Dr Charles Masquelier

My research is interdisciplinary, crossing over the disciplines of sociology, politics and philosophy. I identify as a critical social theorist and environmental sociologist. As a critical theorist I treat the sociological imagination as a prism through which power relations and social injustices are exposed, probed and resisted. I have done so by exploring the complex intersections of structures of power and domination under present-day conditions and imagining a world stripped of those structures. The aim has been to lay the conceptual groundwork for collective transformative action. My 2017 book on neoliberalism and my more recent book called Intersectional Socialism could be seen as complementary: the former formulated a critique of capitalism and the latter envisioned a world beyond it.

As an environmental sociologist, I build on my theoretical work to examine and rethink the way humanity relates to nature. I am paying specific attention to the farming community and farmers’ attitudes towards nature. The empirical work undertaken as part of the RENEW project aims to develop an empirical basis for developing a deliberative approach to environmental land management and identifying socio-economic practices that will form the basis of a political economy of sustainability.

My areas of interests are:

• critical theory (Marxism, Western Marxism, Bourdieu, intersectionality theory)
• social movements (their evolution and potential for large-scale social change)
• emancipation (and the relationship between the human and more-than-human world)
• socialist theory (its different forms – statist vs. libertarian - and contemporary relevance)
• environmental sociology (political economy of sustainability; rural sociology)
• worker cooperatives (how they operate, the way they mediate the more-than-human world and potential role in large-scale social change)
• neoliberalism (its social consequences and how to adapt critique to this stage of capitalist development)
• environmental land management (barriers and enablers; deliberative approach)