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Dr Ben Gidley

Positions held:
  • Reader in Sociology and Psychosocial Studies, School of Social Sciences
  • Research Associate, 糖心logo入口 Institute for the Study of Antisemitism; School of Social Sciences
Email
  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    Ben Gidley studied Anthropology as an undergraduate and Urban Studies at MA level and has a PhD in Sociology (on citizenship and belonging among East London Jewish radicals in the early twentieth century) from the University of London. Before coming to 糖心logo入口, he worked in interdisciplinary research centres on urban studies and migration at Goldsmiths University of London and at the University of Oxford. During that period, he was involved in several policy-engaged research projects on topics around migration, integration and diversity, funded by research councils, charitable trusts, the European Union and government departments. He is currently working on听projects to do with antisemitism and Muslim-Jewish encounters,听as well as teaching psychosocial studies and sociology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

    Highlights

    • Recently led听, one of funded in the 2021-23 round of the听Open Research Area for the Social Sciences.听

    • Currently leading , a transnational digital humanities project as part of the HERA/CHANSE 听programme.

    Web profiles

    Administrative responsibilities

    • Programme Director, BA Psychosocial Studies

    Professional memberships

    • President, British and Irish Association of Jewish Studies

    • Founder member, Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment

    ORCID

  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • Contemporary forms of racialisation (including antisemitism and Islamophobia) and intercultural encounter
    • Diaspora, diversity and migration
    • Urban studies and urban sociology
    • Port cities, transnationalism, arrival quarters, Blue Humanities and "blue social sciences"
    • Conspiracy theories, disinformation, online antisemitism
    • Fascism and anti-fascism

    Research overview


    My research has drawn on a range of methodological approaches, including participatory action research, visual methods, archival research and ethnography. My research agenda has largely been around the question of how we live together with difference. My focus has been on urban contexts, including a long-term ethnographic engagement with Southeast London and historical work in East London 鈥 although increasingly setting this in a comparative European context. I also have an interest in British Jews, both in relation to wider diaspora formations and in relation to the history and politics of British multiculture (Turbulent Times, written with Keith Kahn-Harris, was the first sociological monograph on British Jews for several decades), on understanding different racisms comparatively (Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, co-edited with James Renton, was a breakthrough volume in this field), and on Jewish-Muslim encounters (Jews and Muslims in Europe: Jews and Muslims in Europe: Between Discourse and Experience, co-edited with Sami Everett, explores this topic).

    Research Centres and Institutes

    • Research Associate,
    • Steering group member,
    • Member,
    • Editorial Board member,

    Research clusters and groups

    Research projects

    Abstract

    While most academics approach Europe from the perspective of the continent鈥檚 landmass, we explore the waterways that marks its peripheries or limits, especially its 鈥渓iminal鈥 waterways 鈥 those that mark edges or boundaries and therefore enable interesting things to happen. We focus on what we call liminal waterway countercultures, the creative alternative forms of life that have emerged in these spaces. Against the backdrop of Europe鈥檚 crisis of diversification (the ways in which cultural diversity and human mobility have appeared in narratives of panic across the continent) and of its ecological crisis (as rivers and coastlines dry up, erode and flood), countercultures emerge which provide models of resilience. We retrieve submerged narratives of how water 鈥 imaginatively or literally 鈥 has been central to how communities, artists, activists and municipalities have re-appropriated post-colonial, post-fascist and post-socialist urban and natural space. We use historical, literary, spatial and anthropological methods to explore these multilingual sites of cultural production and conviviality, through which tides of people, ideas and objects flow. Our cases 鈥 some historical and some contemporary 鈥 are located in the Atlantic estuaries the Ria Formosa and Merseyside, the Channel ports London and Ostend, the island of Rhodes, the Mediterranean coasts of Marseille and the Balkans, and the riverine network linking central Europe to the Adriatic. Working with our Associate Partners 鈥 Sciaena (a Portuguese grassroots environmental NGO), the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (Mucem), and the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral in Rijeka (PPMHP) 鈥 our project will produce digital audio-visual material on each site (including virtual 鈥渨alks鈥 through each as well as cartographic resources enabling non-academic users in and beyond our sites to visualise them and flows between them), and culminate in a museum exhibition at PPMHP, creating future cultural knowledge resilience in frontline nodes of climate crisis and migrational shift.

    Project leadership:

    Project Leader: Ben Gidley, 糖心logo入口, University of London, United Kingdom
    Sami Everett, Southampton University, United Kingdom
    Raquel Carvalheira, Centro em Rede de Investiga莽茫o em Antropologia, Portugal
    Yvonne Zivkovic, Karl Franzens University Graz, Austria
    Milka Car, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
    Pierre Sint猫s, Aix Marseille University, France

    Team members at 糖心logo入口: Daniella Shaw, Amina Atiq

    Abstract

    Project leadership:

    Dr. Ben Gidley, 糖心logo入口 University of London, Department of Psychosocial Studies (Main Applicant and Principal Investigator, UK)

    Professor Dr. Anne-Sophie Lamine, Social Science Faculty, University of Strasbourg (Principal Investigator, FR)

    Professor Dr. Steven Vertovec Ph.D., Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung multireligi枚ser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften, G枚ttingen (Principal Investigator, DE)

    Professor Dr. Matthias Koenig, Heidelberg University, Max-Weber-Institute for Sociology (Co-Investigator, DE)

    Dr Sami Everett,听Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung multireligi枚ser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften, G枚ttingen (Research Co-ordinator)

    糖心logo入口 team:

    Daniella Shaw

    Funded by the Open Research Area (ORA) for the Social Sciences, this joint research project studies intercultural, interethnic and interreligious encounters as exemplified by Jews and Muslims in urban Europe. The largest European populations of these two groups - overwhelmingly urban, concentrated in the same cities, and, strikingly, often in the same neighbourhoods - are in France, Germany and the UK, countries which on the face of it have followed different models of framing majority-minority relations, creating ideal conditions for a comparative study of the possibilities of living together in urban Europe. Although previous academic studies indicate that negative attitudes to Jews and to Muslims correlate with each other in wider society, current public discourse has instead emphasised growing antagonism between them, relating to events in the Middle East (including the Israel/Palestine conflict) and to the rise of Islamist terror and its counteraction. For instance, commentators have pointed to Muslims as key perpetrators of antisemitism. However, there is some ethnographic evidence that relations in urban neighbourhoods are often more complex: everyday commercial exchange, cultural traffic within music and arts scenes, spontaneous and institutionalised interfaith initiatives, nostalgic attempts to retrieve periods of conviviality, and banal contact in the street are among the many forms these relations can take. To address the lack of empirical and conceptual research of encounters between these two minorities, the project pursues a comparative research agenda that combines attitudinal quantitative data analysis with qualitative methods (ethnographies and discourse analysis).

    The transnational collaborative project explores the specificities of and commonalities between 听Muslim-Jewish encounters in urban Europe, shaped by different national histories of integration including the place of religion in social and political life, but also by local arrangements of diversity, to better understand how different types of relations might arise. At the national scale, this includes an examination of migration and colonial histories, and of classical models 鈥 British "pluralism", French "republicanism", German "federalism" 鈥 that involve different settlements between the public sphere, national and ethnic identities, and confessional or religious diversity. However, as the picture can radically differ on local level, the project will be grounded in urban sites: two diverse city-regions in each country including significant Jewish and Muslim populations with distinctive histories and differing approaches to urban governance. The project advances interdisciplinary collaboration across six leading European research universities, involving sociologists, anthropologists, urbanists and migration policy experts, with a history of collaboration.听

    Ethical Monotheism

    Abstract

    This project was led by Professor Stephen Frosh and included Ruth Sheldon as a postdoctoral fellow and Lenita T枚rning as a doctoral student. It explored the ethics of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the religious identities of their followers, through a case study of interfaith youth activists and a case study of ethical neighbouring in East London.

    Outcomes

    Sheldon, Ruth (2021)听Locating an elusive ethics: surface and depth in a Jewish ethnography. In: Strhan, A. and Robbins, J. and Henig, D. (eds.)听Ethics Between Philosophy and Social Theory An Interdisciplinary Approach to Finding the Good in the World. London, UK: Bloomsbury

    Sheldon, R. (2019).听On Learning from the margins: Jewish nonreligious grammars within a Secular-Protestant landscape.听Secularism and Nonreligion, 8: 8, pp. 1鈥6.

    Frosh, S. and Sheldon R. (2019)听Transmission, relationality, ethnography,听Angelaki听24 (3), pp. 117-134.

    Robinson, K. and Sheldon, Ruth (2019)听Witnessing loss in the everyday: community buildings in Austerity Britain.听The Sociological Review听67 (1), pp. 111-125.

    Smith, J.D., Torning, L., Gidley, B. and Sheldon, R. (2019)听Hate Crime, Faith and Belonging. Project Report. Faith & Belief Forum, London.

    Das, V., Stonebridge, L. and Rowlands, A. (2018)听Podcast: Ethics and the Neighbour. Department of Psychosocial Studies, 糖心logo入口, University of London, 4 June 2018.

    Winter, A.,听Jhutti-Johal, J., Gidley, B., Whine, M., Mir, S., and Ali, M.听(2018)听Podcast: Roundtable on Hate Crime, Faith and Belonging in London.听Faith & Belief Forum, London.

    Post doctoral staff

    • Daniella Shaw
  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions external to 糖心logo入口:
    1
    Supervisions within 糖心logo入口:
    5

    My current doctoral students are: Dionysios Mitropoulos ("From Indignation to Collective Action鈥: Subjectivity, Critique, and Resistance in times of Crisis", with Sasha Roseneil), Ieisha James ("Bordering Whiteness: Encountering the racialised subjectivities of different generations of Italian women living in London through biographical narratives in the context of Brexit", ESRC-UBEL funded, with Brendan McGeever), Sergio Calderon Harker ("Containing the 'bad body': coloniality and detention in Fortress Europe", ESRC-UBEL funded, with Margarita Palacios),听Jamila Ayesha Thompson听(on UK black women's cultural activism, ESRC-UBEL funded, with William Ackah),听Linda Eniola Adeyemo听(on Afro-Spanishness, ESRC-UBEL funded, with Silvia Posocco), Haydar Allami听(on the Shi'ite Kurdish diaspora in the UK, ESRC-UBEL funded, with Olivia Sheringam), and听Antoinne Dwen Kerr-Graham听(on racism, criminal justice and predictive technologies, with Bernard Keenan).

    I am the second supervisor of Rachel Kupperman ("鈥楳um鈥檚 Army鈥: a psychosocial exploration of the construction of maternal labour and its effects on the lived experience of Teaching Assistants in primary education", with Stephen Frosh)听

    Past students at 糖心logo入口 include听Anthony Nicholls ("An empirical study of how contemporary young Jewish men understand their masculinity in combination with their Jewishness and Britishness", with Stephen Frosh);听Lenita Torning ("Building Bridges, Negotiating Boundaries: Young Christians', Jews' and Muslims' experiences of interfaith work in the UK", funded by Dangoor Educational, with Stephen Frosh);听Hannah Reeves ("Sedimenting the affect: (re)storying encounters with Crossbones Graveyard", ESRC-UBEL funded, with Margarita Palacios); and Carlo Palombo ("My flesh and I: experimenting with freedom and radical posthuman subjectivity", with Margarita Palacios).

    I welcome applications from MPhil/PhD students and visiting research students who wish to carry out research on: urban ethnography, lived experience of diversity, comparative urbanism, diasporic belonging; antisemitism, particularly in relation to other forms of racialisation; Anglo-Jewish history and sociology, Jewish/non-Jewish relations; urban social movements; anti-racism; fascism and anti-fascism; South and East London.

    Current doctoral researchers

    • FAIZA ABDULKADIR
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
    • HAYDAR ALLAMI
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      Fayli Kurds in the United Kingdom: Diasporic Narratives of Home-Making and Belonging
    • LINDA ENIOLA OLANREWAJU ADEYEMO
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      Becoming Afrospanish: Embodiment, Liminal Belongings and Orphan Consciousness
    • ALICE DEAN
      Nature of supervision:
      PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • SERGIO CALDERON HARKER
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      Rehearsals of refusal: thinking through border refusals accross the European detention regime
      Awarded:
      2026

    Teaching

    Teaching modules

    • Class
    • The Self, Society and the State
    • Love and Hate: an Introduction to Psychosocial Studies
    • Social Theory
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • Gidley, Ben and Feldman, David and Mcgeever, Brendan (2025) . Political Quarterly blog ISSN 1467-923X.
    • Mcgeever, Brendan and Gidley, Ben and Feldman, David (2025) . Prospect ISSN 1359-5024.
    • Feldman, David and Gidley, Ben and Mcgeever, Brendan (2025) . Vashti
    • Gidley, Ben (2025) . European Journal of Cultural Studies 28 (1), pp. 60-78. ISSN 1367-5494.
    • Gidley, Ben and Everett, S. and Druez, E. and Emmerich, Arndt and Peretz, D. and Shaw, Daniella (2025) . Ethnicities 25 (2), pp. 235-254. ISSN 1468-7968.
    • South, J. and Barbulescu, R. and Gidley, Ben and Lieurance, D. (2025) . BioScience ISSN 1525-3244.
    • Barbulescu, R. and South, J. and Byrne, B. and Solomos, J. and Benson, M. and Silva, C.C.V. and Yemane, T. and Zambelli, E. and Anghel, R.G. and Bacher, S. and Torres, A.M.B. and Bernard-Verdier, M. and Bibi, R. and Boatc膬, M. and Bolpagni, R. and Colon, D. and Demoule, J.-P. and Dunn, A.M. and Durrant, S. and Faist, T. and Finotelli, C. and Garelli, G. and Gidley, Ben and Gippet, J.M.W. and Gonzalez, S. and Guareschi, S. and Heger, T. and Hill, S. and Hobbs, J. and Holmes, G. and Hulme, P.E. and Jones, H. and Jacob, M.-A. and Khosa, D. and Kilkey, M. and Kusumastuti, A. and Lavanchy, A. and Lewis, H. and Mac锚do, R.L. and Giralt, R.M. and Musseau, C.L. and Makinejad, M. and Castro, E.R.N. and Pattison, Z. and Probert, A. and Roberts, J.D. and Ruland, F. and Saul, W.-C. and Sciortino, G. and Shackleton, R.T. and Sigona, N. and Sokolovska, S. and Souter, J. and Sun, Li and Vathi, Z. and Vieten, U. and Vimercati, G. and Waite, L. and Wilson, P. and Yannelli, F.A. (2025) . Ethnic and Racial Studies 48 (13), pp. 2496-2501. ISSN 0141-9870.
    • Gidley, Ben (2025) . Displaced Voices: A Journal of Migration, Archives and Cultural Heritage 4, pp. 15-23. ISSN 2633-2396.
    • Gidley, Ben and Everett, S. and Druez, E. and Emmerich, Arndt and Peretz, D. and Shaw, Daniella (2024) . Ethnicities ISSN 1468-7968.
    • Gidley, Ben (2023) . Patterns of Prejudice 57 (1-2), pp. 61-81. ISSN 0031-322X.
    • Gidley, Ben and Rybak, Jan (2023) . Ha'aretz
    • Gidley, Ben (2021) . Byline Times ISSN 2632-7910.
    • Gidley, Ben and McGeever, Brendan Francis and Feldman, David (2020) . The Political Quarterly 91 (2), pp. 413-421. ISSN 0032-3179.
    • McGeever, Brendan and Gidley, Ben and Feldman, David (2020) . RACE.ED
    • Feldman, David and Gidley, Ben and Mcgeever, Brendan (2020) . The Guardian ISSN 0261-3077.
    • Feldman, David and Gidley, Ben and Mcgeever, Brendan (2020) . The Political Quarterly Blog
    • Berg, M.L. and Gidley, Ben and Krausova, A. (2019) . Ethnic and Racial Studies 42 (15), pp. 2723-2742. ISSN 0141-9870.
    • Everett, S. and Gidley, Ben (2018) . Francospheres 7, ISSN 2046-3820.
    • Everett, S. and Gidley, Ben (2018) . Francospheres 7 (2), pp. 173-195. ISSN 2046-3820.
    • Ahmed, N. and Gidley, Ben and Garnett, J. and Harris, A. and Keith, M. (2016) . Ethnic and Racial Studies 39 (2), pp. 223-242. ISSN 0141-9870.
    • Gidley, Ben (2014) . Socialist History journal 45, pp. 61-79. ISSN 0969-4331.
    • Gidley, Ben (2013) . Identities 20 (4), pp. 361-376. ISSN 1070-289X.
    • Gidley, Ben and Kahn-Harris, Keith (2012) . The British Journal of Sociology 63 (1), pp. 168-187. ISSN 0007-1315.
    • Gidley, Ben (2012) . Critical Muslim 2, pp. 123-136. ISSN 2048-8475.
    • Gidley, Ben (2011) . Dissent ISSN 1946-0910.

    Book

    • Everett, S.S. and Gidley, Ben, eds. (2022) . Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion. 13, Brill. ISBN 9789004514324.
    • Renton, J. and Gidley, Ben, eds. (2017) . London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137413024.

    Book review

    • Gidley, Ben (2019) .
    • Gidley, Ben (2019) .

    Book section

    • Gidley, Ben (2022) . In: Everett, S. and Gidley, Ben (eds.) Jews and Muslims in Europe: Between Discourse and Experience. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. pp. 271-288. ISBN 9789004514324.
    • Gidley, Ben (2021) . In: Chamberlain, P. and Lyons, M.N. and Scher, A. and Sunshine, S. (eds.) Exposing the Right and Fighting for Democracy: Celebrating Chip Berlet as Journalist and Scholar. Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right. Routledge. ISBN 9780367681265.
    • Gidley, Ben (2019) . In: Berg, M.L. and Nowicka, M. (eds.) Studying Diversity, Migration and Urban Multiculture: Convivial Tools for Research and Practice. London, UK: UCL Press. ISBN 9781787354784.
    • Gidley, Ben and Scholten, P. and van Breugel, I. (2018) . In: Scholten, P. and van Breugel, I. (eds.) Mainstreaming Integration Governance: New Trends in Migrant Integration Policies in Europe. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 153-168. ISBN 9783319592763.
    • Gidley, Ben (2018) . In: Nichols, S. and Dobson, S. (eds.) Learning Cities: Multimodal Explorations and Placed Pedagogies. Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education. Singapore: Springer Singapore. pp. 169-182. ISBN 9789811080982.
    • Renton, James and Gidley, Ben (2017) . In: Renton, James and Gidley, Ben (eds.) Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe: A Shared Story. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 1-21. ISBN 9781137413024.
    • Kalantaryan, S. and Gidley, Ben and Caputo, M.L. (2017) . In: Weinar, A. and Unterreiner, A. and Fargues, P. (eds.) Migrant integration between homeland and host society. Volume 1, Where does the country of origin fit?. Global Migration Issues. Springer. pp. 117-147. ISBN 9783319561769.
    • Jenson, O. and Gidley, Ben (2016) . In: Pastore, F. and Ponzon, I. (eds.) Inter-group Relations and Migrant Integration in European Cities: Changing Neighbourhoods. IMISCOE Research Series. New York, U.S.: Springer. pp. 18-38. ISBN 9783319230962.
    • Gidley, Ben and Meer, N. (2016) . In: Meri, J. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations. Routledge Handbooks in Religion. London, UK and New York, U.S.: Routledge. pp. 235-251. ISBN 9780415645164.
    • Ahmed, N. and Garnett, J. and Gidley, Ben and Harris, A. and Keith, M. (2015) . In: Hausner, S.L. and Garnett, J. (eds.) Religion in Diaspora: Cultures of Citizenship. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan. pp. 55-79. ISBN 9781137400307.
    • Gidley, Ben (2015) . In: Anderson, B. and Hughes, V. (eds.) Citizenship and its Others. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave. pp. 177-183. ISBN 9781137435088.
    • Gidley, Ben (2007) . In: Hodkinson, P. and Deicke, W. (eds.) Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes. Routledge Advances in Sociology. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780415802406.
    • Gidley, Ben (2007) . In: Scriven, A. and Garman, S. (eds.) Public Health: Social context and action. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press. ISBN 9780335221509.
    • Gidley, Ben (2004) . In: Seale, C. (ed.) Researching Society and Culture. London, UK: Sage Publications. ISBN 9781849207997.

    Conference item

    • Gidley, Ben (2025) . Left Renewal Confusionism webinar, 2025,

    Editorial

    • Gidley, Ben and Everett, S.S. (2022) . Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion 13, pp. 1-22. Brill. ISSN 1877-5233.

    Monograph

    • Feldman, David (2025) . London, UK: Runnymede Trust.
    • Andrews, M. and Arnot, M. and Anthias, F. and Ashe, Stephen and Brah, Avtar and Dona, G. and Erel, U. and Gidley, Ben and Humphris, Rachel and Kofman, E. and Mondon, A. and Murji, K. and Phoenix, A. and Sigona, N. and Squire, C. and Targarona, N. and Wemyss, G. and Winter, A. and Yuval-Davis, N. (2020) . London, UK: Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment.
    • Smith, J.D. and Torning, Lenita and Gidley, Ben and Sheldon, Ruth (2019) . London, UK: Faith & Belief Forum.
    • Gidley, Ben (2015) . Oxford, UK: COMPAS.
    • Gidley, Ben (2014) . London, UK: Antisemitism Policy Trust.

    Other

    • Gordon, M. and Feldman, David and Gidley, Ben and Mcgeever, Brendan (2025) . Vashti.
    • Phoenix, A. and Gidley, Ben and Yuval-Davis, N. (2025) . Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment.
    • Gidley, Ben and Mang, D. and Randall, D. (2024) . Unisinos, S茫o Leopoldo, Brazil: Instituto Humanitas Unisinos, University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos.
    • Gidley, Ben and Mang, D. and Randall, D. (2024) . Madrid, Spain: pensamientocritico.org.
    • Gidley, Ben and Mang, D. and Randall, D. (2024) . Eterville, France: Amis de la Revolution proletarienne.
    • Gidley, Ben (2024) . London, UK: Centre for Urban and Community Research.
    • Gidley, Ben and Mang, D. and Randall, D. (2023) . Left Renewal.
    • Gidley, Ben (2019) . London, UK: 糖心logo入口 Centre for British Political Life.

    Video

    • Yuval-Davis, N. and Gidley, Ben and Begum, S. (2025) . Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment.

    External Repositories

  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Media

    I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:

    • Antisemitism
    • Hate crime
    • Jewish communities
    • Far right
    • London
    • Multicultural neighbourhoods
    • Disinformation and conspiracy theories