Richard Webber

Life in an Alpha Territory: Discontinuity and conflict in an elite London ‘village’:

This paper forms part of a larger study of the social implications of London becoming the location of choice for the global ‘super-rich’. The study examines how members of new wealth elites organise their day-to-day activities, the impact their growing numbers have on the prestigious neighbourhoods from which they are displacing pre-existing elites, and the disruptive effect they have on previously taken-for-granted mores, networks and places of association. The aim of the paper is to situate this wider study within a geographic and historical context by framing it within the arguments of Piketty, namely that increased levels of inequality since 1980 are best understood not as a secular trend but as signifying a return to the pre-existing conditions that characterised Western society prior to 1914. To analyse the evolution of – what geodemographers have termed – the Alpha Territory in London over a period of 500 years the paper takes Highgate Village as a case study area, identifies the manner in which the Village’s varied housing stock appeals to different manifestations of this Alpha Territory and uses three recent planning disputes to bring to the surface otherwise hidden conflicts between the interests of global capital and the defenders of more traditional elite values. Returning to the issues raised by Piketty, the paper concludes with an analysis of social change through the use of archive material which enables the lifestyles of those who currently occupy Highgate’s most prestigious properties to be compared with those who occupied them a hundred years ago.

Welcome to ‘Pikettyville’? Mapping London's Alpha Territories

This paper considers the influence of the burgeoning global ‘super-rich’ on contemporary socio-spatialization processes in London in the light of a contemporary re-reading of Pahl’s classic volume, Whose City? It explores if a turn to ‘big data’ – in the form of commercial geodemographic classifications – can offer any additional insights to a sociological approach to the study of the ‘super-rich’ that extends the ‘spatialization of class’ thesis further ‘up’ the class structure.

Applying neighbourhood classification systems to natural hazards: a case study of Mt Vesuvius

Mt Vesuvius is regarded as one of the most deadly volcanoes on earth. With over 1 million people living on its flanks and in its periphery, there is little doubt that an eruption of sub-Plinian magnitude would be catastrophic to the livelihood and well being of contemporary Neopolitans. Such a large scale eruption would have wide ranging and differential effects on the surrounding population. Whereas previous studies of social vulnerability have focused on individual demographic factors (such as age, income or ethnicity), this research proposes the application of a general neighbourhood classification system to assess natural hazard vulnerability. In this study, Experian’s Mosaic Italy is used to classify and delineate the most vulnerable neighbourhood types around the province of Naples. Among the neighbourhoods considered most at risk, those areas with high proportions of elderly and low income families are deemed particularly vulnerable. With current evacuation plans deemed outdated and poorly communicated to the locals Rolandi (2010), Barberi et al. (2008), this methodology could prove to be a useful input to both town planners and civil protection agencies. A range of statistical measures and geophysical risk boundaries are employed here to assess the different areas of human resilience.

Adoption of geodemographic and ethno-cultural taxonomies for analysing Big Data

This paper is intended to contribute to the discussion of the differential level of adoption of Big Data among research communities. Recognising the impracticality of conducting an audit across all forms and uses of Big Data, we have restricted our enquiry to one very specific form of Big Data, namely general purpose taxonomies, of which Mosaic, Acorn and Origins are examples, that rely on data from a variety of Big Data feeds. The intention of these taxonomies is to enable the records of consumers and citizens held on Big Data datasets to be coded according to type of residential neighbourhood or ethno-cultural heritage without any use of questionnaires. Based on our respective experience in the academic social sciences, in government and in the design and marketing of these taxonomies, we identify the features of these classifications which appear to render them attractive or problematic to different categories of potential user or researcher depending on how the relationship is conceived. We conclude by identifying seven classifications of user or potential user who, on account of their background, current position and future career expectations, tend to respond in different ways to the opportunity to adopt these generic systems as aids for understanding social processes.

Researching behavioural differences among ethnic minority groups: the case for inferring ethnicity on the basis of people's names

This paper reviews the growing use of personal and family names as a basis for inferring ethnicity, for researching behavioural differences among ethnic groups, and as a basis for market segmentation. It argues that, in the UK, ethnicity is used in market research to a lesser degree than is warranted by the extent of behavioural differences between ethnic groups. The reasons for this are held to include the impact of the inclusion of an ethnicity question on response, the difficulty in generating sufficient numbers of records to support the analysis of categories, most of which represent small proportions of the total population, the propensity of some consumers to belong to multiple categories and difficulties in establishing the relative size of different ethnic segments in base populations. The paper then contrasts the way in which commercial and public-sector organisations currently use ethnicity data, concluding that ethnicity is more often researched to assist compliance with diversity legislation than to deliver genuine insights of the sort that result in improved customer service. Then follows an explanation of the methodology whereby consumers can be classified on the basis of their personal and family names. The UKs British National Party and a research project resulting in reductions in the inappropriate use of accident and emergency services are used as case studies. The paper then considers how effectively a classification based on names overcomes the problems previously cited as constraining the successful use of ethnicity as a survey demographic. The paper concludes by suggesting the vertical markets in which name-based classification offers organisations the best opportunity for improving their reputation among minority ethnic groups as a result of a better understanding of their particular needs.

Lung cancer researchers, 2008---2013: their sex and ethnicity

This paper describes the process by which almost all authors of papers in the Web of Science (WoS) can be characterised by their sex and ethnicity or national background, based on their names. These are compared with two large databases of surnames and given names to determine to which of some 160 different ethnic groups they are most likely to belong. Since 2008 the authors of WoS papers are tagged with their addresses, and many have their given names if they appear on the paper, so the workforce composition of each country can be determined. Conversely, the current location of members of particular ethnic groups can be found. This will show the extent of a country’s “brain drain”, if any. Key results are shown for one subject area, and inter alia it appears that the majority of researchers of Indian origin who are active in lung cancer research are working in the USA. But East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) tend to stay in their country of birth.

Superdiversity and the Browning of Labour

Superdiversity across Europe has focused attention on the increasing significance of ethnic minorities to electoral outcomes. We use unique Origins software to analyse a sample of minority voters in the May 2014 European elections; drawing on the work of the Ethnic Minority British Election Study (EMBES), we show that the growth of non-White minorities will combine with a persistent preference for Labour to produce some unexpected consequences. We also compute the different ethnic penalties suffered by minority Labour and Conservative supporters, and demonstrate their likely trend between now and mid-century. The analysis shows the increased importance of social and cultural factors in determining political preferences, and illustrates the way in which Big Data-derived tools such as Origins can be used to produce fresh insights.

The sex and ethnicity or national origins of researchers in astronomy and oncology in four countries, 2006–2007 and 2011–2012

This paper uses two large databases, one of given names and one of family names, to categorise the names of researchers from Italy, Sweden, the UK and the USA whose papers in astronomy and oncology were published in 2006–2007 and in 2011–2012 by sex (gender) and ethnicity or national origin. For all the countries, there were relatively many more females publishing papers in oncology than in astronomy, but their share of contributions was lower than the percentage of researchers. Sweden and the UK had much higher percentages of both other European and Rest of the World researchers than Italy did. US researchers with non-European names were categorised in six main country groups. The ones with the greatest presence were Chinese (mainly Mandarin) and South Asians (mainly Indians). The method could be adapted to investigate the progress of women in research in many other countries, and the role played by non-national researchers in their scientific output.

Does society any longer influence behaviour

When invited to contribute a paper to the MRS Census User Group conference on 5 November, I felt it would be interesting to lead a discussion on the appropriate balance between two contrasting modes of understanding and predicting personal behaviour . When older marketers and market researchers entered their professions the prevailing assumption was that most significant differences in consumer attitudes and behaviours could be understood in terms of the cultural and social influences to which consumers and citizens were exposed . Citizens and consumers identified with the various groups they ‘belonged’ to, and with whom they associated and interacted whether at work or in the local community . The assumption of a 30-year-old digital analyst who examines behaviour in a former warehouse in Shoreditch, or in a Cambridge office park, is rather different . It is that the individual is the principal master of his or her own decisions . Atomised and autonomous, but constantly digitally connected via social media, the citizen or consumer starts with a given and unexplainable series of consumer preferences, associates with other like-minded individuals via a series of self-organising preference groups, and exposes himor herself to communications self-selected on the basis of personal interests and predilections . Of course neither of these stereotypical views of the consumer has an exclusive claim to validity . The questions that reverberate in my mind as I straddle between the company of academic sociologists and digital marketers are these: what is the appropriate balance between these two perceptions of the consumer, and in which domains are physical contacts more influential, in which virtual contacts? These are important questions because there is a very real danger, particularly evident when reading the contents of the trade press, that due to ignorance and lack of contact, the practice in the analysis of Big Data could well cease to