Ned Barker

University College London, UCL Knowledge Lab, UCL Institute of Education, Post-Doc

University of East Anglia, EDU, Associate Tutor

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I have a broad academic background with degrees in Sports Coaching, Social Science Research Methods, and the Sociology of Education. Prior to joining the UCL as a Senior Research Fellow, I held positions as a Senior Research Associate (University of East Anglia) and as a Lecturer (University of Lincoln).
Supervisors: Professor Victoria Carrington and Professor Nigel Norris

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Noel B. Salazar

KU Leuven

Judith L Green

University of California, Santa Barbara

E. Wayne Ross

University of British Columbia

George K. # Zarifis

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Don Ross

University College Cork

Bob Jessop

Lancaster University

Leesa Wheelahan

University of Toronto

James M. Dorsey

Nanyang Technological University

Giulia Sissa

Ucla

John Sutton

Macquarie University

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Papers by Ned Barker

Feeling our way: methodological explorations on researching touch through uncertainty

International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Feb 7, 2023

Interactive skin through a social- sensory speculative lens

The Senses and Society

A collaborative research manifesto! An early career response to uncertainties

by Ned Barker, Chinonso Ezenwajiaku, and Michael D'Aprix

International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Feb 9, 2023

Social researchers have been adapting methods and practices in response to COVID-19. In the wake ... more Social researchers have been adapting methods and practices in response to COVID-19. In the wake of these adaptations, but still in the midst of intersecting crises that the pandemic has exacerbated or shifted (e.g. health-social-political-economic), researchers face a future suffused with methodological uncertainties. This paper presents a Collaborative Research Manifesto that responds to this by promoting markers for meaningful collaborations in future research. The manifesto was co-written primarily through a series of workshops and events that were designed to identify challenges within, and potential for, collaborative research. Through this exploratory collaborative qualitative process, we highlight what the future of such research could look like and describe methodological commitments that collaborative researchers should embody. The discussion draws on wider methodological literature to articulate the key role that ‘collaborative research’ can offer in uncertain times whilst being sensitive of the limitations of our assertive and radical programme.

A Collaborative Research Manifesto! An Early Career Response to Uncertainties

by Ned Barker, Alison R McKinlay, and Michael D'Aprix

International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 2023

Adaptation in sensory and material methods in Covid-19 times

NCRM, Feb 21, 2021

Creative Probes, Proxy Feelers, and Speculations on Interactive Skin

by Lili Golmohammadi and Ned Barker

Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 2022

This paper critically discusses the combination of creative and social research methods to genera... more This paper critically discusses the combination of creative and social research methods to generate a novel approach to explore the multimodal technoscape. This paper draws on an interdisciplinary exploratory case study on interactive skin—an emergent technology that augments and/or interacts with the skin. This paper shows how concepts from skin studies and the HCI literature can be used to draw on creative methods to think about and with the body. We describe the use of an online probe pack, a speculative research workshop and sensory research interviews using ‘proxy feelers’ to agitate the design space of interactive skin futures. We show how combining these methods provoked and expanded the scope of interactive skin from the technological to the sensory and the social. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of the research dialogues that this approach facilitated, make the case for creative methodological improvisation and exploration of emergent technologies and show how c...

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Sensory, ethnographic and creative methods in Covid-19 conditions

Moving Sensory Ethnography Online

There’s more to coaching than the context: a Bourdieusian account of an embodied athlete

Sports Coaching Review, 2015

A growing body of work focuses on coach and athlete agency within the complex, social field of co... more A growing body of work focuses on coach and athlete agency within the complex, social field of coaching. Little attention, however, has been given to athletes' life histories and how these might influence their engagement with the coaching process. The purpose of this paper is to examine how key and cumulative events in Faye's (all names are pseudonym) life influenced her engagement in distance running and with the coach with whom she worked. The findings highlight that, whilst Faye's preferences were not entirely stable, she was predisposed towards a specific type of coach, in this instance, Dave. Dave promoted working conditions that encouraged athletes to see their bodies-as-machines, to follow his orders, and not to take shortcuts. Although, on the surface, Faye 'bought into' Dave's coaching, the dialectical interactions between the established set of working conditions and Faye's embodiment raise a number of questions pertinent to coaching scholars and practitioners.

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Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects

ACM transactions on human-robot interaction, May 26, 2022

Collaborative robots are increasingly entering industrial contexts and workflows. These contexts ... more Collaborative robots are increasingly entering industrial contexts and workflows. These contexts are not just locations for production, they are vibrant social and sensory environments. For better or for worse their entry brings potential to reorganize established tactile and affective dynamics that encompass production processes. There is still much to be learned about these highly contextual and complex dynamics in HRI research and the design of industrial robotics; common approaches in industrial collaborative robotics are restricted to evaluating effective interface design whereas methods that seek to measure affective touch have limited application to these industrial domains. This paper offers an extended analytical framework and methodological approach to deepen understandings of affect and touch beyond emotional responses to direct human-robot interactions. These distinct contributions are grounded in fieldwork in a glass factory with newly installed collaborative robots. They are illustrated through an ethnographic narrative that traces the emergence and circulation of affect, across material, experiential and social planes. Beyond this single case tangled passages of tactile-affects is offered as novel and valuable concept, that is distinct from the notion of affective touch , and holds potential to generate holistic and nuanced understandings of how human experiences can be affected by the introduction of new robots in the wild .

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Becoming in Touch with Industrial Robots through Ethnography

Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2020

Touch is central to communication and social interaction. For both humans and robots touch is a m... more Touch is central to communication and social interaction. For both humans and robots touch is a mode through which they sense the world. A second wave of industrial robots is reshaping how touch operates within the labor process. Recent studies have turned their attention to the role of touch in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). While these studies have produced useful knowledge in relation to the affective capacities of robotic touch, methods remain restrictive. This paper contributes to expanding research methods for the study of robotic touch. It reports on the design of an ongoing ethnography that forms part of the InTouch project. The interdisciplinary project takes forward a socially orientated stance and is concerned with how technologies shape the semiotic and sensory dimensions of touch in the 'real world'. We contend that these dimensions are key factors in shaping how humans and robots interact, yet are currently overlooked in the HRI community. This multi-sited sens...

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Future touch in industry: exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of tactile (tele)robots

Futures

Filtering Touch: An Ethnography of Dirt, Danger, and Industrial Robots

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 2021

“Industry 4.0” marks the advent of a new wave of industrial robotics designed to bring increased ... more “Industry 4.0” marks the advent of a new wave of industrial robotics designed to bring increased automation to “extreme” touch practices and enhance productivity. This article presents an ethnography of touch in two industrial settings using fourth generation industrial robots (a Glass Factory and a Waste Management Center) to critically explore the social and sensorial implications of such technologies for workers. We attend to manifestations of dirt and danger as encountered through describing workers’ sensory experiences and identity formation. The contribution of the article is two-fold. The first is analytical through the development of three “filters” to grasp the complexity of the social and sensorial dynamics of touch in situ while tracing dispersed mediating effects of the introduction of novel technologies. The second is empirical, teasing out themes embedded in the sociosensorial dynamics of touch that intersect with gender, ethnicity, and class and relate to the technological mediation of touch.

Making sense of digitally remediated touch in virtual reality experiences

Discourse, Context and Media, 2021

Touch, often called the ‘first sense’, is fundamental to how we experience and know ourselves, ot... more Touch, often called the ‘first sense’, is fundamental to how we experience and know ourselves, others and the world. Increasingly, touch is being brought into the digital landscape. This paper explores this shifting landscape to understand the ways in which touch is re-mediated in the context of virtual reality. With attention to the sensoriality and sociality of touch, it asks what ‘counts’ as touch in VR, how is touch experienced and how is it incorporated into meaning making. We present and discuss findings from a multimodal and multisensory study of 16 participants interacting in two VR experiences to describe: the participants’ material encounters with the virtual through a focus on touch practices, expectations and norms; the ways in which participants made meaning of (and with) virtual touch through their dynamic selection and orchestration of the range of semiotic and experiential resources available; and how these virtual touch experiences translated into discourses of touc...

An Ethnographer Lured into Darkness

No matter the combination of methods ethnographers bring to their research design and to particip... more No matter the combination of methods ethnographers bring to their research design and to participant observation, our pursuit to log, interpret, analyse and present the lives of those we meet is never an entirely intellectual or objective one. Ethnographic fieldwork is intimately sensory (Pink, Doing sensory ethnography, Sage, London, 2015), invokes our imagination (Sparkes, Qualitative research in sport and exercise, 1:21–35, 2009) and requires us to actively navigate social landscapes (Hammersley and Atkinson, Field relations. Ethnography: Principles in practice, Routledge, Stoodleigh, 2007). There is a tendency for these elements to fade in terms of visibility and immediacy within the research process. For those in accord with (Davies, Reflexive ethnography: A guide to researching selves and others, Routledge, New York, 2008), continuous reflexive labour becomes a core praxis to monitor the ways we observe and participate in this textured environment. Without this, we are left in...

Becoming in Touch with Industrial Robots through Ethnography

by Ned Barker and Carey Jewitt

Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2020

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Taking an Extended Embodied Perspective of Touch: Connection-Disconnection in iVR

by Ned Barker and Carey Jewitt

Bringing touch into VR experiences through haptics is considered increasingly important for user ... more Bringing touch into VR experiences through haptics is considered increasingly important for user engagement and fostering feelings of presence and immersion, yet few qualitative studies have explored users' iVR touch experiences. This paper takes an embodied approach–bringing attention to the tactile-kinaesthetic body–to explore users' wholistic experiences of touch in iVR, moving beyond the cutaneous and tactile elements of “feeling” to elaborate upon themes of movement and kinetics. Our findings show how both touch connections and disconnections emerged though material forms of tactility (the controller, body positioning, tactile expectations) and through “felt proximities” and the tactile-kinaesthetic experience thus shaping the sense of presence. The analysis shows three key factors that influence connection and disconnection, and how connection is re-navigated or sought at moments of experienced disconnection: a sense of control or agency; identity; and bridging between...

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There’s more to coaching than the context: a Bourdieusian account of an embodied athlete

A growing body of work focuses on coach and athlete agency within the complex, social field of co... more A growing body of work focuses on coach and athlete agency within the complex, social field of coaching. Little attention, however, has been given to athletes’ life histories and how these might influence their engagement with the coaching process. The purpose of this paper is to examine how key and cumulative events in Faye’s (all names are pseudonym) life influenced her engagement in distance running and with the coach with whom she worked. The findings highlight that, whilst Faye’s preferences were not entirely stable, she was predisposed towards a specific type of coach, in this instance, Dave. Dave promoted working conditions that encouraged athletes to see their bodies-as-machines, to follow his orders, and not to take short-cuts. Although, on the surface, Faye ‘bought into’ Dave’s coaching, the dialectical interactions between the established set of working conditions and Faye’s embodiment raise a number of questions pertinent to coaching scholars and practitioners.

Feeling our way: methodological explorations on researching touch through uncertainty

International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Feb 7, 2023

Interactive skin through a social- sensory speculative lens

The Senses and Society

A collaborative research manifesto! An early career response to uncertainties

by Ned Barker, Chinonso Ezenwajiaku, and Michael D'Aprix

International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Feb 9, 2023

A Collaborative Research Manifesto! An Early Career Response to Uncertainties

by Ned Barker, Alison R McKinlay, and Michael D'Aprix

International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 2023

Adaptation in sensory and material methods in Covid-19 times

NCRM, Feb 21, 2021

Creative Probes, Proxy Feelers, and Speculations on Interactive Skin

by Lili Golmohammadi and Ned Barker

Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, 2022

Download

Sensory, ethnographic and creative methods in Covid-19 conditions

Moving Sensory Ethnography Online

There’s more to coaching than the context: a Bourdieusian account of an embodied athlete

Sports Coaching Review, 2015

Download

Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects

ACM transactions on human-robot interaction, May 26, 2022

Download

Becoming in Touch with Industrial Robots through Ethnography

Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2020

Download

Future touch in industry: exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of tactile (tele)robots

Futures

Filtering Touch: An Ethnography of Dirt, Danger, and Industrial Robots

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 2021

Making sense of digitally remediated touch in virtual reality experiences

Discourse, Context and Media, 2021

An Ethnographer Lured into Darkness

Becoming in Touch with Industrial Robots through Ethnography

by Ned Barker and Carey Jewitt

Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2020

Download

Taking an Extended Embodied Perspective of Touch: Connection-Disconnection in iVR

by Ned Barker and Carey Jewitt

Download

There’s more to coaching than the context: a Bourdieusian account of an embodied athlete

A growing body of work focuses on coach and athlete agency within the complex, social field of co... more A growing body of work focuses on coach and athlete agency within the complex, social field of coaching. Little attention, however, has been given to athletes’ life histories and how these might influence their engagement with the coaching process. The purpose of this paper is to examine how key and cumulative events in Faye’s (all names are pseudonym) life influenced her engagement in distance running and with the coach with whom she worked. The findings highlight that, whilst Faye’s preferences were not entirely stable, she was predisposed towards a specific type of coach, in this instance, Dave. Dave promoted working conditions that encouraged athletes to see their bodies-as-machines, to follow his orders, and not to take short-cuts. Although, on the surface, Faye ‘bought into’ Dave’s coaching, the dialectical interactions between the established set of working conditions and Faye’s embodiment raise a number of questions pertinent to coaching scholars and practitioners.

Ned Barker

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