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Faculties & Departments
Department of Sociology
Dr. Honor Fagan
Welcome to my personal webpage. I moved to the National University of Ireland Maynooth in 1997 to take up a lectureship in the Department of Sociology. Before moving here I lectured in Sociology Departments at University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa and University of Leeds, UK. I have been lecturing in Sociology for fifteen years now in total and have been fundamentally interested in inequalities and exclusions, understanding their dimensions and addressing them through my teaching, research, and professional life of service in Third level education. My research work specifically directs itself towards creating a synergy between sociological knowledge, radical democracy and citizenship.
Publications
I am currently furthering publications within two research areas. In the first area - Governance: Marginalisation and Inclusion - I am working on developing academic papers from research on consultation processes. See our research website for reports, debates, conferences and guides on this aspect of governance. In the second area - Development and Conflict Resolution – I am currently engaged in editing project, Globalization and Human Security: An Encyclopaedia Volume 1 Economic and Political Aspects and Volume 2: Social and Cultural Aspects (Forthcoming) Praeger Security Press: USA, 2008 (co-edited with R. Munck) Click here for call for papers.
Teaching
I have tried to develop a pedagogy which links seamlessly into a politics of change, both personal and political. My earliest expression of this is in my first academic publication ever ‘Local Struggles- Women in the Home and Critical Feminist Pedagogy in Ireland’, Journal of Education, Vol. 173 No.1 (1991), pp.65-75. 1991. In large and small classrooms my methods are designed to: critically engage; to facilitate diversity and inclusivity; to challenge gendered, heterosexual, classed, racialised and cultural norms; to impart critical knowledges on social and political life; and to encourage citizenship as opposed to consumerism. I consider it my strongest point of privilege to be a teacher, and the interaction with students in the teaching context keeps me ‘real’, although I am not sure what it does to them!
For infomation on courses I teach and information on all undergraduate and postgraduate courses in our Sociology Department click here.
Postgraduate Research Supervision
I have successfully supervised the following postgraduate theses:
Women Probation Officers in Northern Ireland. (1994)
Women Prisoners in a South African Prison. (1996)
Child Abuse Scandals and their Impact on Men. (2001, Funded by Children’s Office)
Waste Management in Ireland: A Case Study on the Impact of Transnationalisation on Governance. (2004, Funded by IRCHSS)
Schooling Bodies: The projection of the Self Among Adolescents. (2006, Funded by the Children’s Office)
I am currently supervising doctorates on:
Managing Masculinities; Career, Identity and the Managerial Labour Process. (Funded by IRCHSS)
Negotiating Gender and Class Experiences: Working Class Women in Ireland.
Cultures of Abuse.
Global Discourses on Governance and Participation: An Analysis of Civil Societies. Involvement in the Social Partnership Process in Ireland and the PRSP Process in Malawi. (Funded by IRCHSS)
New Communities Perspectives and Experiences of ‘Irishness’.
I would like to supervise research theses:
- in areas related to my current projects.
- in areas in which I have past publications.
- in globalisation and development; education and disadvantage (class, gender and race); sociology of gender; sustainable development; new technologies and governance; conflict and human security; culture and embodiment.
Current Research Interests
(i) Development and Conflict Resolution
This project began its life in 2000 on receipt of funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs to collect materials and develop an understanding of Irish conflict resolution in comparative perspective. In line with this, and in order to highlight the conflict resolution expertise at NUI Maynooth, this funding supported the setting up of a dedicated website (Globalisation, Governance and Democracy Research Group Website) and a conference placing the Irish conflict resolution experience in comparative perspective. Building on this, and together with an international network of Globalisation and Governance Centres a bid for funding was drawn up on Conflict Resolution and Civil Society. This project proposal received an endorsement from Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights. The main thrust of this project is to develop a model of conflict resolution in the post-Cold War era, centred on the variable role of civil society. In 2001 Trocaire funded the Colombian case study as a first leg of the overall project. With our partner in Colombia, Fedes, we carried out workshops and produced an influential research report. In Spring 2003 a further workshop was held at NUI Maynooth where the report was presented to a Trocaire sponsored ‘think tank’ made up of NGO representatives and policy makers from Colombia. Work in this area has led to one policy report, several book chapters, and a contract to edit the Globalisation and Security Encyclopedia by Praegar Press. See call for authors.
(ii) Governance: Marginalisation and Inclusion
This all-Ireland research programme focuses on the shift to multi-layered governance and the parameters therein of uneven marginalisations and inclusions and explores the potential for a shift to citizen-centric governance. The first project in this area was funded by Centre for Cross Border Studies and researched governance and the role of the citizenry in environmental policy-making, specifically the case of Waste Policy. This resulted in a policy report and several academic publications, the most prestigious of these being in the international journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. The critical examination of the possible role for technologies in deepening democratic processes in networked society became the next funded project. So far it involves two funded research projects on e-consultation. One was a HEA North/South Research Programme E-Consultation: Evaluating Appropriate Technologies and Processes for Citizen’s Participation in Public Policy http://www.nuim.ie/nirsa/econsult/ and more recently remaining on e-consultation with the Houses of the Oireachtas. The objective of this work is to strengthen democracy through engaging citizens in governance and improving consultation processes. As part of key international networks I have most recently being asked to be on the Programme Committee for the IEEE International Symposium on Technology (ISTAS), Canada. www.istas08.ca.
Other Activities
I am a member of the Knowledge Society: Technology and Politics cluster within the Department of Sociology and a research associate of the government funded research centre, the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA). I am on the editorial board of Translocations: The Irish Migration, Race and Social Transformation Review (www.imrstr.dcu.ie) and I am a member of the Higher Education Authority. In my spare time I recover.
Contact Information
Department of Sociology,
National University of Ireland Maynooth,
Maynooth,
Co. Kildare.
Rep. of Ireland.
Tel.: +353.1.708.3691
E-mail: honor.fagan@nuim.ie