School of Social and Political Science

Background

My work is primarily in the sociology of emotions and relationships. I have extensive expertise in researching emotions empirically including through documentary analysis, and a strong interest in how emotions can be theorised sociologically, particularly, of late, in relation to story telling.

This research has informed previous books, Ordinary Relationships (Palgrave, 2014) and Researching Trust and Health (with Dr Alexandra Howson and Dr Alex Greene, Routledge, 2008) and my most recent book, A Sociology of Kindness as Everyday Enchantment: On Making the World Go Our Way (MUP, 2026). Drawing on the concepts of enchantment and attachment, the latter seeks to make sense sociologically of how we are both attracted to and wary of the idea of kindness and to explore what ‘good stories’ do, relationally, emotionally, materially and politically, in the current moment. 

This book grew out of a longer programme of work which included the Liveable Lives project, a two-year ethnographic study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation of narratives and practices of everyday help and support; the Kindness Sessions, an ESRC impact grant funded seminar series for policymakers and practitioners on the relationship between kindness and public policy; and, latterly, a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (Telling Good Stories), which through a theoretical and empirical engagement with the idea of kindness sought to explore story telling about the ‘good’ as a form of everyday enchantment.

Other research projects I have directed on emotions in social life include the Someone To Talk To study, a three year, ESRC-funded study of emotional lives and social change and Online Trust and Empathy in the Face of Severe Emotional Distress (also funded by the ESRC, this time through the EMoTICON programme, a transdisciplinary exploration of the online sharing of personal information, emotion and resources in extreme circumstances).

Publications include:

J. Brownlie (2026) A Sociology of Kindness as Everyday Enchantment: On Making the World Go Our Way published by Manchester University Press.

J. Brownlie, S. Anderson and Y. Al-Hariri (2025) The ‘good story’ and Kindness Twitter: Tales of hope and fears of dupery during Covid-19, Sociological Review published by Sage.

J. Brownlie, J. (2024) How kindness took a hold: A sociology of emotions, attachment and everyday enchantment British Journal of Sociology, 75(5):753-768. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.13128 published by Wiley

Brownlie J., Ho J.C., Dunne N., Fernández N., Squirrell T. (2021) 'Troubling content: Guiding discussion of death by suicide on social media' Sociology of Health & Illness.  https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13245

Pru Hobson-West, Renelle McGlacken, Julie Brownlie, Nickie Charles, Rebekah Fox, Anne-Marie Kramer, and Kirsty Pattrick (2019) Mass Observation: Emotions, relations and temporality https://animalresearchnexus.org/publications/mass-observation-emotions-…

J. Brownlie (2018) Out of the ordinary: research participants’ experiences of sharing the ‘insignificant’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 22: 257 – 269 https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2018.1535880 published by Taylor and Francis.

J. Brownlie & H. Spandler (2018) Mundane materialities and the art of holding one’s own, Sociology of Health and Illness, 40(2), 256-269 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12574 published by Wiley. 

J. Brownlie and S Anderson (2017). Thinking Sociologically About Kindness: Puncturing the Blasé in the Ordinary City, Sociology 51(6), 1222-1238.https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038516661266 published by Sage.

Topics interested in supervising

I would welcome research proposals from students in the following areas: sociology of emotions; everyday lives and researching and conceptualising 'the ordinary'; emotions, the arts and storytelling; emotions, archives and documentary analysis; emotions and politics.

If you are interested in being supervised by Julie Brownlie, please see the links below for more information.