Dr Angela Meah

A Meah

Research Associate CONANX Project

Address: 4th Floor, ICoSS Building
Telephone (Internal): 26062
Telephone (UK): 0114 222 6062
Telephone (International): +44 114 222 6062
Email: A.Meah@sheffield.ac.uk

Angela Meah gained a PhD in Sociology from the University of Manchester in 2001. Since then, she has worked as a post-doctoral researcher in a range of disciplinary areas, joining us in June 2009 to work on the ERC-funded CONANX project. She currently works part-time on work-package 3 and is also carrying out related work, funded by the Food Standards Agency, at the University of Hertfordshire. Angela will become a full-time research fellow, working with Peter Jackson, from June 2013.

Research Interests

A Sociologist with a specific interest in gender, agency, the family, feminist epistemologies, and the co-construction of knowledge, Angela has worked flexibly across a diverse range of disciplines including Sociology (University of Sheffield), Social Policy (SPRU, University of York), Marketing (Lancaster University Management School), Nursing (University of Manchester) and Public Health (Leeds Metropolitan University).

Methodologically, Angela’s interest is in qualitative and ethnographic research, drawing upon oral life history narratives, focus groups and participant/observation using visual methods (video and photography).

Images from work-package 3 can be found at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52548860@N08/sets/

Current Research

Angela’s work on CONANX has focused on domestic kitchen practices. Outputs from work-package 3 have explored the gendered distribution of foodwork and spatial dynamics of the kitchen; current discourses concerning the alleged ‘deskilling’ of consumers and inter-generational transfer of cooking knowledge; how different ethical concerns are traded off against each other via processes of domestic provisioning, and the competing tensions between public discourses concerning use-by dates and food waste. This latter, in particular, overlaps with Angela’s current work with the University of Hertfordshire where she is involved in an 18-month observational household study -‘Kitchen Life’.

Key Publications

  • Jackson, P. and the CONANX Group, (2013), Food Words: Essays in culinary culture. Oxford: Bloomsbury
  • Meah, A. and Jackson, P. (2012), ‘Crowded kitchens: the ‘democratisation’ of domesticity?’, Gender, Place and Culture; Online publication doi/abs/10.1080/0966369X.2012.701202
  • Watson, M. and Meah, A. (accepted), ‘Food, waste and safety: negotiating conflicting social anxieties into the practices of domestic provisioning’, Sociological Research Monograph.
  • South, J., Kinsella, K., Meah, A. (2012) Lay perspectives on lay health worker roles, boundaries and participation within three UK community-based health promotion projects. Health Education Research; Online publication doi:10.1093/her/cys006
  • Meah, A. & Watson, M. (in press) ‘Cooking up consumer anxieties about ‘provenance’ and ‘ethics’: Why it sometimes matters where foods come from in domestic provisioning Food Culture and Society.
  • Meah, A. & Jackson, P. (in press) ‘Crowded kitchens: the ‘democratisation’ of domesticity?’ Gender, Place and Culture. 
  • Meah, A. & Watson, M. 2011. Saints and Slackers: Challenging Discourses About the Decline of Domestic Cooking, Sociological Research Online 16 (2) 6. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/16/2/6.html
  • Meah, A., Hockey, J. and Robinson, V. (2011) ' ''I'm a sex kitten, aren't I …'': relocating agency and pleasure in older women´s narratives about sex', Australian Feminist Studies, 26: 67, 57 — 71.
  • South, J., Meah, A. and Branney, P. (2011) `Think differently and be prepared to demonstrate trust´: Findings from public hearings, England, on supporting lay people in public health roles', Health Promotion International [http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/04/20/heapro.dar022.full.pdf+html]
  • Meah, A., Rogers, S., Milnes, L. and Callery, P. (2010) Thinking Taller: sharing responsibility in the everyday lives of children with asthma. Journal of Clinical Nursing.
  • Hockey, J., Meah, A. and Robinson, V. (2009) Fast Girls, Foreigners and GIs: An Exploration of the Discursive Strategies Through Which the Status of Pre-Marital (Hetero) sexual Ignorance and Restraint Was Upheld During the Second World War, Sociological Research Online , 62(2).
  • Robinson, V. and Meah, A. (eds.) (2009) Journal of Gender Studies (special issue on Masculinities), 18(4).
  • Meah, A., Hockey, J. and Robinson, V. (2008) What's sex got to do with it? A family-based investigation of growing up heterosexual during the twentieth century, Sociological Review, 53(3), 454-473.
  • Hockey, J., Meah, A. and Robinson, V. (2007) Mundane Heterosexualities: from theory to practices. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Robinson, V., Meah, A. and Hockey, J. (2007) Representing Sex in the Research Process. The International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Theory and Practice, 10(3), 181-194.

Other publications

Peer reviewed articles

  • Robinson, V., Hockey, J. and Meah, A. (2004) "What I did… on my mother's settee": Spatialising Heterosexuality. Gender, Place and Culture, 11(3), 417-435.
  • Hockey, J., Meah, A. and Robinson, V. (2004) A Heterosexual Life. Journal of Gender Studies, 13(2), 227-238.
  • Hockey, J., Robinson, V. and Meah, A. (2002) "For Better or Worse?": Heterosexuality Reinvented. Sociological Research Online, 7(2).

Book Chapters

  • Meah, A., Hockey, J. and Robinson, V. (2004) Narrating Heterosexual Identities: Recollections, Omissions and Contradictions.In: Robinson, D., Horrocks, C., Kelly, N. and Roberts, B. (eds.) Narrative, Memory and Identity: Theoretical and Methodological Issues, Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield Press.

Reports

  • South, J., Meah, A. Bagnall, A-M., Kinsella, K., Branney, P., White, J., Gamsu, M. (2010) People in Public Health – a study of approaches to develop and support people in public health roles. Final report. NIHR Service Delivery and Organisation programme.
  • Meah, A., Kinsella, K. and South, J. (2009) Community Health Information and Links, Leeds (CHILL) Evaluation. Leeds: Leeds Metropolitan University.
  • Stafford, B., et al. (2006) New Deal for Disabled People Second Synthesis Report: interim findings for the evaluation. Research Report 377. Sheffield: Department for Work and Pensions.
  • Meah, A. and Thornton, P. (2005) Desirable Outcomes of WORKSTEP: User and Provider Views, Research Report 279, Sheffield: Department for Work and Pensions.