Nickie Charles

Biography

Nickie Charles is carrying out three linked pieces of research exploring human-animal relations within the domestic sphere. The first is a small research project titled, 'Post-human families - an investigation of kinship across the species barrier', which is investigates the connections between human and other animals and the circumstances in which animals come to be regarded as kin. This interest developed from my earlier research on families and kinship where we found that people counted their pets as family members. This study was funded by the British Academy. The second is linked to a Mass Observation directive that She commissioned which asked correspondents about their relationships with animals. Her most recent publications relate to this directive. The third is an investigation of the PAT dog visits to the unversity where She is exploring students' experiences of their encounter with dogs in the university library and how we can conceptualise this encounter as work. she is also working on MYPLACE, a European project (FP7-funded) exploring young people's civic and political engagement. As part of this research she has carried out ethnographic research on young women's feminist activism in the UK and am working on a book which brings together findings on activism relating to gender and sexuality from the UK, Estonia and Catalonia. And, finally, she has been engaged in research exploring the relationship between gender and political processes in the context of devolution. This research takes Wales as a case study and investigates the extent to which an increase in the proportion of women representatives in devolved government is associated with a change in the gendering of political processes and, particularly, whether policy developments incorporate a greater awareness of women’s and gender issues. This research was funded by the ESRC and she is writing a monograph based on it to be published by Policy Press.

Research Interest

gender divisions and the relation between paid and unpaid work; Families, households and kin relationships; Human-animal relations; Feminist social movements and social change – in particular the refuge movement and policy change relating to domestic violence.