Dr Jack Davis

I am a Lecturer in the Department of Strategy, Enterprise and Sustainability at Manchester Metropolitan University. Prior to joining Manchester Metropolitan University in September 2023, I conducted my doctoral research at the University of Liverpool Management School. 

My current research explores social sustainability through the emergence of care relations in online communities. I tend to be interdisciplinary, enrolling in particular political theories including feminist ethics of care and anarchist perspectives on social organisation to explore the ‘cultural politics of markets, consumption and culture’ across different forms of organising. 

• Cultural politics in organisations and communities
• Care Ethics
• Social sustainability
• Sustainability politics
• Neoliberalism in Higher Education
• Participatory Research
• Cultural political economy
• CMS and Critical Theory

In my current research, I use netnographic methodology to explore how online communities sustain themselves and their members through an underpinning culture of mutual aid. This involves excavating how new relations of care, affective solidarities and experiences of conviviality emerge around a cultural interest (such as music or literature).  In this project, I am particularly interested in identifying the different ways social and emotional wellbeing can be afforded via less formalised or hierarchical modes of organising,  emphasising the prefigurative potential of the communities that do so.

Since 2021 I have been working with colleagues (both UK based and abroad) to organise the Ekstasis community – a project aimed at providing spaces for critical and experimental discussion concerning teaching and research for PhD students and early-career researchers. We most recently hosted a workshop at the 2023 13^th International Critical Management Studies conference, held at Nottingham Trent University.