Staff Profile

I am a social anthropologist focusing on questions of personhood and how we become particular kinds of people; value, ethics, and morality in everyday life; and contemporary Britain. My past research focused on young people's everyday lives in a London school. My present research focuses on construction and development in the North East of England, and the people involved in these processes. I am the co-founder of Girl-Kind North East

I joined Newcastle University as a Lecturer in Social Anthropology in 2015. Prior to this I was a Teaching Fellow in Anthropology in the department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Bristol. I received my PhD in Anthropology from Brunel University.

My research focuses on questions of personhood and how we become particular kinds of people; value, ethics and morality in everyday life; and contemporary Britain.

My past research draws from my ethnographic fieldwork in a London secondary school. From the perspectives of young people's everyday lives and relationships in school, I have explored questions of personhood, friendship, humour, race and ethnicity, sexual ethics, bodily dissatisfaction and value and success.

Building on this research, I am the co-founder of Girl-Kind North East. Working with girls across the region, we help them turn their experiences, thoughts and ideas about growing up as a girl in the region into creative interventions showcased at an annual celebration event to mark International Day of the Girl.

My current research is focusing on construction and urban (re)development in the North East of England. Many different people are drawn together by these projects; local residents, developers, people working in the construction industry, planning professionals and politicians. I am exploring how people connected in these ways think about these big projects and how it relates to their lives, communities and self-understandings.

• Articles

  • McBride A, Holland T, Ralph-Lane S, Winkler-Reid S. Girl-Kind North East: Making, Learning, and Spaces of Value. Girlhood Studies 2024, 17(2), 51-67.
  • Winkler-Reid S. “Doing your best” in a London secondary school: Valuing, caring and thinking through neoliberalism. The Sociological Review 2017, 65(1), 137-153.
  • Winkler-Reid S. "Looking Good" and "Good Looking" in School: Beauty Ideals, Appearance and Enskilled Vision among Girls in a London Secondary School. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 2017, 48(3), 284-300.
  • Winkler-Reid S. Friendship, bitching, and the making of ethical selves: what it means to be a good friend among girls in a London school. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2016, 22(1), 166-182.
  • Winkler-Reid S. Making Fun out of Difference: Ethnicity–Race and Humour in a London School. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 2015, 80(1), 23-44.
  • Winkler-Reid S. ‘She’s not a slag because she only had sex once’: Sexual ethics in a London secondary school. Journal of Moral Education 2014, 43(2), 183-197.

• Authored Book

  • Winkler-Reid S. Individually Ourselves: Personhood, Ethics, and Everyday Life at School. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2023.

• Book Chapters

  • Winkler-Reid S. "As Much Value as Possible”: Construction, Universities, Finance, and the “Greater Good” in the North East of England. In: Kalb, D, ed. Insidious Capital: Frontlines of Value at the End of a Global Cycle. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2024, pp.242-270.
  • Winkler-Reid S. ‘Making Safety Personal’: Safety Compliance, Labour and Ethics in Construction. In: Rollason, W and Hirsch, E, ed. Compliance: Cultures and Networks of Accommodation. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2023, pp.170-189.

• Report

  • Holland T, McBride A, Ralph S, Winkler-Reid S. Hearing Girls’ Voices: Girl-Kind NE 2017-20. Newcastle: Newcastle University, 2020.