Abstract
Jon Binnie is in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, John Dalton Building, Chester Street, Manchester M1 5GD e-mail
Rosalind Edwards is Professor in Social Policy and Director of the Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Group at London South Bank University. Her research interests focus around family issues and policies. Her most recent major publications include: Making Families: Moral Tales of Parenting and Step-parenting (with J. Ribbens McCarthy and V. Gillies, sociologypress, 2003); Caring and Counting: The Impact of Mothers' Employment on Family Relationships (with C. Callender and T. Reynolds, Policy Press, 2003), Analysing Families: Morality and Rationality in Policy and Practice (ed. with A. Carling and S. Duncan, Routledge, 2002) and Children, Home and School: Regulation, Autonomy or Connection (ed., Routledge Falmer, 2002). e-mail
Keith Macdonald is currently Visiting Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, where he has held various posts since 1964. He has published numerous articles on the sociology of occupations, especially the professions and the military, and is the author of The Sociology of the Professions (Sage, 1995). While continuing his interest in occupations, he is also working on studies in historical sociology. e-mail
Shelley Mallett is an anthropologist who has previously worked in Papua New Guinea. She is currently the Research Director of Project i, a cross national, longitudinal study of young people who experience homelessness in Melbourne and Los Angeles. e-mail
Jane Parish is Lecturer in the School of Social Relations, Keele University. Her research interest is focused particularly on West African witchcraft and the global occult economy and, more generally, in conspiracy theory and misfortune. She is the co-author, along with Martin Parker, of The Age of Anxiety: Conspiracy Theory and the Human Sciences (Blackwell 2001). e-mail
Beverley Skeggs is Head of the Department of Sociology, University of Manchester. Recent publications include Class, Culture, Self, Routledge, 2003. e-mail
Sharon Wray is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield. Prior to this she was a Research Fellow at the University of York in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work. Her research interests include gender, ethnicity, ageing, the body and health. e-mail