Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Forthcoming
“The return of the slave master: popular authoritarianism, modern slavery and the making of Black criminality in contemporary Britain.” Current Anthropology.
Forthcoming
”Securitizing vulnerability at the frontline: county lines, multi-agency safeguarding and pre-emptive justice.” Social & Legal Studies.
2024
“Corruption narratives as a political ontology of class”. Sociological Review. With Sasha Hilhorst, Mark Frensham, Aaron Reeves and Mike Savage.
2024
“From criminals to slaves: ‘modern’ slavery, drugs trafficking, and the cultural politics of victimhood in postcolonial Britain”. Current Anthropology 65.2: 267-291.
Selected by the journal as a ‘flagship’ piece. With comments by Catherine Alexander, Anouk de Koning, Luke de Noronha, Julia O’Connell Davidson, Ben Rogaly, Farhan Samanani, Katherine Tylor
2024
“Revisiting the call for the ‘study of post-colonial politics’: insights from post-colonial Britain”. A Festschrift for Jonathan Spencer. Political and Legal Anthropology Review.
2023
Koch, Insa; Williams, Patrick; Wroe, Lauren. Why county lines, why now? Racism, safeguarding, and statecraft in contemporary Britain. Race & Class.
Covered by The Observer, “Police County Lines Strategy ‘Cruelly Targets’ Black Youth in the UK’ (November 19, 2023, by Mark Townsend).
2022
“Introduction to the state of the welfare state: advice, governance and care in settings of austerity”(with Professor Deborah James). Ethnos 1-22.
2021
“Everyday authoritarianism: class and coercion on housing estates in neoliberal Britain” (with R. Davey). POLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 44(1): 43-59
2021
“Good’ and ‘Bad’ deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from a rapid qualitative study”. (with Simpson, N, Angland M, Bhogal JK, Bowers RE, Cannell F, Gardner K, Lohiya AG, James D, Jivraj N, Laws M, Lipton, J, Long, N, Veira, J, Watt, C, Whittle, C, Zidaro-Barbulesco, T, Bear, L ) British Medical Journal (BMJ) 1(6)
2021
“From social security to state-sanctioned insecurity: how welfare reform mimics the commodification of labour through greater state intervention“. Economy & Society 50
2021
“Social polarisation at the local level: a four-town comparative study on the challenges of politicising inequality in Britain (lead author; with Drs Mark Fransham; Sarah Cant, Jill Ebrey, Luna Glucksberg and Professor Mike Savage). Sociology 51(1): 3-29
Winner of the Innovation/Excellence Paper Award of 2022 by the British Sociological Association
2020
“The guardians of the welfare state: universal credit, welfare control and the moral economy of frontline work in austerity Britain”. Sociology (advanced online publication)
2019
“Turning human beings into lawyers: why anthropology matters so little to the legal curriculum'”. Journal of Legal Anthropology 3 (2): 99-104
2018
“Towards an anthropology of global inequalities and their local manifestations: social anthropology in 2017”. Social Anthropology 26 (2): 253-26
2018
“The matriarchs of the home: unspeaking subjects in times of austerity”. Feminists@law 8 (2)
2018
“From welfare to lawfare: environmental suffering, neighbour disputes and the law in UK social housing”. Critique of Anthropology. 38 (2): 253-268
2018
“Political economy comes home: on moral economies of housing’” (with Professor Catherine Alexander and Professor Maja Hojer Bruun). Critique of Anthropology 38(2): 121-139
2017
“What's in a vote? Brexit beyond culture wars”. American Ethnologist 44 (2): 225-230
2017
“When Politicians fail: Zombie democracy and the anthropology of actually existing politics”. The Sociological Review 56(1): 105-120
2017
“Moving Beyond Punitivism: Punishment, State Failure and Democracy at the Margins”. Punishment & Society 19(2): 203-220
2016
“‘Bread and butter politics’: democratic disenchantment and everyday politics on an English council estate”. American Ethnologist 43(2): 282-294
2015
“‘The state has replaced the man’: citizenship, women and family homes on an English council estate’. Focaal - Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 73(13): 84-96
2014
“Everyday experiences of state betrayal on an English council estate”. Anthropology of this Century 9
Book chapters
2023
”The challenges of polarisation: lessons for re-politicising inequality across four English towns".
with Frensham, Mark; Cant, Sarah; Ebrey, Jill; Glucksberg, Luna; Savage, Mike. In Affective Polarisation: Social inequality in the UK after austerity, Brexit, and Covid-19, edited by J Gohrisch and G Stedman. Bristol: Policy Press.
2022
“An anthropological perspective on welfare in (post) austerity and (post)pandemic Britain” in Adler, Michael, A Reader in Social Welfare Law, London: Edward Elgar Publishing
2020
“Changing care networks in the United Kingdom”
(with Laura Bear, Nikita Simpson, Michael Angland, Jaskiran K. Bhogal, Rebecca E. Bowers, Fenella Cannell, Katy Gardner, Anishka Gheewala Lohiya, Deborah James, Naseem Jivraj, Megan Laws, Jonah Lipton, Nicholas J. Long, Jordan Vieira, Connor Watt, Catherine Whittle, Teodor Zidaru-Barbules) in Eckert, Andreas and Hentschke, Felicitas. Corona and Work around the Globe. Work in Global and Historical Perspective
2020
“Economies of advice” (with Professor Deborah James) in Aldenderfer, Mark, (ed.) Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press
2017
“When politicians fail: Zombie democracy and the anthropology of actually existing politics”. Reprinted as part of Reconfiguring the Anthropology of Britain: Ethnographic, Theoretical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Cathrine Degnen and Katharine Tyler. The Sociological Review Monograph: SAGE Publications
Special Issues
2024
Special issue on “The rise of techno-moral governance: anthropological insights into value-laden scales of evidence” (with Maja Hojer Bruun and Raul Acosta), winner of Social Anthropology’s annual competition for special issue proposals
2022
Special Issue on “The state of the welfare state” (with Deborah James). Ethnos 1:22
2018
Special Issue on “Moral economies of housing” (with Catherine Alexander and Maja Hojer Bruun). Critique of Anthropology 38(2): 121-139