
Dr Jennifer Whillans
BA, MSc, PhD
Current positions
Senior Lecturer
School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Contact
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Research interests
I am a mixed methods sociologist interested in the temporal organisation of people and practices in daily life, with a particular focus on gendered use and experience of time. I am concerned with inter-practice connections such that participation in any given practice shapes, and is shaped by, participation in a repertoire of other practices. This work is inspired by theories of practice.
My recent research brings together understandings from the sociologies of work and employment, and food and eating, to explore the relationship between working arrangements and schedules and the way we eat. This research agenda was born out of my recently completed a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017-2022). (De)synchronisation of people and practices in working households: The relationship between the temporal organisation of employment and eating in the UK. I am interested in eating at work, specifically the workday lunch as an organisational practice. This research is not only ‘about’ food at work but examining work ‘through’ food. For example, the way we eat (alone and at a desk, while continuing to work) reveals work intensification and extensification with work invading periods of time considered personal (lunch breaks). I also examine work schedules using Optimal Matching sequence analysis applied to Time Use Survey data. I am particularly interested in women's work time, drawing on feminist theory to rethink dualistic concepts (e.g., standard and non-standard work time, part-time and full-time). This research agenda speaks to ongoing critical debates in the sociologies of time, work and employment, and eating, around work-life balance and poor eating habits in the UK and persistent gender inequalities in economic and home life.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
(De)synchronisation of people and practices in working households: The relationship between the temporal organisation of employment and eating in the UK
Principal Investigator
Description
This research uses time diary data, Mass Observation Archive data and household interview data to examine the relationship between work and home life, focusing on the changing timings and intersections…Managing organisational unit
School of Management - Business SchoolDates
01/01/2017 to 31/12/2021
Publications
Recent publications
26/03/2024What your sad desk sandwich says about your working habits
The English Workday Lunch
Sociology
Time Use Surveys, Social Practice Theory, and Activity Connections
British Journal of Sociology
Domestic Hospitality
Cultural Sociology
Book Review: Jonathan Gershuny and Oriel Sullivan, What We Really Do All Day: Insights from the Centre for Time Use Research
Sociology