Dr Jennifer A Whillans

I am a mixed methods sociologist interested in the temporal organisation of people and practices in daily life, with a particular focus on gendered use and experience of time. I am concerned with inter-practice connections such that participation in any given practice shapes, and is shaped by, participation in a repertoire of other practices. This work is inspired by theories of practice.

My recent research brings together understandings from the sociologies of work and employment, and food and eating, to explore the relationship between working arrangements and schedules and the way we eat. This research agenda was born out of my recently completed a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017-2022). (De)synchronisation of people and practices in working households: The relationship between the temporal organisation of employment and eating in the UK. I am interested in eating at work, specifically the workday lunch as an organisational practice. This research is not only ‘about’ food at work but examining work ‘through’ food. For example, the way we eat (alone and at a desk, while continuing to work) reveals work intensification and extensification with work invading periods of time considered personal (lunch breaks). I also examine work schedules using Optimal Matching sequence analysis applied to Time Use Survey data. I am particularly interested in women's work time, drawing on feminist theory to rethink dualistic concepts (e.g., standard and non-standard work time, part-time and full-time). This research agenda speaks to ongoing critical debates in the sociologies of time, work and employment, and eating, around work-life balance and poor eating habits in the UK and persistent gender inequalities in economic and home life.