Dr Shoba Arun
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Email
shoba.arun@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 873143
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Location
EBS.3.35, Colchester Campus
Profile
Biography
Shoba Arun is Reader in Work and Organisation Studies at Essex Business School. Prior to joining Essex Business School in 2023, she worked - for a total of 22 years - at Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Greenwich and the University of Ulster contributing to research, teaching, and senior academic leadership. Her research interest in sociology of work builds on her theoretical and methodological foundations to understand transformative work practices and policies, addressing cultural and intersectional inequalities, including fast changing effects of global processes, including migration and decolonising work cultures in the workplace, that influence organisational behaviour and change. Shoba’s research interests have a strong international and comparative dimension with expertise on emerging economies such as India and Africa in the nexus of their global work, neoliberal regimes, organisations and labour markets, migration, digital technology and global value chains with a focus on social justice and wellbeing. Her recently completed collaborative projects examine migration and integration policies in educational settings using co-creation and participatory approaches across the UK and the EU; gendered and racialised nexus of education-work transition in South Africa; gender capital approaches to digital inclusion in the labour market and entrepreneurship in India. She has been recently awarded a UKRI funded project exploring autonomy in the garment sector workplaces of Leicester and Dhaka, focussing on strengthening anti-slavery legislations for enhancing worker representation, workplace control and autonomy in workers’ organisations. Shoba has received funding from the ESRC, the Nuffield Foundation and European Commission’s Horizon 2020. Her work has been published in major journals, such as Work, Employment & Society, Sociology, Feminist Economics, Culture and Education, World Development, Journal of Gender Studies and International Journal of Public Administration. Her monograph Development and Gender Capital in India: Change, Continuity and Conflict in Kerala (Routledge, 2018) uses a feminist Bourdieusian frame of analysis of gender capital to examines gendered issues in the economy and society in the Indian state of Kerala, particularly how social locations shape labour market experiences. In her latest (co) edited volume, Global Migration and Diversity of Educational Experiences in the Global South and North, just published by Routledge focusses on decolonising migration studies and educational experiences . Her forthcoming work includes co-editing a Special Issue on Exploitative Work Regimes using an intersectional approach. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and member of the British Sociological Association, the Development Studies Association and the Global Studies Association. She serves on the Editorial Board of the British Sociological Association (BSA)’s Work, Employment and Society Journal and is part of the WES Conference 2023 organising committee. She welcomes PhD supervision in the areas of: • Global work transformations and lived experiences in workplaces • Future work, migrant workers’ professions and its impact on human resource policy and practice • Methodological practices using participatory approaches to understand gender practices, intersectional inequalities, and organisational change • Modern slavery legislation and practice, compliance, and cultural change • Theorising sociology of work using Bourdieusian and feminist analysis
Qualifications
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PhD The University of Manchester,
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M.Phil Centre For Development Studies,
Appointments
University of Essex
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Reader, Essex Business School, University of Essex (6/4/2023 - present)
Other academic
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Professor of International Sociology, Social Sciences, University of Greenwich (10/2022 - 4/2023)
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Professor of International Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University (2022 - 2023)
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Employment Relations in Context (BE478)
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Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (BE480)
Current supervision
Publications
Journal articles (25)
Tajammal, F., Arun, S. and Pourmehdi, M., (2024). Why invest in girls’ education? Evidence from the girl stipend programme in Pakistan. Equity in Education & Society. 3 (3), 263-280
Arun, S., Brahic, B. and Caselli, M., (2024). Fault Lines in the Globalisation of Migration: Frontline workers as Embodied Constituents of Disjunctive Globalisation. Global Perspectives. 5 (1), 118285-
Adhikari, P., Dhakal Adhikari, S., Arun, S. and Arun, T., (2023). Gurkha Warriors as Entrepreneurs in Britain: A Social Anchoring Lens on Martial Heritage and Migrant Enterprises. Work, Employment and Society. 37 (5), 1359-1376
Arun, S. and Arun, T., (2023). Cracking IT: Negotiating Working-Class Gender Capital through Group Enterprises in India. Work, Employment and Society. 37 (4), 823-840
Arun, S. and Olsen, W., (2023). Modern slavery and exploitative work regimes: an intersectional approach. Development in Practice. 33 (2), 133-144
Heyes, K., Brahic, B., Ramnund-Mansingh, A., Ingram, N., Arun, S. and Seedat-Khan, M., (2023). “I Cannot Fall Pregnant!”: Unequal Bodies in South African Higher Education. Girlhood Studies. 16 (1), 71-86
Szymczyk, A., Popan, C. and Arun, S., (2022). Othering through language: English as an Additional Language in England’s educational policy and practice. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. 22 (2), 117-131
Bose, U., Arun, T. and Arun, S., (2021). Do Information Networks Benefit Households with Female Heads?. Economic Modelling. 103, 105613-105613
Badwan, K., Popan, C. and Arun, S., (2021). Exploring schools as potential sites of foster-ship and empowerment for migrant children in the UK (Exploramos las escuelas como posibles centros de acogida y empoderamiento de los niños migrantes en el RU). Culture and Education. 33 (4), 702-728
Terán Tassinari, E. and Arun, S., (2021). Construyendo la belleza: feminidad, neoliberalismo ytrabajo estético entre las mujeres jóvenes de México [Performing Beauty: Femininity Ideology, Neoliberalism and Aesthetic Labor Among Young Women in Mexico]. Revista de Estudios de Género, La Ventana. 6 (53), 441-484
POPAN, C., ARUN, S. and BAILEY, G., (2020). Education outside the mainstream: Valuing cultural heritage through alternative resources for the integration of migrant children in the UK. Annales-Anali za Istrske in Mediteranske Studije - Series Historia et Sociologia. 30 (4), 613-628
Shazhadi, A., Smithson, H., McHugh, R. and Arun, S., (2018). ‘Society does treat me differently and that is a shame’: understandings and feelings of Britishness amongst visibly observant young Muslims. Journal of Youth Studies. 21 (5), 607-619
Arun, S., Annim, S. and Arun, T., (2016). Do All Networks ‘Work’? The Mediating Role of Social Networks on Consumption Expenditure in India. Sociology. 50 (3), 522-541
Arun, S., Annim, SK. and Arun, T., (2013). Overcoming Household Shocks: Do Asset-Accumulation Strategies Matter?. Review of Social Economy. 71 (3), 281-305
Arun, T., Bendig, M. and Arun, S., (2012). Bequest Motives and Determinants of Micro Life Insurance in Sri Lanka. World Development. 40 (8), 1700-1711
Arun, S., (2012). ‘We are farmers too’: agrarian change and gendered livelihoods in Kerala, South India. Journal of Gender Studies. 21 (3), 271-284
Arun, S., Arun, T. and Devi, U., (2011). Transforming Livelihoods and Assets through Participatory Approaches: The Kudumbashree in Kerala, India. International Journal of Public Administration. 34 (3), 171-179
Heeks, R. and Arun, S., (2010). Social outsourcing as a development tool: The impact of outsourcing IT services to women's social enterprises in Kerala. Journal of International Development. 22 (4), 441-454
Arun, S., Annim, SK. and Arun, TG., (2010). How can Asset Accumulation Strategies be Meaningful for Adivasis in Southern India?
Arun, S., (2008). Managing Assets and Vulnerability Contexts: Vistas of Gendered Livelihoods of Adivasi Women in South India. Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper (32)
Arun, SV., Arun, TG. and Borooah, VK., (2004). The effect of career breaks on the working lives of women. Feminist Economics. 10 (1), 65-84
Arun, S., Heeks, R. and Morgan, S., (2004). ICT Initiatives, Women and Work in Developing Countries: Reinforcing or Changing Gender Inequalities in South India?. Development Informatics Working Paper (20)
Arun, S. and Arun, T., (2002). ICTs, gender and development: women in software production in Kerala. Journal of International Development. 14 (1), 39-50
Arun, S. and Arun, TG., (2001). Gender issues in social security policy of developing countries: Lessons from the Kerala experience. International Social Security Review. 54 (4), 93-110
Arun, S., (1999). Does land ownership make a difference? Women's roles in agriculture in Kerala, India. Gender & Development. 7 (3), 19-27
Books (2)
Arun, S., Badwan, K., Taibi, H. and Batool, F., (2023). Global Migration and Diversity of Educational Experiences in the Global South and North A Child-Centred Approach. Taylor & Francis. 1000872408. 9781000872408
Arun, S., (2017). Development and Gender Capital in India. Routledge
Book chapters (6)
Arun, S., Annim, S., Bose, U. and Arun, T., (2023). Gendered Financial Behaviour in Ghana: A Comparative Study with South Africa. In: Financial Sector Development in Ghana Exploring Bank Stability, Financing Models, and Development Challenges for Sustainable Financial Markets. Palgrave Macmillan. 105- 131. 3031093445. 9783031093449
Taibi, H., Arun, S., Batool, F., Szymczyk, A. and Negru, B., (2023). Online learning during a pandemic and its impact on migrant children in Manchester, UK: "When the school closed…and being isolated at home I feel like my heart is closed". In: Global Migration and Diversity of Educational Experiences in the Global South and North. Editors: Arun, S., Badwan, K., Taibi, H. and Batool, F., . Routledge. 90- 108. 9781032380315
Brahic, B., Heyes, K. and Arun, S., (2023). At Whose Cost? Vulnerable Female Migrants with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) during the COVID-19 Crisis in England. In: Women and COVID-19 A Clinical and Applied Sociological Focus on Family, Work and Community. Editors: Seedat-Khan, M. and Zulueta, JO., . Routledge. 227- 242. 9781032211756
Arun, S., (2010). ‘Caring’ cosmopolitans and global migration1: Plus ça change?. In: Development, Democracy and the State: Critiquing the Kerala Model of Development. 204- 217
(2010). Work and Life in the Global Economy. In: Work and Life in the Global Economy: A Gendered Analysis of Service Work. Editors: Howcroft, D. and Richardson, H., . Palgrave Macmillan UK. 124- 141. 9781349368754
(2010). Development, Democracy and the State. In: Development, Democracy and the State: Critiquing the Kerala Model of Development. Editors: Raman, KR., . Routledge. 204- 217
Scholarly Editions (1)
Arun, S., Annim, S. and Arun, TG., 'Even' After Access to Financial Services? Ricocheting Gender Equations
Grants and funding
2024
�Greening� White Gold: Co-Creating Climate-Friendly Practices through Regenerative Agriculture among Togo Cotton Farming Communities
British Academy
Growing Toward Regeneration: Improving Sustainability of the global Agriculture Supply Chain by Enhancing Perception of Regenerative Agriculture (RA) in Togo's Cotton-Farming: Phase 2
University of Essex (Research England - ODA)
2023
THRREADS: Transforming Responsive and Relational Autonomy in the Garment Sector of the United Kingdom and Bangladesh
Economic and Social Research Council
