Tom Vickers

Tom Vickers is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, and prior to this held posts at Northumbria and Durham Universities. He has conducted research as Principal Investigator or lead Research Associate on projects funded by the ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust and NIHR School for Social Care Research. He has published in peer-reviewed academic journals including Ethnic and Racial Studies, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Economic & Industrial Democracy, Critical Social Policy, Social Policy & Administration, Mobilities, Area, Time & Society, Critical Sociology, the British Journal of Social Work, as well as a range of non-academic platforms. He has written two books - 'Refugees, Capitalism and the British State' was published by Ashgate in 2012 and reissued in paperback by Routledge in 2016 and 'Borders, Migration and Class in a Time of Crisis: Producing immigrants and workers' was published by Bristol University Press in 2019.

The overall 'problem' that drives Tom's research is capitalism in its imperialist phase, and more specifically the way that capitalist exploitation is managed and resistance is foreclosed, diverted and contained. Over the last ten years Tom has used a focus on borders and racism to examine how exploitation, oppression and resistance operate across fields including employment, volunteering, social work and social care, and the media. This research is intimately connected to his participation in social movements, community organising and community education, as a form of critical public sociology.