I was born and socialised in a social world markedly at variance with the one entered by my grandchildren. WW2 had thrown our parents’ plans and prospects into disarray, destined for the most part to construct DIY biographies in a world radically departed from the one they had been used to in the interwar years. I always took it for granted that I was middle rather than working class, I imagine because that’s what my parents’ backgrounds, outlooks, mannerisms and accents suggested. Ron and Margaret were, materially and culturally, solidly middle-class; but they were obliged to reinvent themselves to adjust to a lower-than-expected middle-class lifestyle. I imagine that my passing the 11+, grammar school experience and predictable entrance to university helped cement my sense that I was middle rather than working class. According to the Registrar General’s Classification of Occupations, on which I was reared as a researcher, and now NS-SEC, I have been upwardly mobile, though this is mostly a function of the rapid emptying of traditional working-class (‘manual’) jobs and the creation of more middle-class (‘non-manual’, professional and service) jobs. But as a university professor at UCL, a leading Russell Group university, I have more status than clout.
In this final sketch I want to add a few personal reflections and comments on the sequence of events that have constituted my career. I have implied that I was only intermittently a pro-active autonomous reflexive, committing most of my time to meta-reflexivity. I, and my career, were also of course deeply impacted, without being determined, by the prevailing social structure and culture of post-WW2 Britain. Looking back to my apprenticeships in sociology in the early 1970s, I was fortunate to have the latitude and space for agential decision-making: there was a choice of jobs! I was fortunate too to get a foothold in medical sociology at a time the subdiscipline was expanding into UK medical schools, courtesy of the background lobbying of Margot Jefferys and Margaret Stacy. I also benefitted from co-editing with Donald Patrick in 1982 the first edition of the instantly influential textbook for medical students, Sociology as Applied to Medicine, which brought name recognition, and ‘Scambler’ is in any case an unusual name. Having moved from a half-time job at Charing Cross to a full-time post at the Middlesex, I was once more rewarded when the Middlesex, along with the Royal Free, was incorporated into UCL: whatever reservations I might have felt and expressed at the time, I had serendipitously (been) shifted into one of the UK’s and world’s leading institutions. Hence my present title: Emeritus Professor of Sociology, UCL.
Would I pursue a similar career now? Well, I would if possible: I can think of no better way of earning an income. But it’s a different set of circumstances in rentier capitalism’s fractured society: universities are not what they were and are under renewed threat by a private sector-oriented Conservative regime betraying all the prejudices against the social sciences, as well as the arts and humanities, that Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph exhibited in the 1980s. I am often asked for advice, as ‘senior’ academics are wont to be. If your prime investment is in ‘getting on’, I suggest, then the route is deeply pitted but straightforward: specialise, whenever possible create a niche, bring in research revenue, publish in leading international peer-review journals and look to move institution regularly to speed up promotion and boost income; above all, promote yourself: Goffman’s dramaturgical portrayal of self-presentation is highly relevant. All this is compatible with being a good sociologist (especially, a scholar and reformist sociologist, and even, with qualifications, a radical and public sociologist). However, for some of us, the genuine independence of currently unpopular, discouraged and institutionally unrecognised and unrewarded thought and practice is vital (most notably but not solely, as visionaries and activists). Indeed, I have contended that a discernible diminution of independence in sociology has led to a general taming of the discipline. I have always argued that it is necessary to take out sufficient insurance to keep one’s line manager off one’s back to win the space to do what matters (happy are those whose insurance covers what matters to them). I readily accept that far more insurance is required now than it ever was for us babyboomers, but the principal stands. Looking back, I think I was in fact always willing to fight my corner.
One question I occasionally ask myself is ‘what does my own career amount to?’ At least, my career so far. I am content that I have held my own in a field that Bourdieu would insist, like all fields, is competitive. I think I have taught well, at least to undergrads, if less so, or to less effect, to postgrads. One of the things that gives me most satisfaction is the series of ‘best teacher’ awards generated by UCL’s medical students covering my last five years in UCL’s employ. I admit that I have privileged time on my own over the sustained effort required to do justice to Ph.D students (the more so since the introduction of bureaucratic tick-box log books recording all aspects of supervision). Embarrassingly, I have on occasions seen dodging Ph.D students as part of fighting my corner. I have, however, taken considerable and conscientious pleasure in examining almost 50 Ph.Ds. Nor have I sought administrative responsibility, with the welcomed exception of founding the UCL Sociology Network, which I still tweet for, and leading the ultimately frustrating and frustrated initiative to establish a Virtual UCL Institute for Sociological Studies. Within the domain of the sociology of health and health care I am perhaps largely seen as ‘the stigma person’, and this is reflected in numbers of citations. My publications on health inequalities are generally viewed as polemical and avoided by specialist sociologists of health inequalities. Interestingly, my predilection for authoring books, and even chapters, rather than articles is appreciated more in the US than the UK. But what do these books and other texts amount to? Will they survive me, and does that matter? The short answer to this last dyad is that it is the ideas and theories that matter, not authorship; and it may be that the positionings on stigma and the fractured society will live on for a while. The first question commands a more considered response.
One product of my voluntary isolation as a – hopefully empirically informed – social theorist is that I have denied myself collaborators and their inputs, and this might be expected to have impeded my progress. If pushed, I’d suggest that I have been and remain an obstinately independent-minded thinker, but not a particularly innovative one. Moreover, my writing style, while less impenetrable than that of the much more original and inspiring Roy Bhaskar, does not admit of easy reading. This may not be a general view, but I think Roy’s writing is very clear, and I hope mine, if compressed and a tad ‘wandering’, is clear too. I still love writing and now, well into retirement, am asking myself if this has the properties of an addiction. As I conclude the 75,000 words that comprise these 26 autobiographical sketches, I am about to sign a contract to deliver a book on health and healthcare; and I have three journal articles submitted and under consideration.
It is appropriate to close with an expression of love and thanks to Annette and my four daughters. Arguably Annette, my support, has made the greater value-added contribution to education by teaching second-chance students on behalf of the Open University for a quarter of a century. But had she not been a woman, she would unquestionably have embarked on a university career and secured a senior university post. I sometimes wish contemporary feminists were more aware of the battles their predecessors fought as part of the second wave. Sasha Scambler is currently a Reader in Medical Sociology at King’s College London and demonstrating the breadth and reach of accomplishment that I scrupulously avoided. Her metrics are excellent! My other daughters also have jobs that come into the category of value-added: Nikki Scambler manages the office that looks after the personal interests of students on the Epsom campus of the University for the Creative Arts; Rebecca Scambler is a talented Cambridge-based graphic designer; and Miranda Scambler is an extremely conscientious public health practitioner based in Brighton. Rebecca and Miranda each took a turn as administrator of our journal Social Theory and Health. I am immensely proud of all of them. That they have not figured in my sketches is merely down to the facts that the focus has been on my career as a sociologist rather than on my personal life and my respect for their privacy.