Dave came to Sociology after a career in IT. Before joining Loughborough, he studied for his PhD at Birkbeck University of London and spent three years as a British Academy post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex. He blogs occasionally and tweets as @ElderVass.
Dave's research interests include sociological theory, social ontology and economic sociology, particularly in the digital environment, and he has published three books with Cambridge University Press on these topics. His recent work is concerned with the creation of value and profit in the finance sector. You can find more details of his research programme on his website.
Dave currently teaches on core modules in all three years of the Sociology programme. He also offers an MA module on Digital Economies and is contributing to the undergraduate module on Digital Lives and Society. Much of his teaching draws on his own research - for example on the digital economy, the sociology of giving, and sociological theories.
Current postgraduate research students
- Ito Jimenez: "How vulnerability happens: critical realist causality in human mobility"
- Dave Evans: "A qualitative study exploring managerial and donor perspectives of charitable impact, efficacy, and the effective altruism movement"
Recent postgraduate research students
- Hui-Ju Tsai (2018) "The development of cultural policy in Taiwan"
- Austin Li (2018) "China's Skateboarding Youth Culture as an Emerging Cultural Industry"
- John Whittle (2016) "Use of social networking by young adolescents"
- Valerie Visanich (2012) "Generational Differences and Cultural Change"
Books
- Elder-Vass, D. (2016). Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Elder-Vass, D. (2012). The Reality of Social Construction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Elder-Vass, D. (2010). The Causal Power of Social Structures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Selected journal articles
- Elder-Vass, D. (2017) 'Material parts in social structures', Journal of Social Ontology, 3:1, 89-105.
- Elder-Vass, D. (2015) 'Free gifts and positional gifts: Beyond exchangism', European Journal of Social Theory, 18:4, 451-468.
- Elder-Vass, D. (2015) 'Disassembling Actor-Network Theory', Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 45:1, 100-121.
- Elder-Vass, D. (2011) 'The Causal Power of Discourse', Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 41:2, 143-160
- Elder-Vass, D. (2007) 'Reconciling Archer and Bourdieu in an Emergentist Theory of Action'. Sociological Theory, 25:4, 325-46.