Podcast Series; ‘, a 四虎影院ed Sociologies Video Lecture [9k+ views]; and her graphic novel ‘ (2018).

Imogen’s current research is focused on two connected projects:

  • Hard Times: Poverty and Protest in Britain
  • Elemental Inequalities: Struggles for Life Against State-Sanctioned Killing

These projects have different areas of focus. What connects them is the use of historical and sociological research methods - including participatory research with ‘communities of resistance’ -- to critically examine the social, political and environmental permacrisis of the current conjuncture (and in doing, to help us to imagine and build alternatives). These two projects (variously) develop theories of ‘thanatocracy’ (Linebaugh & Kelley, 2024), ‘necroeconomics’ (Skeggs, 2020), ‘artificial scarcity’ (Heron, Milburn & Russell, 2025); and ‘asset-class struggle’ (Swyngedouw & Ward, 2024). These projects have emerged out Imogen’s ongoing research and engagement with clinicians, medics, social & care workers, charities and activists working at the front-line of the UK's cumulative welfare crisis, including work with communities most affected by deepening poverty and ill-health within the British state, and activist groups practicing and forging alternative futures.

Imogen currently convenes and teaches the 2nd year core UG module, Global Social Theory and the 2nd year UG option module, Welfare States: Histories and Futures, contributes lectures across the UG and PGT sociology programme, and supervises UG & PGT dissertation projects.

Personal Website:

Primary Research Interests: Social and Economic Inequalities; Health Inequalities; Social Theory; Historical Sociology; Stigma (Power); Welfare, Poverty; Housing; Class Struggle; Race and Anti-Racism; Colonial Capitalist Enclosures; Rural Inequalities; Land, Resource and Asset Stuggles; Commons and Commoning; Colonialism and Decolonisation; Borders and Citizenship; Social and Health Impacts of Climate and Environmental Change; Waste Colonialism; Pollution; Social Movements; Historical and Genealogical Methods and Approaches; Community-Aligned and Participatory Research Methods: Community Engagement; Scholar & Art-Activism (including Heritage and Museums).

PhD Supervision

Imogen welcomes applications from MPhil, PhD and Post-Doctoral researchers working in any area of social inequalities (broadly defined) and particularly welcomes applicants from under-represented backgrounds who want to actively engage with communities and publics beyond academia and seek to produce "actionable knowledge" in the service of more just and equitable futures.

Recent and current examples of MPhil/PhD projects supervised include Victoria Frausin’s ‘Waste Colonialism: Grounding Theory Using Participatory Methods in The North of England’; Daisy Barker’s ESRC project ‘The Covid-19 Pandemic, Citizens Advice, and Continual Crises: Living with the Collapse of the Political Economy of Social Reproduction’ and Dan Harrison’s ESRC-CASE project ‘Disabling Austerity: An Ethnographic Study of the Poverty Truth Movement in Morecambe Bay’.

Selected Publications


Tyler, I.E. 15/06/2018 In: Ethnic and Racial Studies. 41, 10, p. 1783-1801. 19 p.
Journal article


Jensen, T., Tyler, I. 1/11/2015 In: Critical Social Policy. 35, 4, p. 470-491. 22 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I. 1/05/2015 In: The Sociological Review. 63, 2, p. 493–511. 19 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I. 11/01/2013 London : Zed Books. 253 p. ISBN: 9781848138513 . Electronic ISBN: 9781848138537.
Book


Marciniak, K., Tyler, I. 11/2014 New York : SUNY Press. 320 p. ISBN: 9781438453118. Electronic ISBN: 9781438453125.
Book


Tyler, I., Gill, N., Conlon, D., Oeppen, C. 07/2014 In: Race and Class. 56, 1, p. 3-21. 19 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I. 25/04/2013 In: Citizenship Studies. 17, 2, p. 211-226. 16 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I. 02/2010 In: Citizenship Studies. 14, 1, p. 61-74. 14 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I. 04/2009 In: Feminist Theory. 10, 1, p. 77-98. 22 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I. 03/2008 In: Feminist Media Studies. 8, 1, p. 17-34. 18 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I., Marciniak, K. 25/04/2013 In: Citizenship Studies. 17, 2, 14 p.
Editorial


Tyler, I., Bennett, B. 08/2010 In: European Journal of Cultural Studies. 13, 3, p. 375-393. 19 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I. 05/2006 In: European Journal of Cultural Studies. 9, 2, p. 185-202. 18 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I. 2012 Exeter : Exeter University. 45 p.
Other report


Tyler, I. 01/2011 In: New femininities : postfeminism, neoliberalism and identity. Palgrave 344 p. ISBN: 978-0230223349.
Chapter


Tyler, I. 2011 In: Reality Television and Class. Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan p. 210-224. 15 p. ISBN: 9781844573981 .
Chapter


Tyler, I.E. 07/2018 In: The Sociological Review. 66, 4, p. 744-765. 22 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I.E. 10/08/2017
Other contribution


McNicholas Smith, K.M., Tyler, I.E. 2/02/2017 In: Feminist Media Studies. 17, 3, p. 315-331. 17 p.
Journal article


Tyler, I.E. 21/11/2016
Other contribution


Tyler, I.E. 14/09/2016 The Precariat, p. 24. 1 p.
Article


Tyler, I.E., Loyd, J. 1/12/2015 Open Democracy
Article


01/11/2022 → 01/11/2023
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01/06/2022 → 01/03/2023
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01/10/2020 → …
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12/06/2020 → …
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01/07/2018 → 30/06/2021
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01/09/2015 → 31/12/2018
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25/03/2013 → …
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01/09/2012 → 31/12/2014
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01/09/2010 → 23/03/2012
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01/07/2010 → 31/12/2011
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01/02/2009 → 30/04/2012
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Editorial activity


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School Engagement


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Prize (including medals and awards)


Prize (including medals and awards)


Prize (including medals and awards)


Prize (including medals and awards)


Prize (including medals and awards)


Prize (including medals and awards)


Election to learned society

Alan Connolly

Alan Connolly

PhD student

  • Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities
  • Centre for Gender Studies
  • Migrancy Research Group