Imogen Tyler is a Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a writer and a social activist. She is internationally renowned for her contributions to Social Theory and the Sociology of Inequalities, and has developed a range of theoretical and conceptual tools – from “social abjection” to “stigma machines” and “stigma politics”- to enrich understanding of the root causes of contemporary social problems.

Imogen’s published research has been widely adopted on university curricula across the world and is highly cited; she is ranked in the world’s top 2% scientists (Stanford-Elsevier Rankings). Over the course of her career, Imogen has given 50+ Keynote and Public Lectures. She has received many awards and recognitions, including a Lancaster University Award for Outstanding Contribution to Research (2014) and a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2015). 

Imogen’s current research is focused on two connected projects:

• Hard Times: Poverty and Protest in Britain
• Elemental Inequalities: Struggles for Life Against State-Sanctioned Killing

What connects these projects is the use of historical and sociological research methods – including participatory research with ‘communities of resistance’ — to critically examine the social, political and environmental permacrisis of the current conjuncture (and in doing, to help us to imagine and build alternatives). These projects (variously) develop theories of ‘thanatocracy’ (Linebaugh & Kelley, 2024), ‘necroeconomics’ (Skeggs, 2020), ‘artificial scarcity’ (Heron, Milburn & Russell, 2025); and ‘asset-class struggle’ (Swyngedouw & Ward, 2024). These projects have emerged out Imogen’s ongoing research and engagement with clinicians, medics, social & care workers, charities and activists working at the front-line of the UK’s cumulative welfare crisis, including work with communities most affected by deepening poverty and ill-health within the British state, and activist groups practicing and forging alternative futures.

Imogen’s books include: Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain (2013, shortlisted for the 2014 Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing); Protesting Citizenship: Migrant Activisms (2013, ed. with K. Marciniak); Immigrant Protest: Politics, Aesthetics, and Everyday Dissent (2014, ed. with Katarzyna Marciniak), The Sociology of Stigma (2019, edited with T. Slater); and a graphic essay with artist Charlotte Bailey, From Stigma Power to Black Power (2019). Imogen’s most recent book, Stigma: the Machinery of Inequality (2020), was described as “a devastating and brilliant book that reconceptualises stigma for the 21^st Century”; “By giving voice to the dehumanised, Tyler’s book powerfully bears witness to the suffering and tragedy unfolding in our age.” You can read the introductory chapter here. In 2021 Stigma was published in paperback, and was also a Left Book Club book of the month.

A passionate believer in public sociology, Imogen has engaged and collaborated with multiple civil society, think tank, charitable, community, and heritage organisations and groups. She was a Civic Commissioner on the Morecambe Bay Poverty Truth Commission (2017-19), was a Trustee of the Poverty Truth Network, and a member of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Stigma and Poverty Design Team. 

Imogen is an executive board member of Lancaster Black History Group. Her recent work with Lancaster Museums Service on the 18th century Black Lancastrians project, (funded by Art Fund, Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage and Association for Independent Museums), was the runner up for the 2023 Independent Museums Association Decolonizing Award & was featured as a GEM/Art-Fund re-imagining engagement case study. 

Get in touch

You can find Imogen’s contact details on her Lancaster University profile or get in touch via social media.

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