Dr Alex Cockain

In 2009, I completed my PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of London. After lecturing positions in both Beijing and Shanghai, I taught for 9 years in Hong Kong where I was an instructor (2012-13), teaching fellow (2013-16), and Assistant Professor (2016-21), before coming to CCCU in 2021.

In addition to teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate students majoring in social work, I teach sessions to doctoral students on ethnographic approaches and visual 'data' in qualitative research. I also supervise doctoral students.

My teaching and research take inspiration from ideas from anthropology, sociology, social theory and, increasingly, disability studies and social work. I am especially excited about how these perspectives can become entangled in conversations and dialogue and especially the ways these may enable opportunities to think between the limits of singular disciplinary perspectives. My research may be regarded as qualitative (if only in the sense that I tend to investigate a small number of instances) and often ethnographic (i.e., in that it is immersive, to the extent that the taken-for-granted boundaries between research and life sometimes blur). All these ideas and approaches give me lenses with, and through, which to explore the social, cultural, material, and discursive worlds we make and are made by.

My research has been published in many peer-reviewed journals. These include Disability and Society, The British Journal of Social Work, Cultural Geographies, The China Journal, Time and Society, and Social Semiotics. In 2024, my second book entitled Learning Disability and Everyday Life was published. This is part of the Routledge Advances in Disability Studies series. A downloadable extract to this book can be found at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003180227/learning-disability-everyday-life-alex-cockain

I am a regular reviewer for peer-reviewed journals which in recent years have included Ethnography and Education, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, The Tizard Learning Disability Review, Asian Anthropology, Social Work Education, and Critical and Radical Social Work. In 2023, I won the outstanding reviewer award from The Tizard Learning Disability Review.

In previous roles at other institutions, I have taught courses on social theory; sociological and anthropological theory; media and cultural studies; and linguistic anthropology.

Here at CCCU, I lead and teach modules on:

• Sociology, Society and Social Work
• Social Work Research
• Dissertation modules (for both BA and MA students)

I also contribute to The Graduate College by leading sessions for doctoral students relating to ethnography and visual 'data' in qualitative research.

Since my first book entitled Young Chinese in Urban China (2012), much of my work has focused upon issues of social inclusion and social exclusion and especially how ability and disability are made through social encounters, discourse, media representations, and everyday practices. My recent work has also explored the tactics disabled people and their families deploy to cope, and make do, with exclusionary places and practices and the ways they attempt to manage disabling social encounters. That said, my work has also explored such seemingly disparate things as experiences in changing residential neighbourhoods, semiotic landscapes (on the Shanghai metro), identity work among students studying at a 'normal' university in Shanghai, the problematic positioning of people through discourse on Personal Independence Payment forms, and psychic experiences of air pollution and the ways people try to make sense of these experiences.

Royal Anthropological Institute (member)

British Sociological Association (member)

Senior Fellowship of Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy)