Professor Andrew Blaikie
Chair in Historical Sociology
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+44 (0)1224 272765
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a.blaikie@abdn.ac.uk
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School of Divinity, History and Philosophy,
Crombie Annexe,
Meston Walk,
King's College,
University of Aberdeen
AB24 3FX
Room: 101
Chair in Historical Sociology
MA, PhD, AcSS
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Personal Details
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Biography
Andrew Blaikie joined the University from Birkbeck, University of London, as a Lecturer in Sociology in 1991. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1995 and to a personal chair as Professor of Historical Sociology in 1999. He gained his first degree from the University of Cambridge (1978) and PhD from the University of London (1987), where he also held posts as Research Officer and Lecturer. In 1998 he was awarded a Nuffield Foundation Social Science Research Fellowship and from 1999 to 2001 he was Director of Research in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. He was the Head of Department of Sociology, 2002-04.
He has been a member of the ESRC's Sociology, History, Anthropology and Resources College and the Subject Area Panel (postgraduate recognition) for Sociology. A former Vice Chair of the British Sociological Association, and Chair of its Academic Affairs Committee, and Secretary of the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland, he curerently sits on the Councils of both organisations. He has convened network panels for the annual conferences of the Social Science History Association (USA), and developed collaborative research in Europe and North America. Among the organizations for which he has acted as consultant are BBC Radio 4 and BBC Television/Open University, the Health Education Authority and Canada Foundation for Innovation.
He is currently co-editor of the journal Cultural Sociology (http://sagepub.co.uk/cus/) and sits on the editorial board of Memory Studies.
He has delivered conference presentations and invited lectures in over 20 countries and is an elected Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.
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Current Research
1) I have completed a monograph on memory and modernity in Scotland, published in March 2010 by Edinburgh University Press:
The Scots Imagination and Modern Memory
This original study explores how different, but connected ways of seeing infuse relationships between place and belonging. Its argument is that all memories, whether fleeting glimpses or elaborated narratives, necessarily invoke imagined pasts – tenement life, island cultures, vanished moralities, even the origins of social science. But do these multiple recollections share a common frame of reference? Are perceptions conditioned by a collective social imaginary? Visions of nation and community, from Adam Ferguson's ideas on the development of civil society through John Grierson's pioneering of documentary film to the structures of feeling in popular fiction, reflect the impact of modernity on Scottish culture since the late-eighteenth century. While landscape as the symbolic 'face of Scotland' and its attendant mental contours have been produced and debated in many genres, including travel literature, romantic fiction and social commentary, changes in the popular means of capturing and presenting images, particularly the emergent possibilities of the photograph, have affected the ways we identify and remember. The analysis adopts a broadly sociological approach, but its range lends equal appeal to social historians, cultural geographers, and particularly those pursuing visual or memory studies.
2) Photojournalism and National Identity: Are all representations of a nation - its peoples, places, cultures and values - simply social constructions, or do some reflect profound realities? This case study considers the impact of Picture Post, Britain's most influential visual medium prior to the advent of mass television, exploring how its documentary rhetoric contributed to lasting social values, political consciousness, cultural imagination, and national 'character' by conducting contents analysis to assess the combination of image and narrative in creating perceptions of nationhood.
3) Relationships between biography and demographic structures using nominal record linkage to investigate detailed patterns of family formation, unmarried motherhood and infant mortality in Scottish rural communities between 1855 and 1955. This research has been supported by grants from the Wellcome Trust and Nuffield Foundation, and more recently by an ESRC award (£352K) with A. Reid, E Garrett and R. Davies at the University of Cambridge: 'Determining the demographic characteristics of nineteenth-century Scotland through record linkage: a rural-urban comparison' (http://www.hpss.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/victorianscotlanddemography/)
4) I have long experience and extensive publication in the field of social gerontology, particular the social history of ageing. However, I am not presently conducting research in this area.
Postgraduate supervision includes PhD theses on a diverse range of topics including:
- the process of ageing in literature
- photographic imagery and national identity
- re-photography
- Italy and the English imaginary
- generational shifts in German national identities
- the problem of the mentally disabled child in the early-twentieth century
- late modernity and funeral rituals.
I have been external examiner for the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, Birkbeck, London, University of Surrey.
Staff Associate, Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies.
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Collaborations
Mentor to Dr Edna Delaney, School of History, University of Edinburgh on an ESRC Mid-Career Fellowship (involves specialist workshops and an international research network on 'Modernity, History and Social Theory').
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Teaching Responsibilities
I am currently Course Co-ordinator for two third-level undergraduate courses:
HI 304S Scotland: A Sociological History
HI 354V Visualising the Modern: Photography and Film in Scotland, 1840-1980
I also teach:
HI4515 General Historical Problems/ HI353X: Thinking History
HI1522 An Introduction to Scottish History
HI 2521 Men, Women and In Between
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External Responsibilities
Member of Advisory Panel, Centre for Remote and Rural Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands, from 2009.
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Admin Responsibilities
Co-ordinator of Postgraduate Research
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Main Publications
REFEREED PAPERS IN ACADEMIC JOURNALS:
1988 A. Blaikie, 'Ageing and the Future of the Welfare State: a British Perspective', Gerontologia, 2 (4), pp. 273-87.
1990 A. Blaikie, 'The Emerging Political Power of the Elderly in Britain, 1918-1948', Ageing and Society, 10 (1), pp. 17-39.
1992 A. Blaikie, 'Whither the Third Age? Implications for Gerontology', Generations Review, 2 (1), pp. 2-4.
1993 A. Blaikie, 'Images of Age: A Reflexive Process', Applied Ergonomics Special Issue: Ageing and Our Future Selves, 24 (1), pp. 51-57.
1994 A. Blaikie, 'A Kind of Loving: Illegitimacy, Grandparents and the Rural Economy of Northeast Scotland, 1750-1900', Scottish Economic and Social History, 14, pp. 41-57.
1994 A. Blaikie, 'Photographic Memory, Ageing and the Life Course', Ageing and Society, 14 (4), pp. 479-97.
1994 A. Blaikie, 'Druggets and Uglies, Crotal and Cailleachan: Remembering the Recent Past', Northern Scotland, 14, pp.135-45.
1994 A. Blaikie, 'Ageing and Consumer Culture: Will We Reap the Whirlwind?', Generations Review, 4 (4), pp. 5-7.
1995 A. Blaikie, 'Photographic Images of Age and Generation', Education and Ageing, 10 (1), pp. 5-15.
1995 A. Blaikie, 'Motivation and Motherhood: Past and Present Attributions in the Reconstruction of Illegitimacy', Sociological Review,43 (4), pp.641-57.
1997 A. Blaikie, 'Age Consciousness and Modernity: The Social Reconstruction of Retirement', Self, Agency and Society, 1 (1), pp. 9-26.
1997 A. Blaikie, 'Beside the Sea: Visual Imagery, Ageing and Heritage', Ageing and Society 17 (6), pp. 629-48.
1998 A. Blaikie, 'Infant Survival Chances, Unmarried Motherhood and Domestic Arrangements in Rural Scotland, 1845-1945', Local Population Studies, 60, pp. 34-46.
1998 A. Blaikie, 'Scottish Illegitimacy: Social Adjustment or Moral Economy?', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXIX (2), pp. 221-41.
1998 A. Blaikie, 'Unhappy After Their Own Fashion: Infant Lives and Family Biographies in Southwest Scotland, 1855-1939', Scottish Economic and Social History, 18 (2), pp. 95-113.
1999 A. Blaikie, 'Can There Be a Cultural Sociology of Ageing?', Education and Ageing, 14 (2), pp. 127-39.
1999 A. Blaikie, 'Ageing: Old Visions, New Times?', The Lancet 2000 Millennium Supplement, The Lancet, Volume 354, Supplement 4, December 1999, siv 3.
2000 A. Blaikie, 'Migration and Cultural Identity: Within and Beyond the Nation', Northern Scotland, 20, pp. 179-88.
2001 A. Blaikie, 'Photographs in the Cultural Account: Contested Narratives and Collective Memory in the Scottish Islands', Sociological Review, 49 (3), pp. 345-67.
2001 A. Blaikie, 'Problems with "Strategy" in Micro-Social History: Families and Narratives, Sources and Methods', Family and Community History, 4 (2), pp. 85-98.
2002 A. Blaikie, 'On the Rock of Ages', Generations Review, 12 (1), pp. 11-13.
2002 A. Blaikie, 'Household Mobility in Rural Scotland: The Impact of the Poor Law after 1845', Scottish Tradition/International Review of Scottish History,27, pp. 23-41.
2002 A. Blaikie, 'Nuclear Hardship or Variant Dependency? Households and the Scottish Poor Law', Continuity and Change, 17 (2), pp. 253-80.
2002 A. Blaikie, 'Coastal Communitiesin Victorian Scotland: What Makes Northeast Fisher Families Distinctive?', Local Population Studies, 69, pp. 15-31.
2005 A. Blaikie, 'Accounting for Poverty: Conflicting Constructions of Family Survival in Scotland, 1855-1925', Journal of Historical Sociology, 18 (3), pp. 202-26.
2006 A.Blaikie, 'Soundtrack of Our Lives', Generations Review, 16 (1), pp. 2-5.
2006 A.Blaikie, 'Photography, Childhood and Urban Poverty: Remembering ''The Forgotten Gorbals''', Visual Culture in Britain, 7 (2), pp. 47-68.
2007 A. Reid, R. Davies, E. Garrett and A. Blaikie, 'Vulnerability among Illegitimate Children in Nineteenth Century Scotland', Annales de Démographie Historique, No. 111, 2006/1, Les populations vulnérables (II), pp. 89-113.
2010 A. Blaikie, 'Homeless Minds, Imagined Nations, Peripheral Visions: Hugh MacDiarmid and Allen Curnow', Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, 4 (1), pp. 65-78.
2010 A. Blaikie,'Nuclear Hardship or Variant Dependency? Households and the Scottish Poor Law', Continuity and Change,25 (November) - 25th volume anniversary collection (Special Issue of 'classic papers' selected by the Editors) http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displaySpecialArticle?jid=CON&bespokeId=2220
2011 A. Blaikie, 'Imagining the Face of a Nation: Scotland, Modernity and the Places of Memory', Memory Studies, 4 (4), pp. 416-31.
FORTHCOMING:
2013 A. Blaikie, ‘History, Sociology, Modernity: How Connect?’, Scottish Historical Review Special Issue on ‘The State of Scottish History: Past, Present and Future.’
SOLE AUTHORED BOOKS:
1994 A. Blaikie, Illegitimacy, Sex and Society: Northeast Scotland, 1750-1900 (Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press). 268 + xvi pp.
[Nominated for Philip Abrams Memorial Prize, British Sociological Association]
1999 A. Blaikie, Ageing and Popular Culture (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press). 247 + xi pp.
2010 A. Blaikie, The Scots Imagination and Modern Memory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press and New York: Columbia University Press). 262 + ix pp.
[Shortlisted for Saltire Society National Library of Scotland Research Book of the Year Award]
FORTHCOMING:
2015 A. Blaikie, Framing Modern Scotland: Visual Narratives of the Twentieth Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).
EDITED BOOKS:
2000 L. McKie and N. Watson, with A. Blaikie and L. Ryan, Organising Bodies: Institutions, Policy and Work (London: Macmillan)
2003 A. Blaikie, M. Hepworth, M. Holmes, A. Howson, D. Inglis and S. Sartain (eds), The Body Routledge Critical Concepts (London: Routledge) (5 Volumes).
ESSAYS IN EDITED COLLECTIONS:
1986 A. Blaikie and J. Macnicol, 'Towards an Anatomy of Ageism: Society, Social Policy and the Elderly between the Wars', in C. Phillipson, M. Bernard and P. Strang, eds, Dependency and Interdependency in Old Age: Theoretical Perspectives and Policy Alternatives (London: Croom Helm), pp. 95-104.
1987 A. Blaikie, 'Monsters Within: Child Abuse in Modern English History', in G. Drewry, ed., After Beckford? Essays on themes related to Child Abuse, (Egham: Department of Social Policy, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Social Policy Papers), pp. 1-8.
1989 A. Blaikie and J. Macnicol, 'Ageing and Social Policy: A Twentieth Century Dilemma', in A. M. Warnes, ed., Human Ageing in Later Life: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, (London: Edward Arnold), pp. 69-82.
1989 J. Macnicol and A. Blaikie, 'The Politics of Retirement, 1908-48', in M. Jefferys, ed., Growing Old in the Twentieth Century, (London: Routledge), pp. 21-42.
1990 A. Blaikie, 'Rhetoric and Reality: Class-Based Attitudes to Sexual Behaviour in Nineteenth Century Scotland', in The Role of the State and Public Opinion in Sexual Attitudes and Demographic Behaviour since the Eighteenth Century, (Paris: Commission Internationale de Démographie Historique), pp. 5-14.
1991 J.A.D. Blaikie, 'The Country and the City: Sexuality and Social Class in Victorian Scotland', in G. Kearns and C. W. J. Withers, eds, Urbanising Britain: Essays on Class and Community in the Nineteenth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 80-102.
1991 J. Macnicol and A. Blaikie, 'The Politics of Retirement, 1908-48', in M. Jefferys, ed., Growing Old in the Twentieth Century, (Second Edition, London: Routledge), pp. 21-42.
1993 A. Blaikie, 'The Pensioners' Movement: Federation, Consolidation and Fragmentation, 1938-48', in Britain', in J. Johnson and R. Slater, eds, Ageing and Later Life (London: Sage Publications in association with The Open University), pp. 188-92 (Open University set text).
1995 A. Blaikie, 'Interpreting the Photographic Record: Readings, Biographies, Contexts', in C. Hummel and C. J. Lalive d'Epinay, eds, Images of Aging in Western Societies (Geneva: University of Geneva), pp. 231-46.
1996 A. Blaikie, 'From "Immorality" to "Underclass": The Current and Historical Context of Illegitimacy', in J. Weeks and J. Holland, eds, Sexual Cultures: Communities, Values and Intimacy (London: British Sociological Association / Macmillan), pp. 115-36.
1996 A. Blaikie, ' "The Map of Vice in Scotland": Victorian Vocabularies of Causation', in J. Forrai, ed., Civilization, Sexuality and Social Life in Historical Context: The Hidden Face of Urban Life (Budapest: SOTE University Press / Új-Aranyhíd Kft.), pp. 117-32.
1997 A. Blaikie and M. Hepworth, 'Representations of Old Age in Painting and Photography', in A. Jamieson, S. Harper and C. Victor, eds, Critical Approaches to Ageing and Later Life (Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press), pp. 102-17.
2000 A. Blaikie, ‘Illegitimacy’, in Clifton D. Bryant (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior, Vol. III: Sexual Deviance [N. Davis and G. Geis (eds)], (New York and London: Taylor and Francis/ Brunner/Mazel), pp. 168-72 [4, 000 words].
2000 A. Blaikie, 'People in the City', in W. H. Fraser and C. H. Lee, eds, Aberdeen, 1800-2000: A New History (East Linton: Tuckwell Press), pp. 47-73.
2002 A. Blaikie, 'Using Documentary Material: Researching the Past', in A. Jamieson and C. Victor, eds, Researching Ageing and Later Life: The Practice of Social Gerontology (Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press), pp. 35-50.
2002 A. Blaikie, 'The Secret World of Subcultural Ageing: What Unites and What Divides?', in L. Andersson, ed., Cultural Gerontology (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press), pp. 95-110.
2003 A. Blaikie with M. Hepworth, M. Holmes, A. Howson, and D. Inglis, 'The Sociology of the Body: Genesis, Development and Futures', GeneralIntroduction in eid. (and S. Sartain), The Body Routledge Critical Concepts (London: Routledge) (5 Volumes), Vol. 1, pp. 1-23.
2004 A. Blaikie, 'It’s a Wonderful Life? Cultures of Ageing', in E. B. Silva and T. Bennett, eds, Contemporary Culture and Everyday Life (Durham: SociologyPress), pp. 149-65.
2004 Extract from A. Blaikie (1999), Ageing and Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) reproduced in P. Rayner (2004) Media Studies: The Essential Resource (London: Routledge), pp. 50-54 (Reprint).
2004 A. Blaikie, ‘The Search for Ageing Identities’, in S. O. Daatland and S. Biggs (eds), Ageing and Diversity: Multiple Pathways and Cultural Migrations (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 79-93 (Paperback edition 2006).
2005 A. Blaikie, 'Imagined Landscapes of Age and Identity', in G. J. Andrews and D. R. Phillips, eds, Ageing and Place (London: Routledge), pp. 164-75.
2005 A. Blaikie, E. Garrett and R. Davies, ‘Migration, Living Strategies and Illegitimate Childbearing: A Comparison of Two Scottish Settings, 1871-1881’, in A. Levene, S. Williams and T. Nutt, eds, Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700-1920 (London: Palgrave), pp. 141-67.
2005 A. Blaikie and P. Gray, 'Archives of Abuse and Discontent? Presbyterianism and Sexual Behaviour during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries', in L. Kennedy and R. Morris, eds, Order and Disorder: Scotland & Ireland, 1600-2001 (Edinburgh: John Donald/Birlinn), pp. 61-84.
2006 A. Blaikie, 'Visions of Later Life: Golden Cohort to Generation Z', in J. Vincent, C. Phillipson and M. Downs, eds, The Futures of Old Age (London: Sage), pp. 12-19.
2009 A. Blaikie, 'Photographs in the Cultural Account: Contested Narratives and Collective Memory in the Scottish Islands', in B. Harrison, ed., Life Story Research, Sage Benchmarks in Social Research Methods, Vol. IV (London: Sage), (Reprint).
2010 A. Blaikie, 'Rituals, Transitions and Life Courses in an Era of Social Transformation', in C. A. Whatley and E. A. Foyster, general eds, Everyday Life in Scotland c. 1200 to the Present Day, Vol. 3: 1800-1900 (eds T. Griffiths and G. Morton) (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press), pp. 89-115.
FORTHCOMING:
2013 A. Blaikie, 'Visual Evidence: Photography', in Veitch, K., ed., Scottish Life and Society: A Compendium of Scottish Ethnology. Vol. 1: An Introduction to Scottish Ethnology (Edinburgh: John Donald).
SHORTER ARTICLES:
A. Blaikie, 'Back to School', Pensions and Employee Benefits, September 1988, pp. 36-7.
A. Blaikie, 'A Fresh Map of Life', Centre for Health and Retirement Education Newsletter, No. 16, Summer 1990, p. 1 (lead article).
A. Blaikie, 'Family Fall-Out', The Times Higher Education Supplement, 4 March 1994, p. 18.
REPORTS:
A. Blaikie and J. Macnicol, 'Society, Social Policy and the Elderly, 1918-1948', ESRC End of Award Report, July 1987 (Award Reference Number GO1 25 0016).
OCCASIONAL PAPERS:
A. Blaikie, 'Social Welfare and Local Administration in Northeast Scotland: Pauperism and Illegitimacy', 1843-1894', Queen Mary College Working Papers in Geography, No.1 (1983) 20pp.
CONFERENCE REPORTS:
A. Blaikie, 'A Moveable Feast? Malthus Yesterday and Today, International Congress of Historical Demography, Paris-UNESCO, 27-29 May 1980', Area, 12 (4) (1980), pp. 331-32.
A. Blaikie and D. Green, 'Historical Geography at the Institute of British Geographers', Journal of Historical Geography, 7 (2), (1981), pp. 183-86.
A.Blaikie, 'The Old in a New World, XIVth. International Congress of Gerontology, Acapulco International Center, Mexico, 18-23 June 1989', Generations, (1989), pp. 25-6.
A.Blaikie, 'IVth. European Congress of Gerontology, Reports from Berlin, 7-11 July 1999', Generations Review, 9 (3), (1999), pp. 15-16.
ABSTRACTS:
A. Blaikie and J. Macnicol, 'An Anatomy of Ageism', The Gerontologist, Vol. 26 (1986), 85a.
A. Blaikie, 'Popular Culture, Photography and the Ageing Body', Sociological Abstracts, Suppl. 182 (1998), p. 83.
A. Blaikie, 'Towards a Cultural Sociology of Aging', Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, 32 (2) (1999), p. 77.
photohistorica, 56/57 (1994), 7853.
Several abstracts in Population Index.
INTERVIEWS:
'Rutina eläkemenojen maksusta on turhaa', Aamulehti, 14 November 1987, p. 13.
'Det selektive minnet til Skottland', interview with Ragnar Skre, Dag og Tid, 43, 26 October 2002, pp. 14-15.
'Desert Island Discourse', Network, 87, Summer 2004, pp. 30-32.
BOOK REVIEWS:
Multiple and single reviews in:
Ageing and Society
Agricultural History Review
European Journal of Cultural Studies
Journal of Educational Gerontology
Journal of Historical Geography
Journal of Social Policy
Northern Scotland
Population Studies
Review of Scottish Culture
Reviews in History
Rural History
Scottish Economic and Social History
Scottish Historical Review
Social History
Sociology
The London Journal
The Times Higher Education Supplement
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