Dr Lucy Pickering
- Senior Lecturer (Sociology)
- Lecturer (Institute of Health & Wellbeing)
- Associate (School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing)
telephone:
01413305072
email:
Lucy.Pickering@glasgow.ac.uk
College of Social Sciences, College of Social Sciences Admin, Adam Smith Building, 1008
Biography
Lucy has been with the University since 2010. She received her BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Cambridge University in 2001, and her MA in Anthropological Research from Manchester University in 2003. She completed her PhD on embodiment and American counterculture at Manchester University in 2007. Before joining Glasgow University, she worked on a range of collaborative projects around drug use and recovery at Liverpool John Moores University and Oxford Brookes University. Throughout this and subsequent work on substance use and recovery, including drug use at festivals and New Psychoactive Substance use, Lucy has published widely on drug use and recovery, including The Everyday Lives of Recovering Heroin Users (2012), co-authored with Joanne Neale and Sarah Nettleton.
Her current work focuses on dirt, waste and pollution, while maintaining a focus on bodies, embodiment and identity. She is currently leading on the ethnographic work package of an MRC GCRF-funded study into water and sanitation in rural Uganda, and has recently edited Down the Pan: New Directions in the Sociology of Dirt (2019) with Phillippa Wiseman and Sarah Armstrong. She has published on defecation (Pickering 2010, Pickering et al 2013), menstruation (Moffatt and Pickering 2019) in addition to her current work on sanitation.
She maintains an interest in research ethics, particularly the ethics of ethnographic research and research with people who use drugs.
Research interests
Lucy’s main teaching and research interest lies in bodies and embodiment, with a particular focus on dirt and substance use.
Her current work focuses on using anthropology to better understand schistosomiasis transmission in Uganda, with particular attention to the role and meanings of sanitation and water in preventing and facilitating transmission.
In addition, she has recently published Down the Pan: New Directions in the Sociology of Dirt (2019), co-edited with Phillippa Wiseman and Sarah Armstrong.
Lucy also has an interest in ethnographic methods and research ethics. In this role, she was ethics lead for the Association of Social Anthropologists (2012-2016), and has published on the has ethics of representation and on paternalism in research ethics.
Research Areas
- Bodies, embodiment and identity
- Dirt, sanitation and pollution
- Substance use and recovery
- Counterculture
- Ethnographic methods and anthropological research ethics
I welcome applications for doctoral supervision in any of these areas.
Grants
Lucy is currently Co-I on the MRC-funded GCRF grant, Cultural, social and economic influences on ongoing Schistosomiasis mansoni transmission, despite a decade of mass treatment, and the potential for change. This work is focused on using ethnographic methods to understand how people in rural Uganda, located on the shore of Lake Victoria, interact with and understand water and sanitation with a view to identifying 'best fit' interventions to reduce open defecation and water contact.
Supervision
Lucy welcome applications from students in the following areas:
- Bodies, embodiment and identity
- Dirt, sanitation and pollution
- Substance use and recovery
- Counterculture
- Ethnographic and qualitative research ethics
Current research students
Andrew Burns - ethnography of homeless journeys in Glasgow
April Shaw - older women's experiences of drug use and recovery in Scotland
Joe Brown - ethnography of what recovery means to heroin users in rural Scotland
Martin Anderson - ethnographic and social network analysis study of recovery identity in a therapeutic community in Scotland
Natalie Moffat - multi-sited ethnography of the social life of disposable menstrual products
Rhi Humphrey - the meanings of activism to trans and intersex activists in the UK, Malta and Australia
- Anderson, Martin
. - Brown, Joe
What meaning does recovery have for heroin users in rural Scotland? An ethnographic study - Shaw, April
Older Female Drug Users – Negotiating Identities through Drug Use, Treatment, Recovery and Beyond - Trienekens, Suzan
Understanding Schistosoma mansoni reinfection in school-aged children in rural Uganda: Who is infecting whom, where and how?
Teaching
Undergraduate
- Drugs and Culture (Honours)
- Global Health, Local Healing (Honours)
Postgraduate
- Health and Culture
Drugs and Culture (Honours)
Global Health, Local Healing (Honours)
Postgraduate
Medical Anthropology
Drugs and Culture (Honours)
Global Health, Local Healing (Honours)
Postgraduate
Medical Anthropology