Emily Nicholls
Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Deputy Chair of Board of Studies

Profile

Biography

• PhD Sociology, Newcastle University
• Postgraduate Diploma in Local Government Management, University of Warwick
• MA Gender Research, Newcastle University
• BA (Hons) Politics and Philosophy, University of Leeds

After graduating with a degree in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Leeds and  Masters in Gender Research from Newcastle University, I completed my PhD in Sociology at Newcastle University in 2015, exploring femininities and gender identity on a ‘girls’ night out’ in North-East England. I was also employed as a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield towards the end of my PhD, working on a project on footwear and identity in collaboration with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. Later in 2015 I was appointed as a Lecturer – and later Senior Lecturer – in Sociology at the University of Portsmouth, where I was also the Sociology Course Leader and School lead for admissions, recruitment and outreach. I joined the University of York as a Lecturer in Sociology in April 2021. I am currently a Senior Lecturer and the Deputy Chair of Board of Studies. I am also the lead for the Gender, Sexuality and Inequalities research cluster here at York.

My research interests include gender and identity (specifically femininities); the sociology of consumption (specifically relating to alcohol, sobriety and veganism) and the Night Time Economy. My recent research includes work on women’s experiences of early sobriety, drinking in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and a project funded by the Institute of Alcohol Studies on the marketing and consumption of alcohol-free drinks. My first monograph on the ‘girls’ night out’ was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019. More recently, my work on non-consumption has explored the consumption of plant-based meat substitutes. 

I am co-director of the international and interdisciplinary Drinking Studies Network and a member of the British Sociological Association alcohol study group and consumption study group.

Research

Overview

I am a qualitative researcher with experience using semi-structured interviews and focus groups, and more innovative methods including diaries and photography. My research interests include gender and identity (specifically femininities); the sociology of consumption (specifically relating to alcohol, sobriety and veganism) and the Night Time Economy. My recent research includes work on women’s experiences of early sobriety, drinking in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and a project funded by the Institute of Alcohol Studies on the marketing and consumption of alcohol-free drinks. My first monograph on the ‘girls’ night out’ was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019. More recently, my work has explored the consumption of plant-based meat substitutes. 

Since my PhD, I have worked as a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield with Professor Victoria Robinson and Podiatry staff at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, on a project exploring the links between footwear and identity for podiatry patients (‘If the Shoe Fits’: Enabling Patient-Centred Podiatry). A website and toolkit of recommendations for practitioners were produced as outcomes of this project, which won the Allied Health Professions Research (CAHPR) Public Health Research competition and was also shortlisted for the Medipex NHS Innovation Award in 2015.

In 2018 I received funding from the University of Portsmouth for a project on women’s ‘sobriety stories’ – exploring the ways in which women who had stopped drinking in the past two years navigated and sustained a transition to sobriety and made sense of their drinking histories and sober presents. In 2019 I was awarded a research sabbatical and was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. I then worked on a small collaborative project on UK drinkers’ relationships with alcohol in ‘lockdown’ during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

More recently, I received funding from the Institute of Alcohol Studies for a project exploring the ways in which alcohol-free products are marketed and consumed. This research has been shared with government bodies and departments in England, Scotland and Ireland and informed national consultations around the marketing and labelling of 'no and low' alcohol products. 

In 2024, I received internal funding for a project exploring how and why people with a range of dietary practices consume plant-based meat substitute products, and the barriers they encounter in doing so. 

I currently supervise a number of PhD students and am interested in particular in hearing from applicants who want to work on; alcohol, drinking or sobriety; plant-based diets and veganism and more generally on areas around gender, health and wellness, post-feminism and consumption. 

Publications

Selected publications

Nicholls, E. (2023). “I don't want to introduce it into new places in my life”: The marketing and consumption of no and low alcohol drinks. International Journal of Drug Policy, 119, 104149.

Nicholls, E. (2023). ‘Not Just Living in the Moment’: Constructing the ‘Enterprising’ and Future-Oriented Self Through the Consumption of No-and-Low-Alcohol Drinks. Sociological Research Online, 13607804231191063.

Atkinson, A., Nicholls, E., Meadows, B. and Sumnall, H. (2023). ‘Some days I am a lunatic that thinks I can moderate’: Amalgamating recovery and neo-liberal discourses within accounts of non-drinking among women active in the ‘positive sobriety’ community on Instagram in the UK. International Journal of Drug Policy, 112, 103937.

Lunnay, B., Nicholls, E., Pennay, A., MacLean, S., Wilson, C., Meyer, S.B., ... and Ward, P.R. (2022). Sober Curiosity: A Qualitative Study Exploring Women’s Preparedness to Reduce Alcohol by Social Class. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(22) 14788.

Nicholls, E. (2022). ‘There’s nothing classy about a drunk 40-year-old’: Drinking biographies and ‘sobriety stories’ amongst women who stop drinking in midlife and beyond. In Thurnell-Read, T. and Fenton, L. (eds.) Alcohol, Age, Generations and the Life Course. Leisure Studies in a Global Era series. Palgrave Macmillan, 251-272. 

Nicholls, E. (2021). Sober rebels or good consumer-citizens? Anti-consumption and the ‘enterprising self’ in early sobriety. Sociology. 

Nicholls, E. and Conroy, D. (2020). Possibilities and pitfalls? Moderate drinking and alcohol abstinence at home since the COVID-19 lockdown. International Journal of Drug Policy, 88, 103025.

Nicholls, E. (2020). ‘I feel like I have to become part of that identity’: Negotiating femininities and friendships through alcohol consumption in Newcastle, UK. International Journal of Drug Policy, 81, 102524.  

Nicholls, E., Robinson, V., Farndon, L., & Vernon, W. (2020). ‘You don’t like to tell them their job but it’s your foot at the end of the day’: theorising and negotiating ‘resistance’ in clinical encounters. Social Theory & Health, 1-17.

Nicholls, E. (2019). Negotiating Femininities in the Neoliberal Night-Time Economy: Too Much of a Girl?', Palgrave Macmillan (Gender and Sexualities in the Social Sciences series).

Nicholls, E. (2018). Book Review: The Nocturnal City. By Robert Shaw. London: Routledge. 2018. pp 136. £105 paper. ISBN 978-1138676404’, Cultural Geographies, pp. 1-2.

Nicholls, E. Robinson, V., Farndon, L. and Vernon, W. (2018). ‘A good fit?’ Bringing the Sociology of Footwear to the Clinical Encounter in Podiatry Services: A Narrative Review. Journal of Foot and Ankle Research, 11(9), pp. 1-5. 

Nicholls, E. (2017). ‘Dulling it down a bit’: managing visibility, sexualities and risk in the Night Time Economy in Newcastle, UK. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(2), pp. 260-73.

Farndon, L., Robinson, V., Nicholls, E, and Vernon, W. (2016). If the shoe fits: development of an on-line tool to aid practitioner/patient discussions about ‘healthy footwear’. Journal of Foot and Ankle Research, 9(17), pp. 1-6.

Nicholls, E. (2016). 'What on earth is she drinking?' Doing Femininity through Drink Choice on the Girls' Night Out. Journal of International Women's Studies, 17(2), pp. 77-91. 

Nicholls, E. (2015). “Never, ever go down the Bigg Market”: Classed and Spatialised Processes of Othering on the ‘Girls’ Night Out’. In Thurnell-Read, T. (ed.) Drinking Dilemmas: Space, Culture and Identity, BSA Sociological Futures Series, London: Routledge, pp. 114-131.

Nicholls, E. (2012). Risky Pleasures? To what extent are the boundaries of contemporary understandings of (in)appropriate femininities shaped by young women’s negotiation of risk within the Night Time Economy? Graduate Journal of Social Science, Special Edition: Gendered Subjects, 9(3) 15-22.

Teaching

Undergraduate

I teach on second year undergraduate module Inequality, Intersectionality and Resistance, and third year module Crime, Gender and Sexuality. I also teach sociological theory and content on gender and sexuality on first year modules, and supervise undergraduate dissertations.