Artificial Intelligence or Artificial Inequalities: Developing a Sociological Lens for EDI Research in the AI Era
A BSA Early Career Regional Funded Event
13 June 2025 (9.30am-5.00pm*)
Centre for People and Organisation, MBA Suite, School of Management, Swansea University, Fabian Way, Swansea, Wales, SA1 8EP
About the Event
Are you an AI evangelist, sceptic, or agnostic? Wherever you stand, sociologists must increasingly critically engage with AI and its impact on social and work inequalities. This is particularly true for ECRs whose careers are unfolding alongside the rapid adoption of AI technologies with, as yet, unforeseen consequences. While dominant narratives frame AI as an inevitable force of organisational efficiency and progress, sociologists can advance critical perspectives to reveal its entanglement with power, ideology, and inequality.
This one-day interdisciplinary event at Swansea University invites Early Career Researchers to come together to explore AI as a research context, topic and tool and to challenge the universalism of technological and management narratives.
Through keynote talks, research presentations, discussions and workshops we will explore how critical and social perspectives can and must be used to investigate and explore diversity and inclusion in the era of AI.
By fostering an open dialogical space we aim to create a network of critically orientated ECRs interested in researching and publishing on social aspects of AI and work. We envisage this as a day for generating questions rather than answers and in that vein welcome presentations and participants to further debate on the following themes.
- AI as a context: How is AI changing workplace power dynamics; hype and realities? winners and losers?
- Sociological lens: How can feminist, Marxist, posthuman and postcolonial approaches serve as lenses for studying and theorising AI and worker equality?
- AI as a tool: A workshop exploring how AI can help design studies, collect, organise and analyse literature and data; ontological, epistemological and ethical implications of doing so.
We are delighted to be joined by Professor Danat Valizade, joint editor in chief of New Technology, Society and Work and Dr Andri Georgiadou, Associate Professor and director of EDI at the University of Nottingham School of Business.
- Andri will give a keynote on workplace inclusivity in the AI era.
- Danat will steer our conversations on AI from the editor’s perspective: What aspects of AI are editors of leading sociological journals hoping to see on ECR research agendas? What issues will reset research agenda in their field/journal?
- Andri will offer an optional workshop for researchers interested in submitting a paper for a special issue of Gender, Work & Organization, Feminist AI; Feminist perspectives on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace.
Presentation of your own research is not necessary; an open, intellectually curious mind is. If you are interested in presenting your research, please contact Sarah Marks.
Registration
This will be an in-person event only. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
The event will be hosted by Swansea University School of Management and convened by Dr Sarah Marks and Dr Leanne Greening. It is supported by the BSA Events Team.
*start and end timings will be updated nearer the time.