RESEARCH ROUND-UP 21
I will evaluate how experiences
of busyness, including whether
being busy is stressful or
therapeutic, is conditional
on relationship with family,
friends and work colleagues.
Professor Clare Holdsworth
Keele Professor awarded
prestigious research fellowship
Professor Clare
Holdsworth has
been awarded a
£152,000 Leverhulme
Trust Major Research
Fellowship to
explore how people
cope differently
with being busy.
Professor Clare Holdsworth
T
he three-year study, The Social
Life of Busyness in an Age of
De-acceleration, will explore the
diversity of experiences of busyness,
including individual differences in
experiencing busyness as stressful or
therapeutic. It will address the association
between being busy and being productive
and the extent to which busyness is an
expression of time.
Professor Holdsworth will also explore how
busyness shapes social relationships and
experiences of work, family leisure and the
intersections between these. The study will
focus on how busyness hinders or promotes
productivity, and whether it disrupts activity
and creates wea lth.
Professor Holdsworth said: “A contemporary
dilemma for economists is that global
productivity is slowing down. This is a
challenge for conventional social acceleration
theories which have been formulated during
an era of economic growth, yet as the global
economy de-accelerates the pace and
character of social acceleration may also
change. While we might be doing more,
this activity does not necessarily translate
into economic gain.
“A novel aspect of my proposed interrogation
of busyness is that it will explore the
association between activity and productivity,
and while influenced by theories of social
acceleration I will also consider how
busyness is conditioned by economic
de-acceleration. In directing attention to
the social life of busyness I will evaluate
how experiences of busyness, including
whether being busy is stressful or
therapeutic, is conditional on relationship
with family, friends and work colleagues.”
Over the three years Professor Holdsworth
will be writing a blog to explore the social
dimension of busyness. The blog will draw
on reviews and applications of ‘self-help’
books that are currently available on time
management. She will carry out secondary
and primary data analysis of how people
at different stages of their life experience
busyness. The research will be developed
in collaboration with colleagues at Keele
and further afield, including travelling to
the University of Melbourne to collaborate
with geographer Dr David Bissell.