Researching retired ex-servicemen: reflections on ethnographic encounters

The opportunities and challenges that younger, female, civilian researchers can encounter when undertaking ethnographic research with predominantly male military veterans are relatively underexplored sociologically. This is despite a growing literature on reflexivity in military studies over the past decade. To address this gap, we draw on symbolic interactionist insights to examine the reflective account of…Continue Reading Researching retired ex-servicemen: reflections on ethnographic encounters

Optimising social procurement policy outcomes through cross-sector collaboration in the Australian construction industry

Social procurement policies are an emerging policy instrument being used by governments around the world to leverage infrastructure and construction spending to address intractable social problems in the communities they represent. The relational nature of social procurement policies requires construction firms to develop new collaborative partnerships with organisations from the government, not-for-profit and community sectors….Continue Reading Optimising social procurement policy outcomes through cross-sector collaboration in the Australian construction industry

Facial first impressions form two clusters representing approach-avoidance

Existing models of facial first impressions indicate between two and four factors that underpin all social trait judgements. Here, we submitted several large databases of these first impression ratings to unsupervised learning algorithms with the aim of clustering together faces, rather than traits, to examine the ways in which impressions may be grouped together. Experiment…Continue Reading Facial first impressions form two clusters representing approach-avoidance