Projects per year
Personal profile
Research Interests
An expatriot United States citizen living in Northern Ireland, Robert Miller studied at Duke University and the University of Florida and completed his Ph.D. at the Queen's University of Belfast. Until 2013 he was Deputy Director of the ARK Project (www.ark.ac.uk), a research infrastructure and dissemination initiative of staff at the two Northern Irish universities.
Much of his career has focused on questions of social mobilty, broadly conceived; beginning with quantitative academic survey work and continuing with applications of mobility techniques to the investigation of religious discrimination and gender & political involvement in Northern Ireland. He has contributed to the social policy debate surrounding equal opportunity issues in Northern Ireland -- most notably with a highly controversial study of religious discrimination in the Northern Irish Civil Service that led directly to major reforms within that body. He was on the Steering and Executive Committees that created the European Sociological Association (ESA) and served a term as its General Secretary as well as being Chair of the ESA Research Network ‘Biographical Perspectives on European Societies’. He moved to qualitative biographical methods in mid-career, directing a major European Commisson 7th Framework collaborative project on European identity (www.euroidenties.org). He presently is developing interests in biographical identity in virtual reality cyberenvironments and in the use of in-depth family histories to investigate the intergenerational transmission of poverty within families in developing countries.
Some recent publications are:
- The Evolution of European Identities: Biographical approaches. London: Palgrave Macmillan (edited with Graham Day);
- The Development of European Identity/Identities: Unfinished business. Brussels: European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/pdf/development-of-european-identity-identities_en.pdf;
- ‘Ascending Out of Poverty: An analysis of family histories in Kenya’. Manchester: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, University of Manchester. http://www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files/WP219%20Miller%20et%20al.pdf;
- ‘Family Histories and Rural Inheritance in Kenya’. Manchester: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, University of Manchester. http://www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files/WP220%20Miller%20et%20al.pdf.
- ‘Using Sound and Vision to Depict Agency and Structure in European Biographies’. In: Social Subjectivity: Theories, Methods, Empirical Research [Podmiotoxosc Spoleczna: Teorie, Metody, Badania Empiryczne], edited by Adam Mrozowicki; Irena Szlachcicowa and Olga Nowaczyk. NOMOS.
- ‘The Evolution of European Identity: Using biographical methods to study the development of European identity’. Sociological Review [Przeglad Socjologiczny] 60 (1): 9-40 (with F. Schütze).
- ’Ignore the Man behind the Curtain: Exploration of Virtual Reality’. In: Advances in Biographical Methods: Creativity, innovation and application, edited by Maggie O’Neill, Brian Roberts and Andrew Sparkes. Forthcoming late 2014, Routledge.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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Projects
- 7 Finished
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R1328CHC: Using smartphone applications to enhance longitudinal survey methods
Macdonald, G. (PI), Ell, P. S. (CoI), Higgins, K. (CoI), McCann, M. (CoI), Miller, R. (CoI), Sezer, S. (CoI) & Tully, M. (CoI)
01/08/2012 → 30/11/2014
Project: Research
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R1900SSP: ESRC Festival of Social Science Week 2008
Miller, R. (PI)
01/08/2007 → 16/03/2008
Project: Research
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R1821SSP: Attitudes to the role of government in Northern Ireland
Miller, R. (PI)
01/08/2006 → 30/04/2008
Project: Research
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R1801SSP: ARK-A social and Political Archive for Northern Ireland
Miller, R. (PI)
01/08/2006 → 30/09/2011
Project: Research
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Family Histories and Rural Inheritance in Kenya
Miller, R., Karin, F. Z., Bird, K., Nteza, E. K., Gitau, R. & Mathenge, M., Jul 2011Research output: Non-textual form › Web publication/site
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Ascending Out of Poverty: An analysis of family histories in Kenya
Miller, R., Mathenge, M., Bird, K., Karin, F. Z., Gitau, R. & Nteza, E. K., Jul 2011Research output: Non-textual form › Web publication/site
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The Evolution of European Identities: Biographical Approaches
Miller, R., Jun 2012, Palgrave Macmillan. 315 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Biographical Research Methods, Vol 1, Time and Biographical Research
Miller, R., 2005, Sage Publications Ltd. 367 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Biographical Research Methods, Vol. 2, The Construction of Biographical Meaning
Miller, R., 2005, Sage Publications Ltd. 417 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
Prizes
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Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Miller, R. (Recipient), 2001
Prize: Fellowship awarded competitively
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Activities
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2011 European Conference of Sociology
Miller, R. (Keynote/plenary speaker)
07 Sept 2011 → 10 Sept 2011Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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Oral History: Dialog with Society; Keynote lecture entitled "The Evolution of an Approach through 'Dialogue' with Respondants and Locality: Using family histories to study exists from and descents int
Miller, R. (Keynote/plenary speaker)
29 Mar 2012 → 30 Mar 2012Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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European Commission Conference "The Development of European Identities: Policy and Research Issues", Brussels, Belgium
Miller, R. (Organiser)
09 Feb 2012Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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"Educational Resources, Discontinuities and the Reorganisation of Human Captial", Keynote Lecture entitled "The Implicit and Consequential Perspectives of Using Biographical Interview Approaches to St
Miller, R. (Keynote/plenary speaker)
13 Jan 2011 → 14 Jan 2011Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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Qualitative Research for Policy-Making 2011
Miller, R. (Organiser)
2011Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference