Dr Sonya Sharma
Senior Lecturer in Sociology
Contact
- Email: sonya.sharma@kingston.ac.uk
- Location: Penrhyn Road
- Faculty: Faculty of Business and Social Sciences
- School: School of Law, Social and Behavioural Sciences
- Department: Department of Criminology and Sociology
About
Before pursuing an academic career, I did outreach work, supporting families and young people from various socio-economic backgrounds in the city of Vancouver, Canada. After completing my PhD, I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on projects that examined the negotiation of religious, spiritual and cultural plurality in healthcare contexts at Trinity Western University (Canada), and investigated Canadian families' food practices, a project led by scholars at the University of British Columbia and Dalhousie University. From there, I returned to the UK and worked with colleagues at Durham, Derby and Chester Universities exploring young people's religious identities at English universities. At Kingston, I have mainly taught undergraduate Sociology. I have received two awards for teaching excellence and was a national finalist for a Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence by the Higher Education Academy.
Areas of specialism
- Sociology of Religion
- Health and Inequalities
- Feminist Theory and Research
Courses taught
Undergraduate
Postgraduate
Qualifications
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK
- PhD Women's Studies, Lancaster University, UK
- Masters of Research, Lancaster University, UK
- Masters of Counselling, Trinity Western University, Canada
- Baccalaureate, History and Sociology, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Professional membership
Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR)
British Sociological Association (BSA)
British Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Study Group (SocRel)
International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR)
Research Associate, Institute of Gender Studies, University of Chester, UK
Research
My research spans the sociology of religion and feminist and health studies, and at various points has engaged with geographies of religion and familial relations and practices. Previous projects have focused on young women, sexuality and church life, families and food practices, religion in healthcare contexts, young people's religious identities at university, gender and career progression in theology and religious studies, and religion and intimacy between sisters.
More recently, I have collaborated with British and Canadian colleagues on prayer as transgression in public healthcare settings in Vancouver, CA and London, UK (SSHRC 2015-2018). On this project we have been interested in the ways that prayer may reinforce and transform experiences of inequality between groups and individuals. Following on from this research, I am carrying out a pilot project with Professor Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham (Trinity Western University, Canada), entitled, 'Living Well Together? Learning from Women Healthcare Chaplains about Religion, Gender and Human Flourishing', supported by Seed Corn funding from the British Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Study Group (2019).
Doctoral Supervision:
I welcome opportunities to work with doctoral students interested in the sociology of religion, particularly in relation to health inequalities, family, and feminist approaches.
Current and Past Students:
Alison Allen, 'Challenges and Opportunities facing Christian Organizations that send British Generation Y to Work Overseas', co-supervised with Sylvie Collins-Mayo, present.
Josh Bullock, 'The Sunday Assembly: The Social Phenomenon of Godless Congregations', co-supervised with Sylvie Collins-Mayo, completed.
Publications
Number of items: 23.
Article
Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl, Sharma, Sonya, Grypma, Sonya, Pesut, Barbara, Sawatzky, Richard and Wolfs, Dorolen (2019) 'The elephant on the table' : religious and ethnic diversity in home health services. Journal of Religion and Health, 58(3), pp. 908-925. ISSN (print) 0022-4197
Sharma, Sonya, Catalano, Elena, Seetzen, Heidi, Minors, Helen and Collins-Mayo, Sylvia (2019) Taking Race Live : exploring experiences of race through interdisciplinary collaboration in Higher Education. London Review of Education, ISSN (print) 1474-8460 (In Press)
Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl, Sharma, Sonya, Smith, Brenda, Schutt, Kelly and Janzen, Kyla (2018) Expressions of prayer in residential care homes. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 24(2), pp. 67-85. ISSN (print) 0885-4726
Sharma, Sonya (2016) A lateral reading of religion : Christianity in sister relationships. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 31(1), pp. 51-65. ISSN (print) 1353-7903
Sharma, Sonya and Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl (2015) Faith as social capital: diasporic women negotiating religion in secularized healthcare services. Women's Studies International Forum, 49, pp. 34-42. ISSN (print) 0277-5395
Guest, Mathew, Sharma, Sonya, Aune, Kristin and Warner, Rob (2013) Challenging 'belief' and the Evangelical bias: student Christianity in English universities. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 28(2), pp. 207-223. ISSN (print) 1353-7903
Sharma, Sonya and Guest, Mathew (2013) Navigating religion between university and home: Christian students' experiences at English universities. Social & Cultural Geography, 14(1), pp. 59-79. ISSN (print) 1464-9365
Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl, Sharma, Sonya, Pesut, Barb, Sawatzky, Rick and Meyerhoff, Heather (2012) Sacred spaces in public places: religious and spiritual plurality in health care. Nursing Inquiry, 19(3), pp. 202-212. ISSN (print) 1320-7881
Sharma, Sonya (2012) Exploring acts of agency within Christian women's sexuality. Fieldwork in Religion, 7(2), pp. 134-147. ISSN (print) 1743-0615
Sharma, Sonya (2012) 'The church is ... my family': exploring the interrelationship between familial and religious practices and spaces. Environment and Planning A, 44(4), pp. 816-831. ISSN (print) 0308-518X
Sharma, Sonya, Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl and Meyerhoff, Heather (2011) Filmmaking with Aboriginal youth for Type 2 Diabetes prevention. Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health, 9(2), pp. 423-440. ISSN (print) 1705-7841
Sharma, Sonya and Chapman, Gwen (2011) Food, photographs and frames: photo elicitation in a Canadian qualitative food study. Cuizine: The Journal of Canadian Food Cultures, 3(1), ISSN (online) 1918-5480
Sharma, Sonya, Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl and Cochrane, Marie (2009) Practising the awareness of embodiment in qualitative health research: methodological reflections. Qualitative Health Research, 19(11), pp. 1642-1650. ISSN (print) 1049-7323
Sharma, Sonya (2008) Young women, sexuality and Protestant church community: oppression or empowerment? European Journal of Women's Studies, 15(4), pp. 345-359. ISSN (print) 1350-5068
Book
Llewellyn, Dawn and Sharma, Sonya, eds. (2016) Religion, equalities and inequalities. London, U.K. : Routledge. 230p. (Theology and Religion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series in Association with the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group) ISBN 9781472439963
Guest, Mathew, Aune, Kristin, Sharma, Sonya and Warner, Rob (2013) Christianity and the university experience: Understanding student faith. London, U.K. : Bloomsbury. 256p. ISBN 9781780936017
Sharma, Sonya (2011) Good girls, good sex: women talk about church and sexuality. Winnipeg, Canada : Fernwood Publishing. 112p. ISBN 9781552664384
Aune, Kristin , Sharma, Sonya and Vincett, Giselle, eds. (2008) Women and religion in the west: challenging secularization. Aldershot, U.K. : Ashgate. 242p. ISBN 9780754658702
Book Section
Sharma, Sonya, Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl and Cochrane, Marie (2013) Prayer as transgression: stories from healthcare. In: Giordan, Giuseppe and Woodhead, Linda, (eds.) Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Prayer in Religion and Spirituality. Leiden, The Netherlands : Brill. pp. 189-204. ISBN 9789004260481
Sharma, Sonya, Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl and Fowler, Marsha D. (2012) Emergent nonreligious spiritualities. In: Fowler, Marsha D. , Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl , Sawatzy, Richard and Johnston-Taylor, Elizabeth, (eds.) Religion, Religious Ethics, and Nursing. New York, U.S.A. : Springer. pp. 295-312. ISBN 9780826106636
Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl and Sharma, Sonya (2012) Intersectional analyses of religion, culture, ethics, and nursing. In: Fowler, Marsha D. , Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl , Sawatzy, Richard and Johnston-Taylor, Elizabeth, (eds.) Religion, Religious Ethics, and Nursing. New York : Springer. pp. 113-128. ISBN 9780826106636
Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl and Sharma, Sonya (2011) Adding religion to gender, race, and class: seeking new insights on intersectionality in health care contexts. In: Hankivsky, O., (ed.) Health inequities in Canada: intersectional frameworks and practices. Vancouver, Canada : University of British Columbia Press. pp. 112-131. ISBN 9780774819756
Monograph
Guest, Mathew, Sharma, Sonya and Song, Robert (2013) Gender and career progression in Theology and Religious Studies. (Project Report) Durham, UK : Durham University. 24 p.