The University of Sheffield
If The Shoe Fits: Footwear, Identity and Transition

NEWS & EVENTS

If the Shoe Fits featured on Radio 4 - 28th March 2013

Prof Jenny Hockey, members of our Advisory Board and some of our research participants were all interviewed for a Radio 4 programme called Footnotes, which will be aired on 28th March at 11:30am. Do listen out for it or catch the programme on iPlayer at a later date.

If the Shoe Fits features on Sociological Studies departmental website

We are delighted to be the first research project to be featured on our departmental website here at the University of Sheffield. To watch the short film please follow this link www.sheffield.ac.uk/socstudies

Participant's blog for If the Shoe Fits

After a wonderful year of getting to know all our case study participants we have now finished the fieldwork stage of the project. As part of their involvement in If the Shoe Fits our participants created scrapbooks or journals for us where they shared their shoe stories through different creative mediums, including drawing, writing, collage and one participant blogged for us. To see her blogspot follow this link  shoesandidentity.blogspot.co.uk/

The Shoes Project at The Bata Shoe Museum, Online Exhibition

The Canadian novelist Katherine Govier teamed up with Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum, to develop an online exhibition featuring the shoes that brought migrant women from all over the world to Canada. Follow the links below to read stories their stories about the cultural significance of shoes.  

www.batashoemuseum.ca/snapshot_exhibits/shoeprojectpart1/index.shtml

www.batashoemuseum.ca/snapshot_exhibits/shoeproject/index.shtml

'If the Shoe Fits: Footwear Identity and Transition': an exhibition of work in progress. 5th December 2011 - 5th January 2012, ICOSS Foyer, University of Sheffield.

This exhibition shows how the three-year ESRC-funded project in the Department of Sociological Studies is using footwear as a lens through which to generate new insights into some longstanding sociological questions about identity. Find out more about this project and the questions it asks by checking the exhibition in ICOSS throughout December this year. From shoes in the media to the shoes on Sheffielders' feet today, we hope to get you thinking about what you put on your feet to come to work, that pair you should never have bought, or those trainers strung on a power line somewhere near you. More information and directions to ICOSS.

Catch Marloes ten Bhomer's touring exhibitions, July 2011 - February 2012

Marloes ten Bhomer, a Virtual Advisory Board member for If the Shoe Fits, is presenting new work in his touring exhibitions in 2011 and 2012. Please see dates below to catch an exhibition near you:

For more information and to veiw the works visit www.marloestenbhomer.com

Sport to Street Symposium, Northampton's Guildhall, Saturday 2 April 2011, 10am-4.30pm

We have been invited to present an introduction to our project as part of this symposium. It will be an opportunity for us to get feedback on the early stages of data collection from a whole range of people with a shoe interest in their lives. How sports shoes and trainers enable identity transitions – and indeed how important these shoes can be to young people's sense of themselves, will be our focus.

'If the shoes fits...'  featured in The Star on Monday 7th February 2011.

Members of the research team were interviewed and photographed by reporters from The Star, Sheffield's daily newspaper. Follow the link to read the full article www.thestar.co.uk/community/the-diary/sole_sisters_in_study_1_3051659

Photograph for the The Star taken by Steven Parkin

Launch of ‘Sport to Street. The History of the Training Shoe’ Exhibition, Northampton Shoe Museum, 14th January 2011

Jenny Hockey and Rachel Dilley attended the launch, which showcased what promises to be a very lively series of events at this museum. Part of the museum space has been turned into a vibrant display area where the recent historical transformation of sports shoes into highly fashionable street wear was set out. David Beckham – or someone very like him – cut the red ribbon and a group of us, including key members of Northampton City Council, were able to explore what was on offer. Our project investigates the ways in which shoes can change someone's identity. What this exhibition reminds us is that shoes themselves do not stand still.

Read a review of the exhibition here: www.northamptonchron.co.uk/lifestyle/from_sport_to_street_1_2320009

British Sociological Association Conference 2010, Glasgow Caledonian University

Jenny Hockey and Vicki Robinson presented a paper entitled 'Identity, Becoming and Shoes'. How shoes ‘become’ us – or help us become – was the focus of this paper which attracted considerable interest. Since the project was then still at the planning stage, the conference was a useful venue for meeting sociologists with related interests who were able to help us refine our methods.