Title: Lecturer
School/Department: School of Humanities - Applied Arts
Email: [email protected]
Room Name/Num:: C210
Campus:: College Street
Social media

My Biography

I completed my Ph.D (Sociology) with the University of Exeter under the supervision of Prof. Katharine Tyler. I received my B.A (Sociology and English) and M.A (Sociology) from NUI Maynooth.

My Ph.D research was an ethnographic study of two Mormon congregations in Ireland. It identified how traditon operates in both maintaining and disrupting understandings of religious and national identities through the case sudy of Mormons in Ireland.My research interests are reflected in my PhD research, but I am also interested in gender and sexuality, and in majority/minority cultures.

I recently received funding from the WIT President PhD Scholarship for the project ‘Understanding Critical Communities On and Offline: Irish Feminist Networks after Repeal the 8th’ which reflects these interests. Similarly, I am also supervising a postgraduate project which is examining the role of Irish social media ‘influencers’ in narratives of self-control in Irish women’s identity work. I am drawn towards ethnography as a research method, and have recently become interested in visual and digital ethnographies.

My Research

Research Group : Ethnographic & Human Centered Research Group ►

My research interests span Sociology, Anthropology, Gender Studies, and Sexualities.My interests at the moment are focused in the area of the sociology and anthropology of religion, specifically the experiences of minority religious groups in Ireland.

I am generally interested in exploring the relationship between majority/minority cultures, whether that manifests itself through religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality. Key themes throughout my research are the role of tradition and memory in identity and the intersections and conflicts of religious, ethnic, and national identities.

Ongoing current projects include: exploring Irish Morminism in a global mileau, exploring the role of women in modern Mormonism (funded by and in conjunction with the Maxwell Institute of Brigham Young University), and the supervision of postgraduate projects in the areas of gendered identities.

Teaching Experience

2006-2008 Outreach Lecturer in Women's Studies, UCD, Dublin.

Taught general introductory modules in Women's and Gender Studies, and Sociology modules relating to the role of women in Irish society throughout the 20th century.

2008-Present Lecturer in Sociology, Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford.

Teach Sociology across Arts, Social Science, Psychology, Social Care, and Early Childhood Studies degree programmes.

Professional Memberships

Elected Committee member of the Irish Association for the Academic Study of Religions 2018-2021

I am also a member of the following professional groupings:

Sociological Association of Ireland
Anthropological Association of Ireland
British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Group
Society for the Scientifc Study of Religion
Mormon Social Science Association
European Mormon Studies Association

Publications

Journal Articles

O' Brien, H. (Forthcoming). "The Marginality of ‘Irish Mormonism’: Confronting Irish Boundaries of Belonging" in Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions 21 (19) pp

Theses

O’ Brien, H. (2018) “Being Mormon in Ireland: An Exploration of Religion in Modernity Through a Lens of Tradition and Change”. PhD Thesis, University of Exeter, Exeter. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/34403

Book Reviews

O' Brien, H. (2019) Review of Taken for Granted: The Remarkable Power of the Unremarkable in Cultural Sociology https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975519834265

Conference Papers

"Negotiating a ‘global’ Mormon Identity: (Dis) Identification in the Irish Case" paper presented at De-Centering Mormonism Conference, University of Bordeaux, France, 29+30th March 2019

"Creating ‘Irish Mormonism’: On the Margins in a Global Faith", Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Annual Conference, Las Vegas USA, 25-27 Oct 2018 [In absentia]

"The Marginality of 'Irish Mormonism': Confronting Imagined Boundaries", Joint Conference of the Irish Association for the Academic Study of Religions and the British Association for the Study of Religions, Queens University, Belfast, 3rd-5th September 2018

"The Legacy of Tradition and Irish Catholicism in Ireland: 'Irish Mormonism' in Modernity", Sociological Association of Ireland Annual Conference 18+19th May 2018

"Continuity and Change in the Irish Religious Experience" WIT Research Sparks, Waterford Institute of Technology, 20th Feb 2018

"Mormons on the Margins: Maintaining a Minority Religious Identity in 'Post-Catholic' Ireland" British Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Conference, University of Leeds, 12-14th July 2017

"Managing a Minority Religous Identity in Modern Ireland: A Mormon Case Study" Dublin PubhD, 8th Feb 2017

"Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel: Congregational Identity in Two Mormon Congregations" Sociological Association of Ireland Postgraduate Conference, Maynooth University, 19th Nov 2016

"Linkages of Faith and Family amongst Mormons in Ireland" Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions 5th Annual Conference, University College Cork, 16-17th June 2016

"The Presence of Mormonism in Ireland: Hiding in Plain Sight?" Sociology, Anthropology and Philosophy Postgraduate Conference, University of Exeter, 23rd April 2015

Other Outputs

BSA (2017) Interview in SocRel Newsletter Issue 6. Acessed at: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbsasocrelstudygroup.wildapricot.org%2Fresources%2FDocuments%2FSocrelNews%2520Issue%25206.pdf

Participation in 2014 Beat FM radio documentary on the topic of Direct Provision and Asylum Seekers in Ireland