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Marion Smith

Lecturer, Postgraduate Research Coordinator

Interdisciplinary Soc. Sci. in Health

marion.smith@ed.ac.uk

+44 (0)131 651 3966

Room 1M.3, School of Health, Medical Building, Teviot Place

Outline Biography

I studied English Language and Literature at the University of Manchester before completing an MPhil in Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. I then worked in academic publishing for some years before returning to Cambridge to write a PhD on the sociology of language and pain.

After subsequent work as a Research Fellow, I returned to publishing, and worked as a commissioning editor for Cambridge University Press. When my family left Cambridge, I decided to return to academe and worked at Keele University, largely in the School of Social Relations, but also for the Medical School and in the Primary Care Research Centre.

I moved to Edinburgh in 2005, where I teach on health and society, research methods, and conduct postgraduate workshops. I also convene the postgraduate seminar series. Since January 2010 I have been Postgraduate Research Coordinator for the School.

I am currently on the editorial board of Sociological Review.

Research Interests

My research pursues two strands. I am interested in how people express their pain experiences, the part expression plays in the cultural construction of pain, and how these expressions are understood by others, particularly healthcare professionals. I am in the process of developing further work on expressions of pain and emotion among people with learning disabilities.

My interest has a further focus on medically-unexplained pain, in conditions that strain the boundary between the medical and the social, and how these may be researched. I am completing a project on the so-called ‘minor disorders’ in desired pregnancy as instances of (sometimes extremely) painful experience that is borne with positive connotations and in the expectation of complete cessation with the birth of the child.

The second strand of research interest is in how children as receivers of cultural information express their understandings of justice and the morality of punishment; and how their language discloses significant features of current social sensibilities towards punishment. Most recently, I have become interested in how emotion plays a key role in talk about wrong-doing and is negotiated in discussions of attitudes and behaviours.

Both these areas share the expression of complex issues in language, and relate to my doctoral interest in linguistic relativity.

Research activity

Pain management in acute care settings: the perceptions and strategies of drug misusers and nursing staff. With M. McCreaddie (PI), J. Croft, E. Ewing, P. Fox, I. Lyons, Dr J. Tocher, D. Watt Funded by CSO/NHS Lothian

Experience of pain as part of healthy pregnancy. Funded by The Edinburgh Fund

Pain, Emotion and Learning Disability. With Karen McKenzie

Emotion, civility and disobedience. With Richard Sparks

Publications

Publications list for Marion Smith

Supervision

Projects supervised by Marion Smith

Teaching

For Nursing Studies:

Health and Society 1A, 1B
Health and Society 2A, 2B
I am Course Organiser for Health and Society 1B

This article was published on Feb 27, 2012