EM MOOC 24/25 SS: Expert Interview with Dr. Ben Gidley, University of London

BIO
Dr. Ben Gidley studied Anthropology as an undergraduate and Urban Studies at MA level and has a PhD in Sociology
(on citizenship and belonging among East London Jewish radicals in the early twentieth century) from the University of London. He is a Reader in Sociology and Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck,
University of London. Before that, he worked in interdisciplinary urban studies and migration research centres at Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Oxford. During that period, he was involved in several policy-engaged research projects on topics around migration, integration and diversity, funded by research councils, charitable trusts, government departments and the European Union.
Ben’s research is largely centred around the question of how we live together with difference in urban contexts. He also has
an interest in British Jewry; Turbulent Times (Bloomsbury, 2010), written with Keith Kahn-Harris, was the first sociological monograph on British Jews for several decades, and on understanding different racisms comparatively; Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe (Palgrave, 2017), co-edited with James Renton, was a breakthrough volume in this field.
He is now leading the transnational ORA research project ENCOUNTERS: Muslim-Jewish encounter, diversity and
difference in urban Europe, whose first publication is the book Jews and Muslims in Europe: Between Discourse and
Experience (Brill, 2022), co-edited with Sami Everett.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
Board member, European Sociological Association Research Network 31 on Racism and Antisemitism
Board member and social media officer, British and Irish Association of Jewish Studies
Founder member, Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment