In a nutshell: Phil Miles

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Dr Phil Miles (1999), Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Studies at the University of Bedfordshire, explores his continued interest in sociology after his degree and how, in particular, he has been drawn to research the meaning of creativity and how people are inspired.

Dr Phil Miles (1999)

I began student life as a politics-obsessive, ditching my (perhaps) more academically promising tendency towards English in favour of feeling closer to the transformational project of New Labour, all ‘social justice’ and ‘stakeholder society’ and beautifully revisionist in its thrust. I began to gravitate more towards sociology when my marks for theory essays started to be firsts rather than ordinary 2.2’s and that, as they say, saw the die cast.

I couldn’t have asked for better supervision for my PhD studies at St John’s. I was guided in my researches by the late Rob Moore and the continually fabulous Madeleine Arnot, studying within that remarkable old sociology grouping at the School of Education on Trumpington Street and given expert mentoring by Ray Jobling at College. I graduated with the PhD (an ethnographic study of school-to-university-to-work trajectories among kids in a deindustrialised valley in south east Wales) in 2004.

I soon found myself employed in an unsatisfactory position in a private sector research consultancy. The people were fabulous but the work was dull, and so I activated an escape hatch into academic life with Lancaster University, joining them as a Lecturer in Sociology of Education and taking a chance on a one-year contract. When the department shifted towards the growing focus on psychology and education, I jumped ship (albeit somewhat unwillingly) to the civil service, where I worked for seven years as a research advisor in the field of housing, social exclusion and homelessness policy.

Phil writing in his study at home

The civil service was a ‘good gig’, but my natural instincts were to do research rather than commission it and, to be honest, I felt more at home with the magnificent freedom of academic life. I continued to teach for Cambridge concurrently with my London work and I sought a return to academia regularly, finally achieving a good post at the Institute of Public Health at Addenbrookes, where I researched experiences of NHS health checks. It was varied, creative and interesting — but, sadly, only fixed term. After some dispiriting temporary work that followed, I landed a permanent role at the University of Bedfordshire that I continue to hold and enjoy very much. I now research my first love, English literature, through a sociological lens as well as run the BA Social Studies degree. It’s fabulous.

I am what is best described as a ‘Cultural Sociologist’ in that my interests are couched in the exploration of the role and effect of things such as literature, popular music, art and performance, both as existing consumer art-forms as well as in the processes that generate such novelty. I am fascinated by the emotional value that people place on the arts, including the socio-historical role that the arts arguably have on the maintenance of wellbeing and mental health in rapidly changing, uncertain times.

A particular highlight of my year was publishing my first research book: Midlife Creativity and Identity. The book is the result of three years’ research, exploring authorial routine in music, art and writing. It focuses on the ‘place’ that creative people shift into when generating sound, images and words and it theorises that this state is fluid, free, almost anarchistic in tone and certainly resistant to the expectations and traditions present in a society based on norms, values and mores. It’s an interesting state of mind — or ‘structure of feeling’, as Raymond Williams (my sociological and literary studies hero) would say.

During my research, I observed some seriously talented people and spoke to them all about their inspirations and their creative routines. I place a lot of value on field visits, seeing creative people in their places of work. I visited recording studios, gig venues, artists’ studios and workshops and writers’ boltholes. I also met people in bookstores, their front rooms over vats of tea, in coffee shops and inside massive kilns situated in the Oxfordshire countryside!

What I saw was exceptional: embryonic composition flowering into sophisticated art; songs that flowed, expanded and undulated with intensity and improvisations; drawings, paintings, woodcut- and lino-printing and deep explorations of the often hidden, personal narratives of art that emerge from the finished articles; and the articulation of the literary process — put simply, the explanation of how the novelty of a story is somehow ‘captured’, plucked out from a permanent cacophony of ideas and expertly shaped into a coherent art form. It was a magnificent project to undertake.

The remit of the project was ‘midlife’, which narrowed the research pool somewhat. The scope of the project was such that I spoke to only eleven people, but those people selected were spoken to in some depth, often with multiple visits. In the future I hope to speak to a wider age range, include more women and have more cultural diversity in the sampling.

I’m working on a new book on sociology and literature — hopefully out in 2020 — that will include perspectives on how we might study novels, poetry, lyrics and drama in the modern age. It’s already proving to be personally rewarding and, as ever, involves the regular chance to sit on my favourite perch in the UL, a privileged spot I have cherished since 1997!

Want to read more? Discover Phil’s book online: Midlife Creativity and Identity: Life into Art.

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