Degrees:
Ph.D., Sociology, University of Manchester, 2006
M.A. (Econ.), Development Studies, University of Manchester, 2001
B.A. (Hons.), Sociology, International Development Studies, Women’s Studies, University of Winnipeg, 2000
Teaching areas:
Urban sociology, media sociology, and consumer culture. I regularly teach the undergraduate courses Introduction to Sociology, Cities and Urban Life (formerly Urban Sociology), as well as Media, Culture and Society (formerly Mass Communications). At the graduate level, I teach a seminar on Media and Consumer Culture.
Research interests:
Urban space, culture, and sociality; branding and social life; media; consumer culture. Along with these research interests, I have a general interest in cultural theory.
Recent research projects:
Current: “Revitalizing Japantown? A Unifying Exploration of Human Rights, Branding, and Place in Vanvcouver’s Downtown Eastside.” (Funded by a 2012 SSHRC Partnership Development Grant)
I am currently co-investigator of a three-year research project “Revitalizing Japantown? A Unifying Exploration of Human Rights, Branding, and Place in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.” The main goal of the project is to explore the complex relationship between the way human rights unfold in place, and how this is bound up with contemporary efforts to re-brand and revitalize urban space, focusing on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). The project aims to create a ‘living history’ of human rights in the DTES, focusing on historically contiguous connections between communities past and present. It will open a dialogue among the partners’ networks of community leaders to surface this human rights history for the purpose of making past achievements relevant to present-day manifestations of stigma and social injustice in the neighbourhood. It will also support the development of several arts-aligned knowledge mobilization tools (community reports, publications) and research-aligned arts performances (documentary film, photography exhibits) that aim to widely commemorate the status of the DTES as a nationally significant site for Canadian human rights history and achievement.
Making Movies, Revitalizing Urban Space: The Film Industry and Re-imaging of the Exchange District, Winnipeg
I am also pursuing a research project that explores the relationship between the film industry and the regeneration of the Exchange. The project considers the dual economic and cultural impact of the film industry as a productive enterprise that has been targeted in creative city initiatives and valued for its economic contributions to the Exchange, as well as well as a cultural form that produces narratives and images that are harnessed to create a distinctive place identity.
Selected publications:
Journal articles
Bookman, S. (Forthcoming) “Brands and Urban Life: Specialty Coffee, Consumers and the Co-creation of Urban Café Sociality.” Space and Culture.
Bookman, S. (Forthcoming) “Coffee Brands, Class and Culture in a Canadian City.” European Journal of Cultural Studies.
Bookman, S. (Forthcoming) “Urban Brands, Culture and Social Division: Creativity, Tension and Differentiation among Middle Class Consumers.” Cultural Sociology.
Bookman. S. (2013) “Branded Cosmopolitanisms: ‘Global’ Coffee Brands and the Co-creation of ‘Cosmopolitan Cool’” Cultural Sociology, Vol. 7(1).
Bookman, S. and Woolford, A. (2013) “Policing (by) the Brand: Urban Branding, Private Police and Social Exclusion.” Social and Cultural Geography, Vol. 14 (3).
Book chapters
Bookman, S. and Martens, C. (Forthcoming) “ Responsibilization and Governmentality in Social Partnerships.” In M. Seitanidi and A. Crane (Eds.) Social Partnerships and Responsible Business: A Research Handbook. Oxford: Routledge.
Bookman, S. (2013) “Social Media: Implications for Social Life”. In R. Brym (Ed.) Society in Question. Toronto: Nelson Education.
Bookman, S. (2011). “Feeling Cosmopolitan: Experiential Coffee Brands and Urban Cosmopolitan Sensibilities”. In D. Spencer and K. Walby (Eds.) Emotions Matter. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Bookman, S. (2011). “Consumption, Media and Everyday Life”. In W. Straw, S. Gabriele and I. Wagman (Eds.) Intersections of Media and Communications: Concepts and Critical Frameworks. Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications.
Bookman, S. (2010). "Consumer Culture, City Space, and Urban Life". In H. Hiller (ed.) Urban Canada: Sociological Perspectives (2nd edition). Toronto: Oxford University Press
Works in progress
Bookman, S. Brands and the City: Entanglements and Implications for Urban Life, Identities and Culture. Book under contract with Ashgate Publishing (expected publication 2014).
Papers presented at academic conferences (selected):
2012 “Urban Brands, Culture and Social Division: Creativity, Tension and Differentiation among Middle Class Consumers.” Paper presented to Symbolic Power and Urban Inequality: Taking Bourdieu to Town, Research Seminar. Hosted by the York European Centre for Cultural Exploration and the Centre for Urban Research, York University, York, UK, June 1.
2012 “Policing (by) the Urban Brand: Governing Security in Winnipeg’s Exchange District.” Paper co-authored with A. Woolford, presented by S. Bookman at the Securing Justice Conference, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, May.
2011 “Branding the Exchange District: Cosmopolitan Visions, Contradictions and Resistance.” Paper presented at “Framing the City”, CRESC Annual Conference, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK, September.
2010 “Brands, City Space, and Urban Communities.” Paper presented at the Joint Annual Meeting of the Midwest Sociological Society and the North Central Sociological Association, Chicago Marriott Downtown, Chicago, March/April.
2009 “Feeling cosmopolitan: Experiential coffee brands and urban cosmopolitan sensibilities.” Paper presented at the Emotions Matter conference, Carleton University, May.
2009 “Globally Branded Social Responsibility: Possibilities and Limitations.” Paper co-authored and co-presented with Cheryl Martens at the British Sociological Association Annual Conference, Cardiff City Hall, Cardiff, April.
2007 “Global Brands and Local Cosmopolitanisms in Everyday Urban Life.” Paper presented at the 'Everyday Life in the Global City' Conference, The Manchester Institute of Social and Spatial Transformations, Manchester Metropolitan University, July.
2006 “Framing and Co-Generating Urban Culture: Brands and Everyday Urban Experience.” Paper presented at the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association Annual Meeting, York University, May.