she/her
As well as co-organising the 2021 event, Julie was a speaker at the 2023 event. To read Julie’s abstract for the latter event, click here.
I am an Associate Professor in Sociology and Associate Head of School for Criminology, Sociology & Anthropology in the School of Society & Culture at the University of Plymouth. I have a long-standing interest in all things methodological, and was especially grateful for the opportunity to use an Auto/Biographical approach to my doctoral research that utilised asynchronous online interview techniques and an invitation to ‘play’ with my data, when I explored the use of ‘i-poems’ and word clouds, see ‘Ourfoodstories@e-mail.com’ an Auto/Biographical Study of Relationships with Food https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/handle/10026.1/2920. The thesis formed the basis of my monograph Gender, Class and Food, Families, Bodies & Health (2015) and my interest in the potential of food and foodways (ways of doing food) to act as markers and/or as cultural symbols of belonging and identity.
I have since published on the use of i-poems as a means of prioritising the voice of the narrator (Parsons 2017) and co-edited the Palgrave Handbook of Auto/Biography. This collection includes 27 chapters of original research from established scholars and ECRs as well as an introduction ‘A case for Auto/Biography’ (Parsons & Chappell 2020). From 2015 I have been lucky enough to work on a series of funded research projects with people from prison or at risk of going to prison at LandWorks, a resettlement and rehabilitation charity based in Devon (https://www.landworks.org.uk/). Again, I have made use of i-poems alongside modified photovoice techniques with research participants in an effort to prioritise their voices over that of the researcher. I have developed a couple of websites showcasing the narratives of the people I have worked with at LandWorks https://penprojectlandworks.org/, as well as those who have been through the scheme, and have reintegrated into the community after punishment https://finishingtime.online/. I am committed to processes of reflexivity in research and aim for collaboration as much as possible, leading on an ISRF funded collaborative research residential in 2017, https://collaborations-in-research.org/, when we considered the potential for collaborative and creative processes of working as researchers, including collage and zine making. I have been involved in the Methodological Innovations Research Group at the University of Plymouth, since starting my doctoral research in 2010. I am co-convenor of the British Sociological Association (BSA) Food Study Group and on the organising committee for the BSA Auto/Biography Study Group. Details of publications can be found here
References:
Parsons, J.M. and Chappell., A., (eds) (2020) The Palgrave Handbook of Auto/Biography, Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke.
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. (2015) Gender, Class and Food: families, bodies and health, Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke.