I was awarded my PhD in October 2008 from the LSE and since then have taught sociology at University of Leicester and Media & Cultural Studies at University of Kingston. My research interests are in the areas of national identity and globalisation, discourse theory, media and everyday life. I have published work on mass rituals, theories of nationalism and cosmopolitan identities and have a forthcoming monograph, entitled 'National Belonging and Everyday Life', which will be published by Palgrave Macmillan at the end of 2011. Future work will look to explore issues around belonging, media events, globalisation and sport.

Employability

Recruitment

Nations and nationalism, race and ethnicity, sociology of everyday life, media rituals, sport

BA / BSc Sociology

S2000 - Research & Employability

IS2201 - Social Theory I

IS3000 - Research Dissertation

IS3205 - Sociology of Identity & Difference

Skey, Michael (in preparation) Boundaries and belonging: The ethnic majority and the place of the nation in an uncertain world

Skey, Michael (under review) ‘What nationality he is doesn’t matter a damn!’: Football, mediated identities and (conditional) cosmopolitanism 

Skey, Michael (under review) Flagging nations? Re-thinking the link between media and nation

Skey, Michael (under review) Why do nations matter? The struggle for belonging and security in an uncertain world

Skey, Michael (forthcoming) We need to talk about cosmopolitanism: The (methodological) challenge of studying of openness towards other people, Cultural Sociology

Skey, Michael (forthcoming, October 2011) National Belonging and Everyday Life: The Significance of Nationhood in an Uncertain World, Basingstoke: Palgrave

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=395807

Skey, Michael (forthcoming) ‘Sod them, I’m English’: The changing status of the ‘majority’ English in post-devolution Britain, Ethnicities

Skey, Michael (2011), National identity, multicutlturalism, cosmopolitanism, globalisation, Interview with Exploring Geopolitics, http://www.exploringgeopolitics.org/Interview_Skey_Michael_National_Identity_Multiculturalism_Cosmopolitanism_Globalisation_Selfhood_Otherness_Belonging.html

Skey, Michael (2011) Nation, media representations, audiences, Interview with Exploring Geopolitics, http://www.exploringgeopolitics.org/Interview_Skey_Michael_Nationhood_Media_Representations_Audiences_Models_Studies_Influence_Cultures_Ethnography_Practices_Theory_Global_Networks.html

Skey, Michael (2011) ‘Thank God, I’m back!’: (Re)defining the nation as a homely place in relation to journeys abroad, Journal of Cultural Geography, 28(2): 233-252

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08873631.2011.583437?journalCode=rjcg20

Skey, Michael (2011), The Politics of Multiculturalism by Ben Pitcher (Book review), British Journal of Sociology, 62(1): 196-98

Skey, Michael (2010), ‘A sense of where you belong in the world’: National belonging, ontological security and the status of the ethnic majority in England, Nations & Nationalism, 16(4): 715-733

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8129.2009.00428.x/abstract

Skey, Michael (2009), ‘We wanna show ‘em who we are’: National Events in England in McCrone, D & McPherson, G (eds), National Days, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=376310

Skey, Michael (2009), The national in everyday life: A critical engagement with Michael Billig’s thesis of Banal Nationalism, Sociological Review, 58(2): 331-364

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2009.01832.x/abstract

Skey, Michael, (2007), Identity as Ideology: Understanding Ethnicity and Nationalism by Siniša Maleševic (Book review), Nations & Nationalism, 13:4: 740-741

Skey, Michael, (2006), Carnivals of surplus emotion? Towards an understanding of the significance of Ecstatic Nationalism in a globalising world, Studies in Ethnicity & Nationalism, 6:2. 143-161

Fellow of Higher Education Academy

Member of British Sociological Association, Association for Study of Ethnicity & Nationalism

National Belonging & Everyday Life: The Significance of Nationhood in an Uncertain World (Palgrave, 2011)

Why do so many people take-for-granted the idea that they live in and belong to a nation?

Do national identities matter and, if so, to whom?

To what extent are processes of globalisation undermining or reinforcing attachments to the nation?

Drawing on insights from sociology, social psychology and anthropology, Michael Skey addresses these complex questions by examining the views and attitudes of a group that has been overlooked in much of the recent literature; the ethnic majority.

Through a detailed analysis of the ways in which members of the majority in England discuss their own attachments, their anxieties about the future, and, in particular, their relations with minority groups, Skey demonstrates the link between a more settled sense of national belonging and claims to key material and psycho-social resources.

By analysing what is at stake for the majority, the book offers a more complete understanding of recent controversies over immigration, multiculturalism and community cohesion in Western settings, as well as a framework for theorising the significance of nationhood in the contemporary era.