Biography

Rachel Lara Cohen joined the University of Surrey as a lecturer in the department of Sociology in 2010.

Rachel studied Politics and Modern History at the University of Manchester, and then spent a few years working in London, before embarking on an MA and then PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She completed her PhD in 2005 and returned to the UK, taking a lecturing job in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Between 2007and 2010 Rachel was a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, based at the University of Warwick.

Research Interests

Rachel’s main interests are in the sociology of work and employment; especially ‘non-standard’ work, including self-employment, mobile work, and homeworking and in work-life boundaries. Her PhD focused on the working lives and employment relations of hairdressers. Her current research explores similar issues in the working lives of car mechanics and accountants. Her research involves a mixed-methods approach.

Rachel has co-edited a special issue of Sociology of Health and Illness on ‘body work’ (work which takes the bodies of others as its object), and an issue of The International Journal of Social Research Methodology on feminism and quantitative methods. Both of these form part of ongoing collaborative projects.

You can hear Rachel talking about her research into hairdressers on Radio 4: Thinking Allowed 13 Oct. 2010. Available to listen online at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v820t .

Publications

Cohen, R.L. (forthcoming 2011) ‘Time, space and touch: Body work and labour process (re)organisation’ Sociology of Health and Illness.

Twigg, J., Wolkowitz, C., Cohen, R. and Nettleton, S. (forthcoming 2011) ‘Conceptualising body work in health and social care: critical issues, future agendas’ Sociology of Health and Illness.

Cohen, R.L. (2010) ‘When it pays to be friendly: employment relationships and emotional labour in hairstyling’ Sociological Review, 58(2).

Hughes, C. and Cohen, R.L. (2010) ‘Feminists really do count: the complexity of feminist methodologies’ International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 13(3).

Reprinted as Hughes, C. and Cohen, R. (eds) (2011 forthcoming) Feminism Counts: Quantitative Methods and Researching Gender. Oxford, Routledge.

Cohen, R.L. (2010) ‘Rethinking ‘mobile work’: boundaries of time, space and social relation in the working lives of mobile hairstylists’ Work, Employment and Society, 24(1).

Cohen, R.L. (2008) ‘Work relations and the multiple dimensions of the work-life boundary’, in Work Less, Live More? A Critical Analysis of the Work-Life Boundary, Chris Warhurst, Doris Ruth Eikhof and Axel Haunschild (Eds). Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Cohen, R.L. (2008) ‘Review of Changing Places of Work by Alan Felstead, Nick Jewson and Sally Walters’ British Journal of Industrial Relations.

Cohen, R.L. (2007) ‘Review of Milkman: L.A. Story’ Labor History.

Teaching

Social Research Methods (year 2 undergraduate)

Work and Family (year 2 undergraduate)

Aspects of Social Research Methods (year 3 undergraduate)

Dissertation supervision (undergraduate and postgraduate)

PhD supervision